Social Groups..

Started by Kura November 12th, 2010 6:00 PM
  • 2127 views
  • 44 replies

Kura

twitter.com/puccarts

Age 33
Female
London, UK (orig. Toronto, Canada)
Seen August 30th, 2021
Posted August 24th, 2021
10,993 posts
18.7 Years
I know they're a nice feature.. but is it just me or are they like.. completely dead? And what are they there for if we still have the "Groups" thread section on PC?

@[email protected] I dunno.. it makes no sense to me.. it's a nice feature but it's not really being used, is it? How often do you truly post in them?

I'm not saying to get rid of them.. but does it actually put stress on the servers?
It's cool to find people with common interests.. but isn't that what threads are for, too?

Just my thoughts. What are yours?
~Yuugiou Fan~
~Kamen Rider Fan~
♡(´・ω・`)LOVE! ☆

Kenshin5

Wanderer

Male
Oklahoma
Seen September 18th, 2013
Posted March 25th, 2013
4,391 posts
14.9 Years
I thought this as well a couple days ago while looking at the activity of the Groups. That would be one thing if they where active but most of the Clubs haven't had posts in them for several days. On top of that Other Clubs Forum doubles as a Social Groups, so they could easily be transferred over.

Brian - 0089 1621 6313 - White

Kura

twitter.com/puccarts

Age 33
Female
London, UK (orig. Toronto, Canada)
Seen August 30th, 2021
Posted August 24th, 2021
10,993 posts
18.7 Years
Yeah @[email protected] I dunno why we have two.. and all of my social groups haven't been posted in in MONTHS and even YEARS.. most that I look at are in a similar situation.. so I'm sitting here scratching my chin about you.
~Yuugiou Fan~
~Kamen Rider Fan~
♡(´・ω・`)LOVE! ☆

Aquacorde

⟡ not everything is sink or swim ⟡

Age 29
she/her/he/him
Ankh-Morpork
Seen 1 Hour Ago
Posted 1 Hour Ago
12,278 posts
18.9 Years
This was actually my first though when learning about Social Groups- "What are there doing for PC, really?"
marie & casey & rosey
groc x aquacorde x juno 4ever | rp is just collaborative writing
join rp: ultra sinnoh

Soul Eater

→ w e a p o n.

Male
Death City, Nevada
Seen December 4th, 2012
Posted November 22nd, 2012
74 posts
12.6 Years
Seems that staff and members alike are thinking the same things.

There's maybe 3 or 4 social groups that really get much activity.

Those 3 or 4 groups should have a thread, or a club, or something, and social groups should either be canned, or utilized in a different way. Hopefully in a way that could make them more useful, or more a main part of PC, rather than something that gets shoved to the side, and ignored.


MONSTER
i must confess that i feel like a

bobandbill

one more time

Male
A cape
Seen 5 Hours Ago
Posted 7 Hours Ago
16,794 posts
15.2 Years
They are just spammier versions of clubs and whatnot that can be posted on the forums, IMHO - I don't see much point for them either.

Staff Anime Villain Collab - Earl de Darkwood - Interstella 5555

Daily | Drabble Dex | A Change of the Season
The Retelling of Pokémon Colosseum
Paired to Sheep :>

AshPikastar

It's Question Time!

Age 30
Female
Florida
Seen March 2nd, 2018
Posted August 26th, 2012
1,746 posts
12.6 Years
Like others are saying the social groups shouldn't be needed since we have the group thread but some groups use the Social group to keep track on members that have joined the group instead having to worry about updating the members list in the discussion thread in the group discussion.

Kura

twitter.com/puccarts

Age 33
Female
London, UK (orig. Toronto, Canada)
Seen August 30th, 2021
Posted August 24th, 2021
10,993 posts
18.7 Years
Why does there need to be a "List" for a discussion? :/ Even if it is a club, there can obviously be "regular members" who often come to talk about a certain thing (and who are also known as regulars in that thread anyways) and the one-offs that aren't posted in the first post anyways :/ I don't see a reason to keep track of members, to be honest..
~Yuugiou Fan~
~Kamen Rider Fan~
♡(´・ω・`)LOVE! ☆

Nick

Seen 4 Weeks Ago
Posted July 28th, 2021
17,572 posts
18.6 Years
I never understood the point in there being a list of members who were part of the club in the club forums. To me, anyone who posts in the thread should be considered a member, and the entire list of members who contributed to the thread can be viewed by clicking on the number of replies there are in a thread on the posts cell in the Other Clubs / Pokémon Clubs forum's indexes.

Melody

Banned

Female
Cuddling those close to me
Seen March 4th, 2018
Posted March 2nd, 2018
6,459 posts
18.6 Years
I honestly don't mind the Social Groups, but I do wish they had more activity.

