Rename the groups after Geocities neighborhoods and please never allow a user to add a group. There has to be limits, and limits create communities.
To me one of the biggest problems on the internet is the lack of a "hub" or somewhere it sort of centralizes. In my opinion the current "staleness" of the internet is due to a lack of central hub.
So i thought about how I could solve this problem. You see without a central hub, starting anything is a problem.
Imagine I am a new user on the web, and I want to learn 3D modeling. Where do I go? This is a problem I am facing right now, like which site do I goto to be part of a community. I don't want to make an account on facebook and join ragtag groups with no real activity. There is no sense of community or anything, just random noise. All I can do is google, and youtube videos to learn 3d modeling. If I goto forums, they are all very stale or "dead" and I leave cause I don't know what to do there.
I basically wanted to have a starting point where I knew for a fact that everyone knows this place and starts here and belong to a community. Two months, and I still have the same problem. I don't belong to a community within 3d modeling or feel like I belong there. Just hardly any chitchat, irc channels barely anyone speaks. Days go by without a new thread.
The biggest problem I notice is that everyone is spread apart, some devs on twitter only, some on that certain site only. No one is really connected or rather there is no central hub. Still using 3d modeling as an example, I noticed that without a central hub, there is no real "right" way to do something. I mean this, no one has any idea on what software to use. I keep asking myself am I using the right software, what is he using, what are they using. It turns out they all have this question, I'm still not sure. NO ONE IS. So if no one is sure, then the communities unintentionally keep closing themselves off.
But There is one rule that must be set
YOU CANNOT EVER ALLOW A USER TO CREATE A GROUP. Do not make this mistake.
Have Things constant at times, I'm tired of unlimited everything. A limit creates a sense of belonging.
Why?
Reddit's biggest flaw and strength is the subreddits and it made a mistake when it allowed anyone to create one and you are seeing the cascading effects now. When you can make a new group, you are no longer a tight nit community with set focus. You are separating the community on a large scale, right off the bat and as you can see on reddit, subbreddits clash which leads to drama and ultimately the destruction of the site from within.
So what am I getting at?
We go back to a tried and true method and something that we know everyone will like. Something that Appeals To Everyone ish.
YOU BRING BACK THE GEOCITIES NEIGHBORHOODS AND KEEP THEM NAMED AS GROUPS.
Have 29 Groups, or let the community decide the # of groups and lets start naming them. No petsburgh please
Simple Short Descriptions. and the name creates an INSTANT connection with someone who might have an interest in that group.
The Only Time You Add A Group is every 6 months to a year and ONLY THE OWNER CAN. Community Decides the name.
YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SET # OF GROUPS. This creates unique culture.
List of IDEAS:
1: Add a count for the amount of posts in the group list if you can, might be database heavy.
2: Everyone is subscribed to all the groups but can unsubscribe.
3: A list of trending "topics" or call them "marks" or "underscores". (Suck it twitter)
This isn't related to your actual suggestion (feel free to tag offtopic), but I really, REALLY severely disagree that the problem with the internet is the "lack of a central hub."
In fact, I'd argue most problems with the modern day internet come from us having so few choices...we're down to a few hubs (like reddit) rather than being able to find a niche site with its own community where everything it does suits the needs of that community rather than a bunch of shit to make it fit into the larger community of that hub. SO MANY of the problems that you see on Reddit come from trying to make a set of rules that makes it so the rest of the site doesn't completely ruin the mission of a given sub (or getting around how voting works, working with the limited tools the site gets you, etc).
Part of what I like about this site is a kinda strikes a balance. While it is a "hub" in the sense that it encompasses many different topics, it's being built in a way that respects the needs of different communities. It's trying to act less like a hub while still appealing to the modern trend where all your internet browsing takes place on a few sites.
See this current discussion: https://tildes.net/~talk/vs/what_is_tildes_plan_for_communities_that_get_too_large
It seems that the current plan is that communities are intended to be made by admins only. I agree that many of the issues with moderation on reddit can be traced back to allowing literally anyone to create a community that has the potential to grow into having millions of subscribers
Admins for now. Eventually, curators and moderators will likely be given that ability. There will also be some sort of thread-based process for starting new hierarchies and re-organizing groups within hierarchies - as I'm sure that'll eventually become necessary as things grow.
OP's point is well taken around here already, though - creating a group is too much power for a single individual to wield, even a heavily trusted individual at the top of our trust system, once we have built it. It's got to come from coordinated action, not individuals. That's the entire point of it being a community. ;)
Well said!
I really like the Debian Community method for these sorts of changes.
Maybe a mod/curator could start a thread in a group advocating for the creation of a subgroup etc, once they get a second voting can start with comments (maybe even GPG-signed for an extra check due to the fact these are posts for changing Tildes itself), enough positive comments within a window and the subgroup can be created.
This is for much further down the road of course, for now manual intervention is more then enough.
Hmm I'm not sure. Whilst I do think there should be limits, I think that if only the admin can create them it could take a long time for certain groups to be created. I want groups that are more specific than 'movie' or 'misc' such as a want a Star Wars and a history group. And maybe a regional European one.