Admin
10-19-2007, 11:48 PM
Hi everyone!
As you may have noticed, we're still learning how the forum works best just as much as you are. :) So after some feedback from you, we've decided to do a little changing to how we deal with User Groups.
For starters, we're going to be upping the number of required petitions to get a new User Group created. This will be changed to 40. This way, we can be more sure that enough people want the new group that it will get a decent amount of activity.
In addition, we'll be reviewing the currently active User Groups approximately every 2 months or so. If we find that there are some groups that are just not really getting very much activity, we'll either be closing them or merging them with other, similar groups. For now, we don't have a clear definition of exactly how much is "not enough" - it'll probably be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than "x number of threads/posts" or "x number of users".
Finally, we're considering the possibility of limiting how many User Groups may be made in each month... but we're not going to implement this just yet. For now, we'll just keep watching and seeing how things are working.
One thing we would like you to keep in mind when petitioning for new User Groups is whether your User Group is conceptually favourable to promoting discussion. Is your topic something that really can be talked about a lot? Or is it more along the lines of an interest that you share with others? If it's an interest, a User Group is not really the best way to find solidarity -- you'd be better off adding it to your profile. (We have an 'Interests' field, which is fully searchable (http://www.abjds.com/forum/memberlist.php?do=search) so you can find others who share your interests!)
Basically, what we're really hoping for is User Groups that promote a lot of activity and discussion about their topic. :) We want you all to find more to talk about and like-minded people to talk about it with!
As you may have noticed, we're still learning how the forum works best just as much as you are. :) So after some feedback from you, we've decided to do a little changing to how we deal with User Groups.
For starters, we're going to be upping the number of required petitions to get a new User Group created. This will be changed to 40. This way, we can be more sure that enough people want the new group that it will get a decent amount of activity.
In addition, we'll be reviewing the currently active User Groups approximately every 2 months or so. If we find that there are some groups that are just not really getting very much activity, we'll either be closing them or merging them with other, similar groups. For now, we don't have a clear definition of exactly how much is "not enough" - it'll probably be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than "x number of threads/posts" or "x number of users".
Finally, we're considering the possibility of limiting how many User Groups may be made in each month... but we're not going to implement this just yet. For now, we'll just keep watching and seeing how things are working.
One thing we would like you to keep in mind when petitioning for new User Groups is whether your User Group is conceptually favourable to promoting discussion. Is your topic something that really can be talked about a lot? Or is it more along the lines of an interest that you share with others? If it's an interest, a User Group is not really the best way to find solidarity -- you'd be better off adding it to your profile. (We have an 'Interests' field, which is fully searchable (http://www.abjds.com/forum/memberlist.php?do=search) so you can find others who share your interests!)
Basically, what we're really hoping for is User Groups that promote a lot of activity and discussion about their topic. :) We want you all to find more to talk about and like-minded people to talk about it with!