I am trying to build a social network for a kids' summer camp. They want campers and counselors to remain in touch throughout the year in this private social network. The site will feature videos, photos, and audio, calendar for events, news feed, etc. The interesting twist to all this, is the camp has 4 distinct sections, and users/campers/counselors from one section cannot access content or other users from other sections. There will, of course be moderators which can access 1, 2 or all 4 sections.
How should I go about segregating the different users? Should I use groups? Can groups have a landing page to feature their own content?
My only experience with drupal till now is for basic sites, no social networking, and only one type of user besides myself for moderating.
Advice?
Comments
Organic Groups is a good choice
Organic Groups is a good choice for a site like this. It includes the access control features that you'd need as well as a notification system and "landing pages" for each group. Content that's posted into a group will automatically appear on its group's home page in a river of news but if you want something beyond that you can use OG Panels -- which is D5-only at the moment -- or do some custom theming by creating a node-group.tpl.php file for your theme (which works in both Drupal 5 and 6).
It's just an idea, but one way to set it up is that camp counselors and administrators would have their own distinct groups with content only visible to themselves while there would be a group created for each summer session for campers, counselors, etc. to be members of. (This is in addition to whatever user roles are necessary.) With some more custom theming, user accounts could have badges or icons on their profiles that show which groups they're a member of -- which would essentially show their title and which years they attended the camp.
Thanks christefano!
I'll look into Organic Groups!
I came across this: http://www.tejasa.com/node/160 and this: http://drupal.org/project/panels
Looks like we're almost there with a d6 release!
Can you explain what you meant by doing a custom theme as an alternative? Do you mean to create a custom tpl for each individual group landing page (which would make adding a new group more difficult since I'd have to create a new tpl - less flexibility)? Just want to make sure I understand you.
I like your idea about setting up admin- and counselor-only groups, too! I didn't think of that... What else might I be missing?? I really don't know much about building social networks. Can you point me to somewhere which talks about things to consider?
Thanks so much!
Tevi
There are basically two ways
There are basically two ways to go forward. One is to spec the site first and see if it can be done in Drupal. The other way is to see what Drupal can do and build it as you go. There are advantages and disadvantages either way.
I meant that your theme can have a node-group.tpl.php file that governs the display of all "group" nodes. You could, however, have different layouts for different groups if you wanted to by having a page-path_to_group.tpl.php file for each group. That is more difficult over time, though.
Are you building this site for a client? Let me know. I might be able to help.
It's for a pro-bono
It's for a pro-bono client... A summer camp for terminally and special-needs kids.
I was going to do as you mentioned, build whatever Drupal could do, rather than spec it out, but there are certain things that they really wanted which always sounds simple if you don't have to build it. I understand what you mean, now though, about the tpl file. Would I be able to place blocks on a regular group landing page (would I have to do that in the custom theme)? Really, making a custom theme sounds pretty simple.
And cool news! Panels is now (as of today!) in beta for D6! I think I'm going to give that a try.
Roles
Have you looked at creating different roles for all 4 groups? Based on roles, you can allow different permissions throughout your site and additional modules will let you do more, like create different profiles.