[Deejay14]

I might get some blowback but I have a rolled down the social groups and in many of them nothing has been posted in months or even years. Why not get rid of them. They do not seem to be of service to anyone.

[Gus1234U]

it's a good way for people to post on their particular concerns without being censured for forum etiquette. also, it lets people know how many or how few people are sharing their interests.... the down side is, it's so clumsy and awkward to post in them, that it's just not worth the trouble,,, in my humble opinion.

[lizardlady]

Originally Posted by Gus1234U

it's a good way for people to post on their particular concerns without being censured for forum etiquette. also, it lets people know how many or how few people are sharing their interests.... the down side is, it's so clumsy and awkward to post in them, that it's just not worth the trouble,,, in my humble opinion.

Tain't just your opinion Gus. Some of the social groups I belong to used to be fairly active. They are effectively dead now because it is so cumbersome to post to them.

I've also noticed that some of the groups have few posts once a social group forum is created. People seem to post in the foru and not the group page.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Deejay14

I might get some blowback but I have a rolled down the social groups and in many of them nothing has been posted in months or even years. Why not get rid of them. They do not seem to be of service to anyone.

not sure but I think this might have been answered before.. somewhere around here I remember something about posts and threads and social groups are not deleted because people do come back.

example i know one social group that was inactive for about 2 years then the person who started that social group came back to psych central and got it active again. if that social group had been deleted because the member wasnt "working it" then they would have had to restart a completely new social group, trying to remember who had joined the first one, what was already discussed and wait where'd all the posts go kind of stuff.

by not deleting the social groups the member who started it can pick up where they left off.

Also sometimes with inactive social groups other members see that they are inactive and message a mod to see if they can take over that social group until the original member comes back, which gets that social group back into active again.

plus like other people stated already once you have a certain number of members that social group becomes a forum, so now member have two ways to post in that social group the social groups main page and the forum page. I think of this like psych centrals regular forums and the premere poomba (yes I think I may have spelled that wrong) forums. when a person has a certain number of posts or other ways too they get access to two different ways of posting on psych central. the public forums and the more private forum.

psych central has many different ways that their members can communicate with each other and have discussions. one of those ways is social groups and that social groups forum. if you delete one it affects the other.

suggestion if you see a social group thats not active any more maybe you can get it reactivated again. just start posting to it or pm a mod to see if you can take over being its facilitator.

[whimsicalman]

Why don't social group posts show up in your statistics? Shouldn't
they count for something, as far as tracking one's personal activity on this forum? I think social groups are a good addition to the forum, even if some of them may not be currently active. I know that I am trying to spark some new life in a few of the ones that I joined. (Maybe I'll feel differently after a while if my efforts go nowhere, but, for the time being I am hopeful that they will be another means of creating community for me.)

I was actually thinking the same thing...no one really uses them anymore. I think it would be a better idea just to create forums with the topics that people are still interested in instead of "groups".

[seeker33]

Yes and for example you don't even get a notification when someone posts in your thread. Also most groups are basically "invisible" so even when someone posts something there's a low chance others will see it unless they choose to specifically go and check that group. And since the groups are usually not very active, few people check them... It's a cycle.

[nonightowl]

Whimsical man I thought you started a thread on the groups about the activity or lack of, but I can't find it now.

Personally, I've always preferred the groups to the forums. When I joined back in 2008, they weren't on there. A couple of months later, they added them. I thought it was so cool that members could create and manage groups. And they had an option of whether they wanted to create a forum for the group or leave it as is. Some members added forums to their groups, which made the group portion "die off". I didn't add forums to my groups.

Then last December or so, they changed the format so you could start individual threads, like a forum. You could also "subscribe", like on a forum. Until they added that, you had to check manually for activity. I think people forgot they joined the groups since they didn't know if a new post was added. Then, since they didn't go to the much groups anyway, they don't know you can subscribe to them now......

But I noticed since that change, the groups have been even LESS active. They were never as active as the forums, BUT a few I belong to were moderately active, like the books group.

No more...I left a few, and I just check for activity once in awhile. I've given up on them. But if I do see new posts, I respond so at least that person will know SOMEBODY saw their post, just to acknowledge them.

I agree that the posts in the groups should show up in your statistics, but they never did. Now I can't even open my own statistics; I can only see previews. Yeah they were a great addition to the site. Also, they had more wiggle room on what you can post....

[DocJohn]

We don't remove defunct social groups because there's no easy way to do so. We did just remove a bunch of 1-member only groups.

We're limited by what the software does and supports, and if they don't include social group posts, well, there's nothing we can do about that unfortunately.

We have about a dozen "active" social groups. You can find them by going to the all groups list, then sort by Last Post date:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/groups/all.html