11 votes

Adding new groups

Posted by Kiloku
Tags: groups, new groups

I'm certain this has been discussed before, but seeing that
A: There's no search function and
B: Maybe people who joined since the last discussion would like to talk without necroing anything

Is there a cycle/timeline for adding new groups as interest seems to appear?
What's the plan for how to choose which new groups get added?

If not, could we (and the site's staff) discuss possibilities on good ways to do that?

11 comments

  1. [6]
    Deimos
    (edited )
    Link
    In the last 24 hours, these are the number of topics posted in each group: ~news | 19 ~tech | 15 ~talk | 11 ~comp | 5 ~misc | 5 ~games | 4 ~music | 4 ~movies | 3 ~science | 3 ~sports | 3 ~books |...

    In the last 24 hours, these are the number of topics posted in each group:

     ~news            |    19
 ~tech            |    15
 ~talk            |    11
 ~comp            |     5
 ~misc            |     5
 ~games           |     4
 ~music           |     4
 ~movies          |     3
 ~science         |     3
 ~sports          |     3
 ~books           |     2
 ~hobbies         |     2
 ~tildes          |     2
 ~creative        |     1
 ~lgbt            |     1
 ~tildes.official |     1
 ~tv              |     1
 ~food            |     0
 ~lifestyle       |     0

    This is very low, and if anything I'd say we may even already have too many. Were there particular suggestions that you had in mind?

    27 votes
    1. Kiloku
      Link Parent
      No suggestions, really. Just wondering about the subject, and information such as your response here is exactly what I wanted to learn about.

      No suggestions, really. Just wondering about the subject, and information such as your response here is exactly what I wanted to learn about.

      6 votes
    2. [2]
      Vinver
      Link Parent
      This idea is tricky when combined with tree hierarchy, and might be just straight out stupid, but hear me out. In the future you could implement some sort of inactivity state for groups. A group...

      This idea is tricky when combined with tree hierarchy, and might be just straight out stupid, but hear me out. In the future you could implement some sort of inactivity state for groups. A group would become inactive if the user contributions in it are below some threshold. The users would be "redirected" to a group that is thematically the closest.
      So, for example, since there is only one post in ~tv, but three in ~movies, ~tv could become inactive and the users would be encouraged to post in movies instead. ~tv would become active again only if the amount of activity that is associated with the "tv" tag reached some critical point. This could also help in pruning the branches of group trees.

      4 votes
      1. Deimos
        Link Parent
        Nah, it's not stupid and I've had similar thoughts—it's why I've specifically tried to keep the tags and group names compatible. It means that, for example, if we had a lot of posts in ~books with...

        Nah, it's not stupid and I've had similar thoughts—it's why I've specifically tried to keep the tags and group names compatible. It means that, for example, if we had a lot of posts in ~books with the "fantasy" tag, we could potentially move them into a ~books.fantasy and get rid of the tag. And conversely, if that didn't work out very well, we could get rid of ~books.fantasy as an actual group and move the posts from it back "up" into ~books with a "fantasy" tag again. There are some interesting parallels between them.

        8 votes
    3. [2]
      Vadsamoht
      Link Parent
      Having read the future plans for the site this is something I'm sure you're already aware of, but there's a possibility that people might not be posting to certain groups precisely because they're...

      Having read the future plans for the site this is something I'm sure you're already aware of, but there's a possibility that people might not be posting to certain groups precisely because they're not specific enough and so feeling that they're out of place.

      For example, ~news has a pretty clear scope, but I could see a lot of people from non-US countries feeling like it's not really a place for them (to post, but also to read) because their own area's news is often regarding almost completely separate issues. This clearly hasn't stopped people from posting from those areas entirely, but it is conceivable that creating more specific sub-groups at some stage will actually increase overall engagement rather than just indicating a more accurate taxonomy for better filtering, and I'm not convinced that waiting for a critical mass of topics with a given tag is the best way to judge that.

      3 votes
      1. Deimos
        Link Parent
        Yeah, it's a tricky balance. At this point, Tildes still has very few users overall, and creating a highly-specific group will probably just end up with it being inactive because there are only...

        Yeah, it's a tricky balance. At this point, Tildes still has very few users overall, and creating a highly-specific group will probably just end up with it being inactive because there are only about 3 users interested in it. I agree that a "proper" group not existing has a chilling effect on posts though, that's already why I created some of the current groups even though they haven't been very active (like ~food).

        3 votes
  2. Kiloku
    Link
    Personally, I think there could be a system for recurring rounds of "Group Proposals" where anyone can suggest groups (maybe at a limit of suggestions per person per round), and everyone else can...

    Personally, I think there could be a system for recurring rounds of "Group Proposals" where anyone can suggest groups (maybe at a limit of suggestions per person per round), and everyone else can vote. The results are then looked at by the staff, who filter it to pick which ones will be added.

    5 votes
  3. [3]
    Archimedes
    Link
    I think it would be cool to have a semi-automated way of creating new groups based on monitoring tag usage as part of the equation when considering new groups.

    I think it would be cool to have a semi-automated way of creating new groups based on monitoring tag usage as part of the equation when considering new groups.

    5 votes
    1. Kiloku
      Link Parent
      Nice, tags might be interesting. Could even help in creating sub-groups. So if there are lots of posts on ~music tagged jazz, but not much jazz in other groups, it'd make a good case to create a...

      Nice, tags might be interesting. Could even help in creating sub-groups. So if there are lots of posts on ~music tagged jazz, but not much jazz in other groups, it'd make a good case to create a ~music.jazz

      3 votes
    2. lucyinthesky
      Link Parent
      According to the docs, groups will be organised in a tree (e.g. ~music.rock). Branches of these groups will be automatically created based on tag activity, but I believe the top level groups will...

      According to the docs, groups will be organised in a tree (e.g. ~music.rock). Branches of these groups will be automatically created based on tag activity, but I believe the top level groups will only be created by admins.

      3 votes
  4. acr
    Link
    On a related note, I think if we need to read another post in order to understand a current post, we should have the ability to add that. So if I am reading a thread and turns out the conversation...

    On a related note, I think if we need to read another post in order to understand a current post, we should have the ability to add that. So if I am reading a thread and turns out the conversation moved to another newer thread with updated information, I should be able to kind of report and then a note be added. Some thing like - This discussion has been continued here - link to new thread. I guess I could just post a comment, but odds are it'll be buried.