Inactive groups?

A group is a collection, a pool of photos referring to a certain topic. Practically seen it's simply impossible to look into all groups very often, where you are a member. This is practicable, if one is member of very few, lets say three to five groups. These collections have the purpose for people who - for whatever reason - want to see and browse all photos with e.g. "red bricks". If I post a photo in this group, it's because I want to contribute to this collection so that such a user has this option. It doesn't imperatively mean, that I myself am interested every day or week in this special collection.
You are completely right with the described user beahvior. And I know, that most of all groups are not the place to make a photo popular, with exceptions, like HFF or similar groups. But I really think, you demand way too much, if you say, a group member has to visit each group each week or so.

I did not say the groups should be visited on weekly bases. And I do acknowledge the value of some groups providing great collections to discover interesting collections even once in a lifetime. But do judge yourself, what is reasonable:

www.ipernity.com/search/group?w=0&q=flower

Way too many thematical duplicates makes it difficult to see the forest for the trees.

I think you make a good point about groups being collections, and adding to them is not necessarily for getting ones photo more notice. For this reason I'm supporting keeping some unused groups that have great collections (closed, not deleted). If someone wanted to open such a group up again, they could contact the ima team to see if it could happen.

I also think that there are many ways to use a group.

I am most interested in making sure groups are administered so a group's name matches the content.

Thanks to Sami for working to help that happen. Also good to challenge ones self to not just 'dump' to groups. I've done just that, but am now trying to be more conscious.

Personally, I am starting by going through the groups I am a member of, to see if the administrator is even noticing what is going into the group. I am choosing to leave groups that aren't well administered AND giving the names of those groups to the Groupbusters group.

Flowers (2), (3), (4).........crazy indeed ;-)

It is possible to have an overview look in every group you are a member of!

It just takes me 15 Minutes daily for my 262 groups I was a member of. Really not any longer.

I don´t know how often I had already mentonied www.ipernity.com/group/0/activity before?! You can access it via top "Groups" - menu, then on the left side "News of your groups".

There I view everything which was new in my groups. All documents via their thumbnails, all new discussions, all I have to moderate in some of the group I administer.
Then I just click the items which are interesting for me by the thumbnail and which I want to see in bigger size, to comment on or to invite into a group. Takes something longer, but depends of course on how much you are commenting...

It´s in my opinion only the result of what is shown when you click on "groups" - menu - you see a "NEW" - icon somewhere and you see the group descriptions. What you don´t see are the content of the groups.

I want to change this for a pretty long time already.... and swap the view of www.ipernity.com/group/0/activity with www.ipernity.com/group because last gives you no view about the content of the groups you are a member of - only the group descriptions and the info there is SOMETHING new. Could be a new discussion, could be a new photo, but you don´t see what kind of photo. And of couse this is also the reason why discussions get complete ignored in groups by all the group members - as there is only a "NEW" sign on www.ipernity.com/group - but mostly it´s just a sign there is a new photo in the group.

It doesn´t make any sense to have the group descriptions listet on such a high level when you can´t even see what´s inside of the groups!

An example of an abandoned group that has gone out of order:

www.ipernity.com/group/60276

Members does not care about the description:

"No skies please, anything else"

The possible person who has established the group has left the external link referring to a personal external web site, which does not even exist anymore.

And that is not the only case of similar neglected groups.

So Sami, you're saying people are not reading your "read me" post!

One thing we might be able to do is to promote the tools that help people easily see what is new in their groups. While right in front of us, I don't think it is well used.

Well, Berny is right that one or few weeks is too much to expect.

BUT, it is not about one or two individuals! The discussion started concerning very small "Red bricks" group. So, there one really can not expect to get much visits.

But there are number of groups now, where are many many active contributors. One would expect that at least one or two out of ten would notice:
www.ipernity.com/user/2609502/group

I dont't know all groups here but I would be cautious with groups, which - while not often visited - are active. They have acvtive members and postings are fresh and new.
1) Why to close "Composing the Abstract"??? Is there another such group which is more active?
2) "Old People": Please do not close. Search for an admin instead.
3) "Mirrors and reflective surfaces": There are enough active members, it should not be difficult to find an admin.
4) "Metal": same as 3
5) "Industrie im Detail": I'm active in this group and in some others, for which you posted a "Read Me". To be honest, I will not answer all of this Read me, this is too time consuming.
6)............

This action of you, Sami, is understandable on one side, but it makes stress and sort of fear on the other side. You are right for sure, there are many groups in your link, which are dispensable, but also many which I really would miss and I'm sure others too. Why such a stress. Do we need storage? We are in fear, that groups which have a "Read me" will be closed as others already are.

I agree it's suboptimal to have many similar groups, but please look at this:
www.flickr.com/search/groups/?text=Flowers

Much. much. much worse then with Ipernity!

Much more important than closing groups is deleting images which doesn't fit in a group. I woul like to see a group of "Imagebusters", who have the access privilege to delete such images, if they find one. This must not be by browsing and searching but can also be accidentally.

Sami, look in the group "Zeitgenössische Abstraktionen", in which you are posting some of your images. How many images are "abstract" in the sense of the group description? Is this a reason to close the group? No, it should only be better moderated.

1) Why to close "Composing the Abstract"??? Is there another such group which is more active?

www.ipernity.com/group/abstract

2) "Old People": Please do not close. Search for an admin instead.

Not closed, but no one volunteered yet. I will remove this from all similar calls:

"If none found, the group will become closed and deleted."

