'Confidential' is in my view insufficiently differentiated from 'private'

I like Confidential too. Feels more descriptive than private.

i don't think the name is the problem... both are good.

Make this reality, and then as @jonlemmon said you can change it later... i think that matters more than how to name it!

I didnt realise before, but its confusing with private as @matthewbartlett said.
If I look strictly, I dont like neither "private"... you are not the "owner"! I wouls say something like members-only. But internet words are what they are and mean what they mean.

In my opinion, in an ideal world I would define groups like this: (excuse me if its poor translated):

• For the commons. Visible without account. Sign in to enter the group. (no need to request membership). You cannot have confidential discussions in a commons group.

• Free-association Visible without account. Need to request membership or invitation. Discussions can be public or members-only (default).

• Confidential Need an invitation. Only members can participate. No one else can see anything, even the group existence. You cannot have public discussions in a confidential group.

Sorry if this is too late to be helpful, but this just an idea:

I was wondering if it might be clearer/simpler from a user perspective to have two levels of privacy, ‘public’ and ‘private’, but with ‘private’ groups you have the option of checking ‘do not display my group name/membership in the public groups directory’ and ‘do not allow public discussions in this group’.

(and public and private groups are differentiated by whether the default is for discussions to be public or private)

Thoughts?

@jonlemmon @hannahsalmon

(ps just take this as a lightly held suggestion to throw in the mix, I'm sure lots of layers of thought have gone into the current design thinking)

after all... agree with @benjaminknightloom --> Keep it simple, I say it again to myself... keep it simple.

What about the request membership feature? Is that even possible? And how about calling them "open" and "closed"?

• Open group. All discusions and members will be visible in the public groups directory and can be indexed in the web. Option: Require invitation or request to enter? yes / no (any loomio account can enter without aproval).

• Closed group. All discussions, the group name and members are private and will not be displayed anywhere, except for members. Invitation is required.

I think a combination of this two options is enough. For ex. an open group with open and closed sub-groups. This makes clear a private group is really a private group. A group with public and private discussions in it can be a mess, even if you mark with an icon public or private to distinguish them. (- I saw that, - I didnt. - Oh, sorry, it was hidden for you) In my experiencem that was (is) one of the major difficulties using n-1.cc

Well, now I realise the topic is "Discussion-level privacy" but... thats my opinion for groups. If we turn to a "discussion-first" model (discussions without a group) then they could also be "open / closed discussions"

@benjaminknightloom interesting idea... seems like it could actually be more confusing though. with radio buttons you only have to select one option, whereas with checkboxes you have to think about all the different combinations...