Creating A New Group

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Ok, so you want to open an MSN group but don't know where to start?

I'll show you how!

MSN have made it very easy to open a new group, this tutorial is just to point you in the right direction lol!

Go to http://groups.msn.com/

This takes you to the groups home page.

Click on Create your own group.

First thing to do is to choose a name and if you want to you can do a brief description of your group

Click Continue

You have to choose a rating for your group. Make sure the content of your group matches the rating you give it because if you choose General and then allow adult content MSN can close your group down.

Now choose a membership policy. If your group is going to be private for just your family and friends you can choose to have it locked, this means that no one can view your group without joining and to join, they have to be approved by you, the manager or any assistant managers you have.

If you have problems with a member and have to cancel the membership or ban them you can choose whether all posts, pictures etc they they've uploaded will be removed or not. I usually have it set to none because if that person has started a thread (message board discussion) the whole thread will be deleted and there might be information on some of the replies that I want to keep. You can always go through and delete any single messages you want too

The next choice is whether you want to approve posts before they're put on the boards or not. I've never used the moderated option because I joined a group once where the manager had to approve posts before they were put on the boards and I didn't like it all. I like to have freedom of speech!

If your group is just for family and friends and it's not going to be open to the public have it unlisted, that way, the only people who will know about your group are the ones you invite to join.

Choose your preferred language then click Continue

You now have to choose a category for your group. All my groups are under computers and Internet although I am a member of some groups which are under the category of parenting

You now have to choose a Sub Category. My groups are all PSP related so I put them under the sub category of User Groups

You can choose whether to have your email address showing so your members can email or you or not. I always have mine showing but it's a personal choice.

Now you have to choose whether you want all messages which are posted in your group sent to your inbox.

Again, this is a personal choice. If your group is fairly small and you want to know when a message has been posted so you can reply this is a great option but if your group is big and gets lot's of messages a day this can become very annoying!

The PSP group I'm a manager of gets between 4000 and 6000 posts a week so there's no way I'd have it set to send them to my inbox!!

Choose your email preferences

Read MSN'S Code Of Conduct and if you agree put a tick in the box then click create my group

If the name you have chosen for your group is already in use it will tell you now and you will have to choose another, if not, you'll now have your very own group :o)

I hope this tutorial was some help to you.