Thanks for feedback.

3) "Mirrors and reflective surfaces": There are enough active members, it should not be difficult to find an admin.

Yes, next stage could be to promote the most active members to group moderators, and then ask if anyone is interested.

4) "Metal": same as 3

The same as 3.

5) "Industrie im Detail": I'm active in this group and in some others, for which you posted a "Read Me". To be honest, I will not answer all of this Read me, this is too time consuming.

Yes, this is too time consuming... But the plan on all those README cases is not to close immediately. If no one views and cares for them, then the plan is to start using the new group mail feature.

okay

"Much more important than closing groups is deleting images which doesn't fit in a group. I woul like to see a group of "Imagebusters", who have the access privilege to delete such images, if they find one. This must not be by browsing and searching but can also be accidentally."

This can´t be the work the "groupbuster"-team has to done. If it´s a group with over hundreds pages it takes about several days to clean up such a group. I had done this with the "orange"- group already.... and several others.

This job has to be done by a group administrator. If none is interested in became it it won´t be done. And if a group wasn´t used in a way the group description announced it to do it isn´t worth to keep such group which nobody wants to administrate and which is filled by oftopic items.

LOL.
flickr has how many millions of users? ipernity has how many members? You really compare the result of a flickr group with the search at ipernity to say the situation at ipernity wasn´t this worse?
Come on, Berny..... ;-)

I agree..
a group admin must do this, and also invite pics he likes in the administred group
Each of us should know where to post, and overall, when you post, you should fairly comment on others........

Personnellement, je quitte régulièrement des groupes où je ne retrouve que mes photos. Cela signifie que ces groupes sont inactifs.

I wish many others would do the same.

I would like to warn of a too strict group deletion.
Closing down a group should not be a function of response time - this might mean that only pensioners' groups will survive ;-)))))
just kidding.

Groups are kind of an organisation method, too, not always an effective one but they are. One can find certain pictures by searching for groups. Maybe key words would work better but if photographers chose to post their pictures to groups we should accept their decision.
Cleaning up unaskedly might appear kind of aggressive.
Even if there is no quick response to a "call for order" a group may be attended regularly - perhaps once in a fortnight.

So the teams concept of tidiness should not be seen as absolute - others' opinion may vary.

Last but not least, cleaning up groups is in my opinion only a side issue. Groups do not cause costs (these few bytes for a flag will be affordable) and users will re-open deleted groups.
It's like fighting the hydra - endless and probably useless ;-)))

And I doubt that random visitors from the depths of the web will be scared off by the number of groups. Most of them will probably not take care of it.

Accepting a certain amount of fuss is way easier ;-)

Just to make it clear ;-)

GroupBusters are first dealing with groups administrated and abandoned by Guest accounts found as dormant for several years OR otherwise discovered abandoned. And now thanks to feedback, the message is softened on cases where takeover is found reasonable:

www.ipernity.com/doc/2609502/50740390

And if and when active member account(s) administrating any groups are found (Club member, or recently active Guest), then the account has been contacted first to ask what could be done with the group(s).

What comes to groups not looked after, it indeed does not cause direct costs. But the ipernity's reputation may suffer when search for groups returns "noise" and neglected groups:

www.ipernity.com/search/group?w=0&q=flowers

Newbies does not know which one to choose from if the quick search returns number of groups opened and abandoned after years of collective disinterest to seek solutions. Someone may have had enough when finding some groups abandoned, and then opened a new one, which again have become abandoned:

www.ipernity.com/group/flowers

It now competes with all other groups on the same topic, occupies the URL name ../flowers, and makes cleaning even more difficult.

So, should GroupBusters give up? And let things go as already gone for years.

Well, if things go on as they've gone for years nothing will get worse ;-)

Nothing speaks against deleting abandoned grous and nothing speaks against deleting groups.

Posting a checking pic to a group and deleting after a certain response time might hit some active but not regularly visited groups. So an active member might get angry. Having a thousand+ active members an annoyed member weighs way more than an annoyed flickr member (as for an example).

So there are two sides: a possible benefit helping newbies (how many do we have per month) to find groups and a possible annoyment for existing members.
that's all. probability calculation. what is of more use to us? ;-)
I don't know. I'ld just like to point out possible disadvantages.

Well, one should keep on asking: "Why I am here?" I hope most of us are here to communicate with each other.

So, also our group guidelines try to emphasise that:

Avoid duplicates
If there is already a public group on a topic, it is usually no good idea to create an additional one of your own. For external visitors, a fragmented ipernity is unattractive. You'd better join the existing group and enrich it with your content. In this way you help to keep ipernity clear, lively and interesting.

Limit yourself to what is most important to you
It is not a good idea to administer or moderate more than 20 groups. If you have a lot of time, you might double it. But anything beyond that will eventually overtax you - or the quality will suffer. By then at the latest, the ima team would have to intervene to regulate.

Now I administer over 100 abandoned groups. Hopefully temporarily! Many of them are duplicates. I do my best to negotiate with the Club members, to make the transition as easy as possible.

Hi Markus, von meiner Seite nur eine Antwort auf Deine Frage nach der Anzahl der Neulinge. In der Hinsicht verspüren wir die Auswirkung der allgemeinen Corona-Depression mit voller EWirkung. In den vergangenen 12 Monaten hat es nur 29 dauerhafte Club-Abonnements gegeben. Wir müssen deshalb unbedingt in der jetzt aufkeimenden Aufbruchsstimmung mit unserer Werbekampagne starten.