Groups
[Reason: Unfinished TODOs & needs general rewording to prioritize "important" concepts.]
Groups is a social feature aimed towards forming communities within VRChat. Creating a group allows other users to join it, typically to find like-minded people or participate in events within Group Instances. Members of a group may choose to represent it, advertising the group's banner on their nameplate and profile. The Groups feature was officially released on November 30th, 2022.
Joining a Group
To join a group, you must first navigate to the group's page. Users can be in up to 100 different Groups at a time, or up to 200 with an active VRChat+ subscription. To join a group, you can either find one through the Search tab or Group tab; join a group by looking at another user's list of groups they are publicly displaying on their profile or by clicking on specific promotional posters located in worlds.
Once you are in a group, you are able to join any active Group instances via the Instances tab on the group's page. All active Group instances for every joined group are amassed in the Group Activity tab. The Group Activity tab can also be found in the Main Menu's Social page.
Representing
Representing a group displays the group's name and banner on the user's nameplate and profile. Users may represent one group at a time.
Membership Visibility
A member of a group may choose to prevent their membership from showing on their profile in the list of joined groups. Do note that this setting can be bypassed by mutual group members if their group permissions allow for viewing members of the group.
TODO: this last bit about bypassing visibility may need fact checking. I'm pretty sure this is the case but I can't say with 100% certainty. — big 2024/05/31 11:15 UTC
| Visible | The group is shown on your profile for everyone. |
|---|---|
| Friends Only | The group is only shown on your profile to your friends. |
| Hidden | The group is hidden from your profile |
Creating a Group
To create a group, a user must first have an active VRChat+ subscription. Maintaining the VRChat+ subscription is not necessary for retaining group ownership. An active VRChat+ subscription is required to change icons, banners and edit the group's gallery using the VRChat+ Gallery, as well as transferring ownership of the group to another user. Currently, creating a group must be done via the VRChat website. A user can own a maximum of 5 groups, of which a maximum of 100,000 members can join each group.
Joinability and Visibility
When creating a group, an onboarding process presents the creator with a few privacy options.
The joinability of a group determines any given user's ability to join the group. This setting can be changed later.
| Free Join | Anyone can join the group freely. |
|---|---|
| Request to Join | New members must request to join the group. |
| Invite-Only | Those with the right permissions may invite new members to the group. |
The visibility of a group determines whether or not the group can be represented or displayed on a member's profile. This setting cannot be changed later.
| Public | Members can choose to advertise the group on their profile. |
|---|---|
| Private | The group cannot be advertised or displayed by members. |
Group Roles and Permissions
Viewing Your Roles
While it is not currently possible to select or change roles within the VRChat client, you can view all current roles applied to your account by opening the Main Menu, and clicking on the Group tab, click on the Group that you wish to view your roles for. There is a 'cog' icon towards the top right of the menu, which expands a rightwards Group Settings submenu. The very top of the submenu will let you browse the roles currently applied.
Default Roles
Groups have three different tiers for roles: Management Roles, Member Roles, and Default Role. Automatically, groups will have three roles when the group is created: Everyone, which is listed under 'Default Role', Member, which is listed under 'Member Role', and Group Owner, which is listed under 'Management Role'. The role names for 'Group Owner' and 'Member' can be changed, but 'Everyone' cannot be changed or deleted.
Group Owner permissions cannot be changed or deleted in any way, since by default, they should always have all permissions. The Group owner, however, can be transferred to another willing group member as long as both parties are subscribed to VRChat+. This should be deliberated heavily before transfer, since all transfers are final. Read more about Group Transferring below.
Creating Roles
Roles can be added, renamed, or deleted at any time by a group's management. Each role can be given a description, and a custom set of permissions. Permissions are either toggled on, or off for a group. Roles can optionally be set to be Assigned On Join, be Self Assignable, or Require 2FA. Self Assignable roles are optional, and users can sign into the VRChat website to apply roles to themselves, if available. However, users on platform accounts, such as Steam or Meta accounts, are unable to log in and do so, since logging into their account on the VRChat website requires the creation of a VRChat account. Group management can manually apply roles to any user at will.
