The problems that we are having figuring out how to use the things might or might not come from having both openness and closedness as part of group function, but it's a question this sometime software designer feels should be asked.
I believe the problems members are having is equating groups on this site with the Groups section of the old forum. They are not the same, other than the fact that the groups on this site have a forum. On the old site, by far the most popular thread was the Member Announcements. In fact, 90% of the forum traffic went through this one thread. So, for the sake of simplicity, we said that instead of giving each group an entire forum like on the old site, we'll just limit it to one forum thread. People now have one place to post topics for that group. The topics can be announcements, genre issues, writing tips, successes, etc. This is what was already happening on the old site. We consolidated a lot of forums into one for each group. The community keeps telling me they want everything simplified, except on the forums. What this is starting to tell me is that people just want it like it was on the old site. That the change itself is what is tough, not the actual usability of the site, etc.
People are struggling to recreate the old forum system using the groups. Why? If you have a general question or comment, post it in TheNextBigWriter Premium. Post your fantasy, or sci-fi or whatever questions there. You don't need to join a specific group for that. We have sci-fi and horror and romance writers in Premium.
And if you want to take a smaller subset of people and try something different, that is when you create a group. Or if you think Premium lacks something and you want to try moderating and creating your own writing workshop, go for it. Of course, the system is yours to do with as you please, within the guidelines of the site. But that is why we have limited it to 5 groups for now. Because we don't need a million different groups all doing the same thing. After a month or so, we'll reevaluate and see if we should tweak the number.
Sol