Groups

***Groups*** are private, individualized, and discreet forums on Bungie.net that are separate from the main public forums. Groups are different from *Destiny* Clans.

## History

### Background

Groups used to be known as "Chapters" and were created on Nov. 14, 2001, when Bungie.net relaunched and introduced the Seventh Column, the “Official Bungie fan club and underground army.” It was established to help Bungie pave the way toward World Domination and foster development of the Bungie community.

As a part of the Seventh Column, members could create their own Chapters (now known as Groups). On March 12, 2002, Yeroen (Max Hoberman) created “Chapter Founders,” a gathering place for all chapter administrators. It was here where “The Septagon” was born, a forum to discuss ways to improve the Seventh Column.

To moderate this forum, Yeroen promoted a few Chapter members to become Forum Moderators (now known as Forum Ninjas). They served until the site relaunched in 2004 when The Septagon was recreated as its own forum. HFCS was also created as the new home for the moderators, and it’s been their home ever since.

From April 2004-January 2013, Groups were much like the overall Bungie website, offering a private forum with their own moderators, different members titles, a way to organize events, and the ability to post articles, news, and more.

During the 2007 Bungie.net website update, Groups were taken offline for maintenance. After being absent from the website for nearly a month and a half, Groups returned to the site on May 2, 2007, to the delight of the Bungie Community.

Throughout the various iterations of Groups, themes were created that the community could utilize.

### Destiny Group Clans

On July 4, 2014, in Bungie's Weekly Update, Community Manager DeeJ told the community to claim Group names to use for *Destiny* Clans. On Aug. 22, 2014, after the *Destiny Public Beta* ended, it was confirmed that *Destiny* players would need to join a Group and convert it into a Clan (or create a Clan which would automatically create a Group).

These Group Clans were available from *Destiny*'s release in 2014 to *Destiny 2*’s release in 2017. These Group Clans provided a place for clan members to discuss upcoming online-meetings or tournaments and/or to discuss clan-related issues, and strategies. When they were active, Group Clans could form an Alliance with another Group Clan.

When *Destiny 2* released in 2017, Group Clans were abandoned and separated completely into *Destiny 2 Clans*.

### The End of Groups

On October 12, 2023, the Bungie announced in This Week in Destiny that Groups would be shutting down due to a decrease in usage over the past decade.

`“*Within the past six months, out of the 5.1-million Groups that have been created, only 65 were active with at least one post in them. Breaking that down further, only 16 were active in the past month, 10 of those had over 10 posts in them, and only 3 broke over 100 posts.*”`

`~ **Bungie on Groups**`
Bungie said that they had been postponing the decision for several years, but with *Marathon's* announcement, and other IPs on the way, the website needs to be upgraded and older features that aren't being used will begin shutting down. A timeline wasn't given, but they did say that over the new few months, Groups would be set to read-only to allow users to view them and save anything they'd like.

## Group Statuses

### Membership Options

Groups have the options to be:

1. *Open to New Members*- allowing anyone to join.
2. *Open to New Members with Admin Approval* - restricting membership to only members who are accepted into the Group by a current member or administrator with the appropriate level of security privileges.
3. *Closed to New Members* - not allowing anyone to join.

### Dead Group

A ***Dead Group*** is a **Group** on Bungie.net that has little or no "activity" (posting, content, or news updates). The term does not have a hard-and-fast definition, but rather is a matter of opinion. Although everyone would agree that a group with zero posts or other content for the last three months is dead, opinions might vary as to whether a group with only a few posts per week is actually "dead" or not. Ultimately, it is a matter of an individual's own opinion.

It is undisputed, however, that the vast majority of **Groups** on Bungie.net are indeed "dead," containing zero or few posts in months. This can be attributed to the ease of creating a Group and their proliferation on Bungie.net among a relatively small handful of users. As of May, 2007, only 5.68% of all active users on Bungie.net were members of a group. (this number is speculated to have increased after the popularity of Iris and CompoundIntelligence in 2007). It's unknown the number of active users is who use Groups as of 2023.

## Group Themes

Group Themes were pre-made templates of images and colors that Bungie.net members could use to customize their private Group. There were many themes made for the various iterations of the website throughout the years. Some themes were created by members of the community; if their theme was implemented they were given the Theme Master title.

## Related Articles

* Chapter Themes
* Destiny 2 Clans

## References

1. ↑ Archive.org: Welcome To Bungie.net
2. ↑ Archive.org: The 7th Column: Chapter Founders
3. ↑ Bungie.net: Chapter Founders Group
4. ↑ Archive.org: The 7th Column: The Septagon
5. ↑ Archive.org: Bungie.net: The Septagon
6. ↑ Bungie.net: Bungie Weekly Update - 07/04/2014
7. ↑ Bungie.net: Bungie Weekly Update - 8/22/2014
8. ↑ Bungie.net - This Week in Destiny 10/12/23
9. ↑ Bungie.net: Thread