Social Groups..

[Kura]

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?

@_@ 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?

 

[Kenshin5]

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.

 

[Kura]

Yeah @_@ 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.

 

[Aquacorde]

This was actually my first though when learning about Social Groups- "What are there doing for PC, really?"

 

[Ｓoul Ｅater]

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.

 

[Nick]

I don't understand the point in them, personally. It certainly wouldn't kill me to see them removed completely.

Other Clubs and Pokémon Clubs seems to have that covered, considering the fact that they're both much more active than all the social groups combined.

 

[-Scourge-]

I also don't see the point of Social Groups, they're useless and they're never posted in.
Actually, I would like to see them removed.

 

[bobandbill]

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.

 

[AshPikastar]

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]

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..

 

[Nick]

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]

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.

 

[Spherical Ice]

Really, I join groups so that people can see what kinds of things I like; that doesn't mean I'll post in them. for example, I've joined Layton and Pixel groups, to show people what I like. So yeah. They are kinda pointless though.

 

[Legobricks]

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]

@_@ 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.

 

[Pablo49]

It's a funny thing the staff don't implement various things as unnecessary, but we have these social groups.

I see what you did there. I could not agree with this statement more.

 

[professor plum]

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;

 

[Cherrim]

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

 

[Platinum Lucario]

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

 

[AshPikastar]

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.