Following Group discussions when not a member of the group

It is possible for a user to follow a group discussion and receive notifications of updates (including the text content), even though the user has not joined the Group.
I assume this is not intended, since a non-member will not be shown Follow icons on the group's home page. However, If the user clicks on a group discussion, it can be followed on the Discussion header page.
Need to remove the Follow icon on Group Discussions when viewed by a non-member?

updated by @lornawebber: 04/18/17 04:49:29PM

I'm not sure - This may be a bug but the other way around and non-members should see the 'follow' option for discussions on the group page. After all, they do see the feed option there as well.
Is there any reason why non-members shouldn't be able to follow a group discussion? It is public anyway.
Thanks
Pa


--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Thanks for your quick response. @paul .
Yes, it's public, but what happens is, the user clicks the link in the notification email to view the comment and sees only the discussion header, because comments aren't displayed to non-members. It just seems a bit inconsistent.

A lot of users get confused because they go to a discussion but then can't view or add comments, and they don't understand that they need to be a member of the group to do that. I hadn't realised that non-members can follow discussions, and it's even more confusing for them when they are given a link to a comment that can't be accessed.

It would be nice to have a warning pop-up on group discussions for non-members, telling them they need to join the group to view or post comments.
Is it possible to make all comments visible but have no comment entry box? If so, that would be an alternative, but a pop-up explanation of why they can't post to the discussion would save me quite a few PMP support tickets.
updated by @lornawebber: 01/15/17 06:41:59AM

You could do this by setting the code at the end of the GroupDiscuss item_detail.tpl template from this
to this
Should I try that out for you?


--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Thanks Paul.
On our site, I believe that any user who follows a discussion, wants to be a member of the group. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't even considered that people would follow without wishing to join, but I can see that it is a possiblity.
I'll discuss with Roy. It may be that the best and easiest solution for us is to automatically enrol someone in the group if they have followed a group discussion or feed. That would work for us.
Thanks for your help. I'll let you know what Roy thinks.

I have checked with the rest of the Admin team and they agree with me that for PMP it would be preferable to automatically enrol someone in the group if they have followed a group discussion or feed.

Perhaps I'm missing something - why would someone want to follow a discussion but not be a member of the group?

In my own case, I've had members actually state that if they could read all the discussion replies in a Group, they wouldn't bother joining the Group. These tend to be lurkers, and my goal is to motivate lurkers to actively join my site and join Groups. Once they've joined the Group and can read the whole discussion(s), they seem to become more likely to post their own replies and become more active. So whatever might get changed here, i'd like to keep the option of keeping it the way it is currently- with non Group members having to join a group in order to see the whole discussions including replies.

Just my own view, but I could envision there might be some folks annoyed at getting enrolled in a group without their realizing it... they might 'follow' a discussion they see in the site timeline without even realizing it's a Group discussion, and not knowing they'll be made a group member if they follow it.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 01/15/17 04:13:40PM

@strumelia I would like lurkers to join the groups too, so I don't think it would be helpful to show non-members the whole discussion.
I doubt there are many lurkers on our site. Our discussions are about art and photography and most comments have images embedded in them, which don't show up in email notifications; so there's not much point in following without joining - you wouldn't have a clue what's going on.

I've had queries from people who have followed a discussion because they want to see the comments - pictures and all - and they think they've joined the group as a result. They can't understand why they don't see any comments when they click the link in a notification email. It would be just as confusing for them if they saw all the comments but were unable to post a comment themselves.

It might be helpful if there was a pop-up message for any non-member who visits a discussion, asking if they would like to join the group. What do you think?

Yes, I agree it would be helpful to have a popup or some sort of message giving members a clue as to why they: A) can't see group discussion replies, and/or B) can't post a reply to a group disucssion.... all because they don't realize they actually have to JOIN the group.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

All the options you are discussion can be done with (simple) template mods.


--
Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist