Groups are a feature on BeWelcome which allows you to get in touch with other members and discuss specific topics with them. Every group has a topic (e.g. “Cooking”) or is related to a specific location (e.g. “Berlin”). You can search for groups, join groups and create new groups here: Community > Groups. We recommend that you join the group which is related to your location to stay up-to-date about BeWelcome activities in your area. Additionally, please feel free to join any group you are interested in.
To join a group, just go to the respective group page and click on the “Join group” button there. On the next page you can enter your motivation for joining the group in the text field provided. You can also decide if you would like to get e-mail notifications from posts in this group or not. Please click on “Let me in” to finalize your application for group membership. In case the group is a public group you will be a member directly after this step. If the group is “moderated” your membership application first has to be confirmed by the group administrator.
Once you have joined a group, you can post new messages there, see all the discussions which took place so far, and change your member settings. To access your member settings, please click on the respective menu item of the group menu (below the group title).
If you start a new thread in a group the default visibility of that post is “group only” (i.e. only group members can see your post). Depending on the group settings, you might also be able to choose a higher visibility, e.g. “members only” (all BeWelcome members can see the post) or “world” (the post can be found by search engines throughout the internet). If you post in an existing thread in a group, the default visibility of your post follows the thread visibility (i.e. visibility of the first post in this thread). Depending on the group settings, you can change the setting for your own post individually.
The default language for group posts is English. You can also choose to post in another language, in which case you should explicitly choose the respective language in the drop down menu below the input field. You can also translate your own posts into different languages. For this, first post it in one language and then click on “Edit”, choose another language, translate your message into that language and save your changes.
On group pages you will also sometimes find a section called “Related groups”. This means that there are other groups which have a connection to this group - maybe a similar topic or some geographical connection. For example, city groups (e.g. Paris) are usually related to the respective country groups (e.g. France). As a group member you can add such relations too. Please use the feature responsibly and if in doubt, contact the group administrator(s).
A group administrator is the person who can administrate the general group settings (e.g. default value for visibility of group posts) and group description. This is also the person who decides about letting new members in if the group is “moderated”. If you start a new group, you will automatically become administrator of this group. Please note that group administrators are not the “owner” of a group and while they have a few limited moderation tools it is not their “job” to moderate the discussions which are taking place in the group.
If you find a post in a group which you feel is violating the BeWelcome Forum and Group Forum Charter you can report the respective post by clicking on the “Report to moderator” link in the bottom right corner of that post. This report does not go to the administrator of the group but to the “Forum Moderators”, a small team of selected volunteers which can edit or delete post according to the rules.
To leave a group you are a member of, just go to the respective group page and click on the “Leave this group” button.
