Group Alias

Contribute Feature

AI-generated summary

The proposal introduces a “Group Alias” feature, allowing groups to post under a collective identity with a shared avatar and ownership, similar to the existing Staff Alias plugin but extended to any group. This would enable group members or owners to publish posts or topics under the group’s name, editable by group members or owners, while preserving individual accountability via hidden edit history visible only to authorized users. Use cases include work groups publishing articles, moderators posting policies, or staff making community announcements—shifting focus from individuals to collective identity. Unlike wikis (open editing), anonymous posts (no identity), or @staff posts (limited to staff), this feature offers controlled group identity with configurable permissions. hellekin suggests enhancements over the discourse-staff-alias plugin, such as per-group aliases, customizable user access, and optional group-replies, and proposes renaming the feature “Group Alias” for consistency. JammyDodger notes the current plugin supports only one alias, prompting hellekin to ask whether it should be extended or replaced with a new plugin.

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Summary

The idea is to have the possibility for a group to speak in its own name. It would work similarly to Staff Alias (see next post) but for groups.

Description

A group could have an avatar and each member of the group, or its owners, could set to write a post (including a new topic) and change ownership to the group itself, so that any member of the group (or its owners) could then edit that post, as the group itself.

Use-cases

As an admin, I have created such persona users and used shared drafts to be able to speak in the name of the persona by giving it ownership of the post before publishing the draft. This is useful when one wants to speak a collective position or to protect individuals from unwanted attention.

  • It differs from wiki because it restricts edition to a single group.
  • It differs from anonymous posting because it allows groups to post collectively and bear a common identity.
  • It differs from @staff posts in that it expands the possibilities Staff already has, that I described above, to groups.

This feature can be useful in the following cases:

  • work groups publishing articles
  • moderators publishing policy on behalf of the community
  • staff publishing community announcements
  • etc.

The feature aims to shift away attention from the individual to the collective, while retaining individual responsibility for posting (i.e., the edition history would retain who posted, but only visible to authorized accounts, as in the case of group membership visibility).

Differences with the discourse-staff-alias plugin

  • The user alias would be managed by group owners in the group settings (username, avatar)
  • Group owners would have a group setting to decide whether the alias can be used by members or restricted to owners
  • Groups owners would have a group setting to decide to whom the editing history would be visible, following the model of group membership visibility
  • Replies to the group alias may be group messages, and may be replied to by group members or owners, depending on settings (this would, I gather, be an advanced version of the feature, suitable for support)
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The Staff Alias plugin has similar features, though I think it can only currently have one ‘staff alias’ so no option for one-per-group.

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I see, I didn’t know this plugin. Do you think it could be extended or should a new one be made?

Would a better title then be “Group Alias”, to keep the feature consistent with the existing?

4 Likes