What our solution does, is allow one instance of .LRN to be customised so that each community or subgroup can have it's own specific master-template.
That mean each community or subgroup can have it's own look that extends beyond the community portal and into the package pages (e.g. forums). The user portal would still use the master-template specified by the ACS main site.
So the question that arises is this:
If a user is a member of 2 communities, each with a different master-template, does it matter that when they go to Community A, the forums-portlet and forums pages look different to those in Community B?
The answer depends on several factors: how different are the designs? Are people expecting a different look? Would it surprise them that the fishing club's pages look different to the chess club's pages?
One thing to consider is the use of closed communities and limited users.
If you wanted to host seperate communities/groups with a discreet set of users, you could set them up as limited users (can't see other communities, no personal portal if member of one community only).
The other thing to consider is design. You could make the design for one community very, very different to that for another; but in practise you will be constrained by the structure of the .LRN portals, portlets and pages in general. So although the package pages could look very different, I don't think they would be so different as to make it confusing for users to understand.
Just a few thoughts :)
<Raad>
