when creating a group is there a way to default the "group discussion' to a specific forum Group via categories.... or maybe using group types in the global group creation options.

While i'm at it..
Is there a way to separate / catagorize the forums. (or have multiple instances)
I'll try to explain...
You have the activemodules.com forums where the content "categories" are controlled by AM. Example.. broken down the following way.. Active social > General Discussion, Community Support, How to Customize, Feature Requests and Suggestions... etc. Now users can post to these but not create new ones.

Now.. activesocial.com functionality...Using active socials groups, where each group gets a new forum.. over time is goin to get a bit cluttered. http://www.activesocial.com/community.aspx. Without having to manually go in and categorize each forum.. is there any way to automate the process... or categorize the forums when a new group is created.

The only thing i can come up with at the moment would be to have 2 forum instances installed... which im not sure is possible. Where for instance you could have a corporate secion, and a members section where the corporate forum topics are created by an admin and the members section would populate from group creation.

Sorry to be long winded..
Hazen

This is very often how forums are implemented. One is setup as a forum and another (usually hidden from general view) is used for the group forums. Additionally you can modify the defaultgroupforums.config to setup you initial forums created inside of groups.

There is a great topic in the forums that I can't seem to find right now that discusses the different options that other customers have selected. I'll keep looking for it because this is a good topic that all customers should review carefully before launching a large site.

The best solution is basically what Steven mentioned. If you need to provide an area for discussions outside of groups then you may want to use a different instance. However, starting with AF 4.2, you can hide the Forum Group that is used for your Social Groups so that it doesn't appear in the main list of forums.