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Assign On Join | If enabled, new members will be assigned this role when they join the group. This will not affect existing members. |
| Self Assignable | Allows members of the group to assign this role to themselves. |
| Require 2FA | Requires members to have 2FA before permissions apply. |
Assigning Permissions
To assign Permissions for a Role, a group manager must sign in on the VRChat website, and navigate to the Permissions tab.
Step 1: Click Groups on the left sidebar of the website.
Step 2: Click on a Group that you can manage or change Permissions for.
Step 3: There are different tab a Group manager can access, such as Overview, Posts, etc. Click on the tab titled Settings.
Step 4: Click on Roles, below that tab.
Step 5: Click on the Role that you wish to edit Permissions for, and click Permissions with the Lock icon.
Step 6: Apply the below Permissions, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click Save.
| Permission | Function |
|---|---|
| Manage Group Member Data | Allows role to view, filter by role, and sort all members and edit data about them. |
| Manage Group Data | Allows role to edit group details (name, description, joinState, etc). |
| View Audit log | Allows role to view the full group audit log. |
| Manage Group Roles | Allows role to create roles, modify roles, and delete roles. |
| Manage Group Default Role | Allows role to manage the permissions for the default role (aka Everyone role). Requires “Manage Group Roles”. |
| Assignt Group Roles | Allows role to assign/unassign roles to users. Requires “Manage Group Member Data”. |
| Manage Group Ban | Allows role to ban/unban users and view all banned users. Requires “Manage Group Member Data”. |
| Removee Group members | Allows role to remove someone from the group. Requires “Manage Group Member Data”. |
| View All Members | Allows role to view all members in a group, not just friends. |
| Manage Group Announcement | Allows role to set/clear group announcement and send it as a notification. |
| Manage Group Galleries | Allows role to create, reorder, edit, and delete group galleries. Can always submit to galleries, and can approve images. |
| Manage Group Invites | Allows role to create/cancel invites, as well as accept/decline/block join requests. |
| Moderate Group Instance | Allows role to moderate within a group instance. |
| Manage Group Instances | Allows role to close an group instance. |
| Group Instance Queue Priority | Gives role priority for group instance queues. |
| Create Group Public Instances | Allows role to create group instances that are open to all, member or not. NOTE: Private groups cannot create public instances. |
| Create Group+ Instances | Allows role to create group instances that friends of people present can also join. |
| Create Members-Only Group Instances | Allows role to create members-only instances. |
| Role-Restrict Members-Only Instances | Allows role to add/remove/modify role restrictions on members-only instances. Requires “Create Members-Only Group Instances”. |
| Portal to Group+ Instances | Allows role to open locked portals to Group+ instances. Members, friends of people there, and friends of the portal dropper may enter unless group-banned. |
| Unlocked Portal to Group+ Instances | Allows role to open unlocked portals to Group+ instances. Everyone except group-banned people may enter. Requires “Portal to Group+ Instances”. |
| Join Group Instances | Allows role to join group instances. |
Group Instances
The owner of a group and those with the correct permissions may create Group instances. There are three tiers of Group instances.
| Group | Only members of a group (or certain roles within the group if specified) can join the instance. |
|---|---|
| Group+ | Any friend of a user in the instance can join. Group membership is not required to join the instance. |
| Group Public | A publicly listed instance hosted by a group to which anyone can join. Group membership is not required to join the instance. |
Group instances are often moderated by the group hosting the instance. The group's owner and those given moderation powers through role permissions may warn, mute, kick or ban a user within the instance. Banning a user from a group permanently prevents them from joining any Group instances made by the group, as well as joining the group itself.
Group Instance Queues
Group instances are also great for managing events with a high amount of people. For that situation, the VRChat Group Queues option will setup a waiting queue to process joining requests when the instance max capacity is reached. When you join the queue for an instance, you will be placed in and will receive a invite request when a slot becomes available. Once the request is received on your side, you have one minute to join the instance before your slot is given to the next person.