I think there should be another purge of Social Groups, and the system of them be rebooted with a moderator team appointed to approve ALL new groups. Purge groups that don't see a lot of posts much like the forums themselves must undergo. I'm sure there's a tool in the ACP that makes that easy...delete all groups that haven't seen a post or a member join in a month.

Make the members who start these social groups responsible for them...if they don't properly enforce the Social Group rules, then keep them from starting another one. Perhaps make it possible, if possible, to appoint more maintainers to the group to keep a busy group well policed.

I know the Member Fanclubs forum has recently disappeared, why not let people found member fanclubs as social groups? Maybe reject Social Groups that could work better as a club in the Other Groups or Pokemon Groups areas? I think Social Groups don't see action because too many new groups get made by n00bs every day and that ought to be something we moderate by requiring you have so many posts before you can make a Social group or have donated...much like the blogs are. The blogs prosper fairly well because they're exclusive like that, why not let Social Groups be that way?

Edit:

I went and did a search for groups with no more than 10 Members, 10 Discussions and 10 Messages. I found 51 pages of minimally active groups. :<
I trimmed the search terms to show groups with no more than 10 members, 1 discussion and 10 messages. I found 40 pages of groups that should probably be trimmed.
I decided to be charitable and query for groups with no more than 3 members, 1 discussion and 10 messages. I STILL found 23 pages of groups that are just spam.

Note that my main baseline for minimum activity is 10 messages within the group. That's not a whole lot to ask of any number of group members, and yet still, I see far too many groups who don't even meet that criteria! The Junk needs to be taken out and some serious regulation needs to come into play to bring activity into it...because it's hard to find a good active group among all the crappy duds unless you really try.
Seen September 18th, 2020
Posted February 18th, 2018
7,741 posts
16.6 Years
It's a funny thing the staff don't implement various things as unnecessary, but we have these social groups. There have always been club threads years before them so why they were added in the first place I can't think beyond 'trial', but it's long been obvious that they've failed for that purpose; an admin has even said social groups are dead.

Really, I join groups so that people can see what kinds of things I like;
I suppose they're kept up for this if anything... But still, really, that's what the 'interests' field under one's profile is for.

Kura

twitter.com/puccarts

Age 33
Female
London, UK (orig. Toronto, Canada)
Seen August 30th, 2021
Posted August 24th, 2021
10,993 posts
18.7 Years
@[email protected] Yeah well.. we're still having DB errors whether we like it or not. Maybe the staff could consider chucking them if it'll help with the loadtimes and help avoid any further DB problems.
~Yuugiou Fan~
~Kamen Rider Fan~
♡(´・ω・`)LOVE! ☆

professor plum

Age 31
he/him/his
louisiana
Seen 1 Hour Ago
Posted 1 Hour Ago
11,986 posts
17.9 Years
I prefer Social Groups to clubs, actually. Discussion is actually a lot more organized, and you can actually maintain several discussions at once.
As the head of one of the more active social groups, I have to say they're good enough. If it came to picking one or the other, I'd much rather go with Social Groups.

I think there should be another purge of Social Groups, and the system of them be rebooted with a moderator team appointed to approve ALL new groups. Purge groups that don't see a lot of posts much like the forums themselves must undergo. I'm sure there's a tool in the ACP that makes that easy...delete all groups that haven't seen a post or a member join in a month.
AFAIK, there isn't one for moderation of social groups [ergo they be sent to the moderation queue] However, I do agree that the lesser active/redundant groups need to be purged. D;
(\__/)
(='.'=)
('')_('')
This Is Bunny. Copy And Paste Bunny Into
Your Signature To Help Him Gain World Domination!!!!

Cherrim

Age 34
she / her
Toronto
Seen 1 Hour Ago
Posted 1 Day Ago
33,052 posts
20.5 Years
I honestly don't mind the Social Groups, but I do wish they had more activity.

I think there should be another purge of Social Groups, and the system of them be rebooted with a moderator team appointed to approve ALL new groups. Purge groups that don't see a lot of posts much like the forums themselves must undergo. I'm sure there's a tool in the ACP that makes that easy...delete all groups that haven't seen a post or a member join in a month.

Make the members who start these social groups responsible for them...if they don't properly enforce the Social Group rules, then keep them from starting another one. Perhaps make it possible, if possible, to appoint more maintainers to the group to keep a busy group well policed.

I know the Member Fanclubs forum has recently disappeared, why not let people found member fanclubs as social groups? Maybe reject Social Groups that could work better as a club in the Other Groups or Pokemon Groups areas? I think Social Groups don't see action because too many new groups get made by n00bs every day and that ought to be something we moderate by requiring you have so many posts before you can make a Social group or have donated...much like the blogs are. The blogs prosper fairly well because they're exclusive like that, why not let Social Groups be that way?

