In a support discussion titled “Group owner, admin or system?”, patrickemin asks whether an admin can create a group requiring membership approval without being a member themselves — particularly when it’s inappropriate for them to join (e.g., a “Big Company Employees” group where the admin isn’t an employee). They also ask if the “system” user can be made group owner to handle join requests. Heliosurge advises that at least one human owner is needed for approval-based groups, as “system” or “Discobot” can’t act on requests. They suggest testing with a test user or assigning ownership to a relevant member (e.g., a company rep) Heliosurge. patrickemin explains their dilemma: they want to approve join requests but avoid appearing as a member. After experimenting, they report that using “system” caused unexpected issues and opted to rejoin as group owner patrickemin. Lilly shares helpful Meta Discourse links on group creation, ownership, and membership management.
Hi, as an admin, when I create a group, I am by default a member of this group.
But if do not want to remain a member I can remove myself as an admin from this group.
But what happens if I wish users to request to be a member of this group since it has now no owner, to who the request will be sent?
Other question: can the “system” user be a group owner?
Might be an idea to test. As admin you can add yourself back to the group
Create a test user and try message group for access. Then check if your able to send the join request message. Check your admin account and see if you get notified.
I want to create a group that users can request to join but I do not want to be a member of this group because I do not have the profile to be a member of this group.
Let’s take an example: as an admin, you create a group name that is “That big company employees”, but yourself as an admin are not an employee of that big company, so no reason to be a member of that group and no reason to give the impression you are an employee of that company. But you need to approve requests to join. So you need to be a member… And so I think we’re going in circles.
Apart if system can be the owner and member of that group, which would pose no problem, remains to see if me the admin I would receive the request to join sent to system. I will try.