Bukkit

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Examine /perm ? and /perm group ?
2. Observe that there is no way to add a new group using the /perm command.
3. Say "wha?"

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I can add a reference to a group by using /perm player addgroup.  However, this does not add the new group to the actual group list.  It looks like there's no way to add a new group in-game.  Instead, I have to stop Minecraft (so that it's safe to edit the permissions' config.yml file), edit the file, and reload the server.  I could try editing the file while the game's running and reloading permissions, but that is unreliable.  Besides, there *needs* to be an in-game / console way for adding a group.  How can I do this?

What version of the product are you using?
current

Do you have an error log of what happened?
not applicable

Please provide any additional information below.
see above

Just in case it helps clarify, I want the following to be possible.

1. A user Suzie makes a new area in the Residence plugin and wants to share permissions in the area with her friends.
2. Suzie has a lot of friends. Instead of granting the appropriate permissions and flags to each separate user over and over, Residence lets Suzie grant permissions and flags for her area to a group.
3. So Suzie contacts me and says "I want a new group called FriendsOfSuzie, and I want it to include, Albert, Brianna, Charles, ..., and Zelda."
4. I sit down at the console (or in-game) and type /perm group new FriendsOfSuzie (or something similar).
5. Then I continue with /perm player addgroup Albert FriendsOfSuzie, /perm player addgroup Brianna FriendsOfSuzie, /perm player addgroup Charles FriendsOfSuzie, ..., /perm player addgroup Zelda FriendsOfSuzie.
6. Suzie can now grant permissions within her Residence area to the group FriendsOfSuzie instead of to each of her friends.
7. Everyone is happy, and we didn't have to be careful, or take the server down, to add the new group.

Number 4 is the part I can't currently do. Is this possible?