Edit:

I went and did a search for groups with no more than 10 Members, 10 Discussions and 10 Messages. I found 51 pages of minimally active groups. :<
I trimmed the search terms to show groups with no more than 10 members, 1 discussion and 10 messages. I found 40 pages of groups that should probably be trimmed.
I decided to be charitable and query for groups with no more than 3 members, 1 discussion and 10 messages. I STILL found 23 pages of groups that are just spam.

Note that my main baseline for minimum activity is 10 messages within the group. That's not a whole lot to ask of any number of group members, and yet still, I see far too many groups who don't even meet that criteria! The Junk needs to be taken out and some serious regulation needs to come into play to bring activity into it...because it's hard to find a good active group among all the crappy duds unless you really try.
There is no way to do approval. The social group system is so broken it's ridiculous. Social groups go live as soon as they're made--you can't have them automatically go to a moderation queue before they're released publicly. You can't restrict certain people from creating them. It's all or nothing. It's a horrible, horrible system and I can't fathom what the heck was going through Jelsoft's minds when they were putting them together.

It's such a bare bones system that it's more annoying to moderate/look over than it is to keep them trimmed. There isn't an option in the Admin CP to trim any with a certain amount of members/posts/activity. That's why we had to nuke them all last time we gave them a proper try--it was either that or spend days going through comparing duplicates, checking activity, etc. That's why they get out of hand so easily. (I know this is an excuse, but seriously, no one wants to deal with them because it's so awkward and annoying.)

To be honest, I'd rather just get rid of social groups entirely and keep the clubs forum since it's already so established but people do use SGs (and a handful really like them), so as long as they aren't breaking PC rules, I don't really care if they sit there. :s


paired with professor plum.

Platinum Lucario

The Legendary Master of Light!

Age 30
Male
Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia.
Seen April 2nd, 2023
Posted April 1st, 2021
1,605 posts
15.4 Years
Maybe we should all have a vote about either having the groups as a forum or as a Social Group, so we can see which one gets eliminated? Or maybe just simply keep it as the way it is? I'm not sure if the groups should be merged with one thing or just leave it as the way it is. And I was only just making a suggestion.

EDIT:
There is no way to do approval. The social group system is so broken it's ridiculous. Social groups go live as soon as they're made--you can't have them automatically go to a moderation queue before they're released publicly. You can't restrict certain people from creating them. It's all or nothing. It's a horrible, horrible system and I can't fathom what the heck was going through Jelsoft's minds when they were putting them together.


I think they probably created the Social Groups as a thing to make any group of whatever kind, and I don't get why they don't allow a usergroup to have approval things or something for Social Groups. Maybe we could look for a vBulletin plugin or something that could be able to do that kind of thing?
If we have success, then it could be implemented. If it cannot be found, then I guess we'll have to say bye-bye to Social Groups.
It's such a bare bones system that it's more annoying to moderate/look over than it is to keep them trimmed. There isn't an option in the Admin CP to trim any with a certain amount of members/posts/activity. That's why we had to nuke them all last time we gave them a proper try--it was either that or spend days going through comparing duplicates, checking activity, etc. That's why they get out of hand so easily. (I know this is an excuse, but seriously, no one wants to deal with them because it's so awkward and annoying.)
Wow... now that sounds pretty hard to do... I never even knew Social Groups would have limited Admin control options for them in the ACP. I don't even get why Jelsoft has never put in a function like that either. :\
To be honest, I'd rather just get rid of social groups entirely and keep the clubs forum since it's already so established but people do use SGs (and a handful really like them), so as long as they aren't breaking PC rules, I don't really care if they sit there. :s
OK, so it has been decided. I guess we're going to say bye-bye to the Social Groups I guess. Well I hardly ever used them anyways, so what really was the point? xD
[Platinum Lucario's Signature]
If you need to disable my signature, please give me advice on how to improve the CSS-DIV code. Thank you!
All credits for the avatar since 2008 goes to shorty-antics-27 (fanart account)! Thank you! ^^
Signature Status: Strikes: 1/3 | Infractions: 0/3
It's time to change the future...
to a positive direction!
Let's prevent things from getting bad!

I'm a ROM and ISO Researcher

Current Project: Researching Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure Squad games (WiiWare)

AshPikastar

It's Question Time!

Age 30
Female
Florida
Seen March 2nd, 2018
Posted August 26th, 2012
1,746 posts
12.6 Years
Maybe we should all have a vote about either having the groups as a forum or as a Social Group, so we can see which one gets eliminated? Or maybe just simply keep it as the way it is? I'm not sure if the groups should be merged with one thing or just leave it as the way it is. And I was only just making a suggestion.
I agree with this. We should do a poll since its a jump back in forth if we should have it or not.

