Groups & feeds

A group brings together people. A feed brings together posts. You connect a feed to a group so Acorn knows which people belong together in that space.

For example, your community might have a Garden volunteers group and two feeds that use it: a public Garden updates feed and a private Volunteer conversations feed. You manage the volunteers in one group, while each feed has its own purpose and visibility.

How they fit together

Groups are where you manage membership. A person can belong to more than one group, and a group can include people from other groups.
Feeds are where members read and participate. When you create a feed, choose an existing group or create a new one during setup.
One group can be used by several feeds. You don't need a separate membership list for every feed. Changes to a shared group affect the feeds that use it.
Creating a group doesn't create a feed. You can organize the people first, then create a feed that uses that group.

The group's Used by section shows the active feeds linked to it. Check that list before changing membership so you know which spaces you may affect.

Membership and visibility are different

A public community feed brings together posts from its group and is readable by anyone on the network. Reading or following that feed doesn't make someone a member of the group.

A private member feed gives the group's members access to its conversations. Group membership matters for participation and access; the feed's visibility setting determines whether it is public. Members also need a compatible account to use private feeds — see Joining, by account type.

A hashtag feed can bring together matching tagged posts as well as posts from the group you choose. Appearing in a public hashtag feed is not the same as joining its group.

Joining a group also doesn't make someone a steward or moderator. Those responsibilities are separate — see Adminship: roles & permissions.

Groups can include other groups

Suppose you have Garden volunteers and Kitchen volunteers, and you want a Festival volunteers group that brings both together. When creating Festival volunteers, select those groups under Build it from other groups.

This keeps a connection to the original groups. It doesn't copy their members into a new list for you to maintain separately. Someone joining Garden volunteers is included in Festival volunteers too. Someone in both source groups is counted once in the combined membership.

On the group page, Includes shows these connections. Follow Manage in… to manage the people in the source group. If someone belongs through an included group, removing a separate direct membership won't remove that other way of belonging. Check how they're included before assuming their access has ended.

What is “Hosted here”?

Hosted here is an automatically managed group for accounts hosted on your community's data server. Acorn maintains it as those accounts change, so it isn't a list you edit by hand.

To use those people in a feed, create a group you manage that includes Hosted here, then choose your group when setting up the feed.

A practical way to start

Decide who belongs together — for example, your volunteers, workshop participants, or founding members.
Create a group in People, or create one while setting up your first feed. Give it a name your members will recognize.
Create a feed and choose that group under Audience. Choose public or private according to who should be able to read it.
Open the group to invite people. A group needs a linked, active feed before its invitation tools become available.
Reuse the group when another feed needs the same people. Create a different group when it needs a different membership.

See Feeds for feed setup and Member invitations & management for bringing people in.