Almost forgot:
WordPress v 3.3.1
BuddyPress v 1.5.4
Checking back in- my original post got lost several pages in the jumble and I hadn’t heard anything. Anyone have any feedback about PMing groups?
No, it’s not (out of the box, anyway).
Thanks Paul-
Okay, so that begs the question- what are groups used for within WordPress/BuddyPress? If you deactivate forums, there’s not much left. You can’t contact just the people in that group. And I’m still looking for a good plugin to handle making content pages exclusive to certain groups. I’ve tried ‘Groups’ by itthinx, but there is a big disconnect between the actual BuddyPress groups and the groups within the ‘Groups’ plugin. So if I have a pre-existing group, the ‘Groups’ plugin doesn’t recognize it. If I name an existing group within the ‘Groups’ plugin, there is no members associated with it (since it is treated as a new group, but that can only be accessed via the plugin) so security doesn’t really apply. Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated.
Thanks 
Just jumping in out of the blue.
Why would you need “yet” another Plugin for Groups when you already have a groups feature in buddypress out of the box. Even if you can disable the “group forums” feature that kind defeats the purpose of having a group in the first place.
Unless of course itthinx is not happy with the Buddpress Groups capabilities hence the “groups” plugin. Also why would the Buddypress team want to accommodate an interact with a feature they already have – especially a plug in that has a few thousand downloads. Just askin 1
Hi bollocks187-
I was just a little confused how groups was intended for use within WordPress/BuddyPress. To give you some insight as far as where I’m coming from, I’m moving from a Groupsite environment. In that environment, you can have ‘x’ number of groups. The groups can by hidden just like in WP/BP, but can have their very own content exclusive to them, which is hidden from non-members of that group (as expected). Likewise, members of a given group can communicate freely between each other. I was looking for a feature set within WP/BP that mimicks that behavior. The other thing missing is a peer recognition feature- kind of like a way for one user to endorse another. (another Groupsite feature). Think of this as a kind of letter of recognition from one user to another, so anyone visiting the endorsed member’s profile would see a senior member/administrator endorses/vouches for/recommends that user. I’ve been working with a messload of different plugins with varying levels of success/failure (far more failures than successes) and was getting a little frustrated -iterative testing to ensure a new plugin doesn’t break existing working plugins and trying to determine the UI for a new plugin since it’s often a sorely overlooked feature for so many developers.
I’m now looking into the possibility of using groups forums to address some of what I want to do, but am hoping that by doing so, it won’t confuse end users by having them try to contend with two separate types of forums – one open and public, and the other being ‘x’ number of private instances, one for each hidden group.
Also, the reason I was using the ‘Groups’ plugin was soley so I could have group exclusive content and nothing else. I can sets all kinds of nice access and permissions rules, but there is a disconnect between the plugin’s features and the built in groups feature of BP, so the results fall far short of desired. 