Spinor

&lt;i&gt;&lt;font color=&quot;b1373f&quot;&gt;The Lonely Physicist&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;

Age 27
Male
Seen February 13th, 2019
Posted October 4th, 2015
5,175 posts
17.3 Years
Poll? No Poll is necessary.

And tell me it didn't seriously cross anybody's mind to get rid of the club forums? Ridiculous and selfish. Did it happen to cross your mind that it will result in a mod being unemployed?

Nothing needs to be removed. The social groups provide occasional conveniences, even though it won't be major if they are removed. Still they are not causing any harm like the Rep system ages ago, so there is no advantages in removing them.

Platinum Lucario

The Legendary Master of Light!

Age 30
Male
Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia.
Seen April 2nd, 2023
Posted April 1st, 2021
1,605 posts
15.4 Years
Well, I'm not gonna argue with you, but the problem is... what if a group gets created that is spammy or something? I'm sure the admins wouldn't want to be bothered to having to remove every single spammy looking groups or anything. And since there is no approval system made for the Admins on the Social Groups, they cannot be able to just approve the Groups. They do go live immediately as soon as they're made, like Lightning said. And... they cannot be able to use the "trim" function on Social Groups, I really don't get why Jelsoft wouldn't create this, I do hope maybe in a future update... they might include something like this. If the staff or even Steve cannot find a plugin that will be able to do that sort of thing, then they'll have to remove the Social Groups.

But hey, before Lightning's post came in, I only thought of the poll. But once I saw Lightning's post... I realized there was no use for a poll, but I just didn't feel like editing my old post again anyways. And I do agree with you about not removing the forum, you're right... the moderator of that forum would lose their job for that forum. And besides that... I'm sure there's alot of posts in that forum that we don't wanna lose.
[Platinum Lucario's Signature]
If you need to disable my signature, please give me advice on how to improve the CSS-DIV code. Thank you!
All credits for the avatar since 2008 goes to shorty-antics-27 (fanart account)! Thank you! ^^
Signature Status: Strikes: 1/3 | Infractions: 0/3
It's time to change the future...
to a positive direction!
Let's prevent things from getting bad!

I'm a ROM and ISO Researcher

Current Project: Researching Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure Squad games (WiiWare)

parallelzero

chelia.blendy

Age 32
The capital of Canada (not Toronto)
Seen May 11th, 2015
Posted May 20th, 2013
14,627 posts
19.3 Years
It's a funny thing the staff don't implement various things as unnecessary, but we have these social groups.
It's a funny thing when members pretend to know how the staff work, but then we have posts like this. Social Groups were just... kind of on a VB upgrade one time, and I think Steve wanted to try them out. We just haven't really addressed them much since. It wasn't like we all sat around and went "is this a good idea? HELL YES!", but instead it was just kind of tagged on and the idea never took off.

It sounded good on paper, and ended up not working. Which is different then something sounding useless on paper and actually being useless.

That said, I've never had a problem with removing them. I've always seen them as a waste of space.

SKY GOD SLAYER: CHELIA BLENDY
twitter + raptr + myanimelist + tumblr

Guy

just a guy

Age 31
Male
Florida
Seen March 26th, 2016
Posted January 22nd, 2014
7,127 posts
14.7 Years
I...actually wouldn't be opposed to the idea of having a community vote of whether to remove Social Groups or not.

Social Groups, whether they take up a large amount of space or even a little, are kind of dead weight to me. It's not the most popular feature of the forum, and I wouldn't miss them if they were to be removed. As said above, it's a good idea on paper, but actually put into play, it's kind of just there with little importance.

I do know that some users take social groups as a way of planning for their actual club threads, but I think a planning sub-forum (like in the Roleplaying section) would be sufficient enough, if not, better; keep in mind this is just a thought. I wouldn't agree with removing Clubs over Social Groups though. The club forums are far more popular and actually would be missed. Plus, it puts Midori Chi out of position which isn't fair.
Seen September 18th, 2020
Posted February 18th, 2018
7,741 posts
16.6 Years
It's a funny thing when members pretend to know how the staff work, but then we have posts like this. Social Groups were just... kind of on a VB upgrade one time, and I think Steve wanted to try them out. We just haven't really addressed them much since. It wasn't like we all sat around and went "is this a good idea? HELL YES!", but instead it was just kind of tagged on and the idea never took off.

It sounded good on paper, and ended up not working. Which is different then something sounding useless on paper and actually being useless.
You've lost me there... I wasn't insinuating anything, if that's even what you thought? The higher staff here simply aren't very clear about how they work (perhaps rightly so), so people coming along and pointing out things they observed to be inconsistent shouldn't be surprising... I at least, do it to goad an explanation if anything. Thanks anyway, I guess, for a bit of insight.