I'm running elgg 1.7.14 and am experiencing the exact problem as discussed in this much older post: http://community.elgg.org/mod/groups/topicposts.php?topic=470934&group_guid=179063

The problem is that public discussions aren't treated as public when they are placed in closed groups. They are instead treated as closed discussions. The solution offered in the link above applied to 1.6.1 and actually doesn't seem to concern group discussions, but rather group files and pages.

Does anyone know about the status of this issue in 1.7.x and 1.8.x? Should I still hack the code in a similar/different way as suggested in the posting above, or is there an update or additional plugin I should try out?

Thanx!