hey GamrConnect, on some of the sites I use, we have user groups, so I thought these would work really well here.

we already have some "unofficial" ones of a sort, like prediction leagues, mario, sonic supporters, etc.

I thought it would be cool if the great site team could let us create "groups" that users can join with there own exclusive sub-forum just for them.

so, if you join say the "GamrConnect XBOX 360 Fans" group, you can access a special "360 Fan Forum", basically a way for people to chat with just other 360 fans rather than letting just anyone comment.

anyway, I just thought it was an interesting idea, anyone wants to add to my thoughts or if the mods like, feel free to post here.

They have a system like this on GameSpot, called the Unions system.  I used to be an officer in a whole bunch of metal related unions over there, plus I ran two myself (started one dedicated to Iced Earth and inherited one dedicated to Metallica).

I had planned to propose a rather comprehensive system based on that on the staff boards, but never got around to it.  That and my opinion towards such a system has changed drastically over time. 

er, so do you like the idea or not?

come on, surely people must have thoughts on this

I would like such a feature! So, who do we have to bribe?

dunno, lol, I think we just have to hope the wonderful mods take note!

Could be kinda cool I guess, but it needs to be done right.

I have mixed feelings on the issue.

On the one hand,

• Increasing the number of forums makes it harder for members to find interesting topics to take part in.

• Increasing the number of forums also makes it harder for us mods to keep an eye on things.  As it is now, there are hundreds of forums we'll never step foot in, and some people could be using the forum for some obscure DS game to post porn or something.

However,

• Chances are anything discussed in these groups wouldn't be all that relevant to the primary topic of the site, thus at worst only Off Topic would take a big hit (which is still a very bad thing to some of us!)

• Given the nature of such groups, you'll likely have little trolling/flaming in them, given the groups would probably consist of a small group of friendly people chatting about some obscure topic they find interesting (excepting political groups, of course).  On top of that, we could always institue an officer system, in which the group founder chooses officers who are able to delete posts and remove members from the group.  This would at least prevent bickering and whatnot.

I'm pretty much in the middle, but I think my support for such a system stems primarily from nostalgia.

GameSpot's general forums were pretty bad, but I look back on the unions system with a certain fondness.  It was basically me and several other guys hanging out in the metal unions, away from the eyes of mods.  We chatted a lot about music, but also did a lot of censor bypassing, talked about roms and stuff, and did a lot of other rulebreaking.  After about a year a mod finally decided to check in on our little haven, and half my members were banned while I was given a warning for not keeping things in line lol.

Ah, the good ol' days.

I'm against it at first glance, on grounds that it would fragment the forums too much. 

On the other hand, there's an argument that being able to carve out your own insular little niche is a good thing.