6 votes

Adding new groups

Posted by senatorskeletor

Hi! I just joined today and I was a little surprised there's no way for a user to add their own groups, and that the existing list of groups is so small. @Deimos I do trust you have good reasons for everything, but I'm just ignorant: what's the downside to adding a bunch of new groups at once?

9 comments

  1. [5]
    Archimedes
    Link
    This is talked about a bit in the mechanics.

    This is talked about a bit in the mechanics.

    The different subject-oriented sections on Tildes are called "groups". They have a tilde symbol in front of their name—for example, the group related to music is "~music".

    It's not being used yet in the alpha, but groups will eventually be organized hierarchically. That is, groups can have sub-groups, and be organized into a "tree". In the future, the ~music group could have sub-groups such as ~music.metal, and it could have its own sub-groups like ~music.metal.instrumental. This concept should be recognizable to anyone familiar with Usenet.

    Groups are not "owned" by users, and (at least for now) can not be created by users. This may change in the future, but the lack of user-created groups initially will make it simpler to keep the hierarchy organized, as well as concentrate activity in fewer groups while the site is still small.

    A small set of active groups is far better than a large set of inactive ones, and the hierarchy will allow different subjects to easily split into more-specific groups as activity increases.

    7 votes
    1. [4]
      senatorskeletor
      Link Parent
      I guess my concern is with this: Obviously a totally inactive community is worthless, but if the big communities are active enough, I don't see the downside in there being a lot more groups. If it...

      I guess my concern is with this:

      A small set of active groups is far better than a large set of inactive ones

      Obviously a totally inactive community is worthless, but if the big communities are active enough, I don't see the downside in there being a lot more groups.

      If it were up to me, we'd add a bunch more groups that we already know will be popular. For example, ~baseball will be a large group someday. Why not start it now?

      1. [3]
        ZaphodBeebblebrox
        Link Parent
        Because right now, ~sports.baseball would only have 4 posts in it at max. ~sports.baseball can be created organically by people posting significant amounts of content in ~sports with the tag baseball.

        Because right now, ~sports.baseball would only have 4 posts in it at max. ~sports.baseball can be created organically by people posting significant amounts of content in ~sports with the tag baseball.

        8 votes
        1. [2]
          havoc
          Link Parent
          That is correct, but there are other issues arising from this situation. It can be pretty uncomfortable to generate content in unspecific communities. The comfort may range from very serious...

          That is correct, but there are other issues arising from this situation. It can be pretty uncomfortable to generate content in unspecific communities. The comfort may range from very serious matters to mere mood.
          In other words, this kind of design stalls activity by itself.

          Someone already proposed DAGs so that groups can be created and organized more dynamically, but that's just a functional model, it lacks a solution for the presentation.

          3 votes
          1. Elijah
            Link Parent
            So does creating groups that don't fill out in short order. It looks like a ghost town and drives people away. Figuring out a rule of thumb for when to split a group into subgroups (and a rule of...

            In other words, this kind of design stalls activity by itself.

            So does creating groups that don't fill out in short order. It looks like a ghost town and drives people away.

            Figuring out a rule of thumb for when to split a group into subgroups (and a rule of thumb for when to reverse that process) is probably something that should be done soon.

            Maybe after N posts in Y days (with N and Y subject to change with overall site traffic) or P percent of content in a general group tagged with a specific content tag. I don't have a good feel for traffic here, but I'd ballpark (pun unintended) the numbers for a ~sports.baseball to get created:

            N = 100, Y = 5
            P = 10%

            Having a way to close (= no new posts) or remove (= posts rejoin the parent general group) would facilitate timely groups. Maybe at the end of the season ~sports.baseball.2018-playoffs gets created for people still interested, and those whose passion is not deep and don't care about the teams that made it stay out of the group.

            2 votes
  2. [4]
    Silbern
    Link
    The userbase would fragment apart in many small groups and wouldn't form a cohesive community. He cited a specific example, although I'm afraid I can't remember it at the moment...

    The userbase would fragment apart in many small groups and wouldn't form a cohesive community. He cited a specific example, although I'm afraid I can't remember it at the moment...

    6 votes
    1. [3]
      cfabbro
      Link Parent
      Imzy They allowed user created groups from the start and the site wound up having 10x as many groups as users making the whole site look virtually empty because the population was so spread out...

      Imzy

      They allowed user created groups from the start and the site wound up having 10x as many groups as users making the whole site look virtually empty because the population was so spread out and isolated from each other, despite having a decent user base over all.

      2 votes
      1. [2]
        havoc
        Link Parent
        As a sidenote, Imzy was also a project of a former Reddit guy who gave an interview about it just two months ago. I wondered immediately whether he was involved as well, when tildes was announced.

        As a sidenote, Imzy was also a project of a former Reddit guy who gave an interview about it just two months ago. I wondered immediately whether he was involved as well, when tildes was announced.

        1. cfabbro
          Link Parent
          A few ex-Imzy staff are here on ~ already too though I don't think Dan is yet. Though he is apparently aware of ~ already.

          A few ex-Imzy staff are here on ~ already too though I don't think Dan is yet. Though he is apparently aware of ~ already.

          1 vote