Group: GroupBusters

Lea d'ipernity's group Still life:
www.ipernity.com/group/still-life

Duplicate of Gilip N's The Art of Still Life:
www.ipernity.com/group/still.life

It is discussed if Lea's group could be taken over by someone, and made it somehow different. For example chance the rules to accept only "naturally appearing still life" arrangements, where a photographer only chooses the point of view and composition, and only ambient light is used.

However, the most difficult part probably is to find a person(s) interested to do this. Ideas? Suggestions? Or should we just let it go.

Because this GROUPBUSTERS group here is for members only to read, the best approach could be to name one of us as the group administrator, and then send mail to group members. On that mail we could appoint members to discuss about it themselves, on their group's discussion area: www.ipernity.com/group/still-life/discuss

There are also other duplicates, which are neglected, and probably could be closed:
www.ipernity.com/search/group?w=0&q=still+life

Alternative option is that someone change this into a "challenge group", asking members to do challenges in the same way as at Macro Dreams, and maybe on monthly basis:
www.ipernity.com/group/macrodreams

I don't know where to place this note.

Out of five very similar general groups "Italy" with very many congruent postings, I consider four superfluous:

www.ipernity.com/group/italia--italie
www.ipernity.com/group/italia.e.italiani
www.ipernity.com/group/italy
www.ipernity.com/group/37956
www.ipernity.com/group/325819

There is only one "Italy" and no reason to have five general groups for it.

Will have a look. Although, we also may wish to try doing what you propose on another comment, and replace the attached group index. However, I am afraid it is not enough. Rob and Stefan may know.

A sudden idea popped into my head yesterday.

So far, merging groups has been an extremely time-consuming process. But it is so that in the URL to posted pictures the group is indexed. Example:
www.ipernity.com/doc/pepmorear/11559823/in/group/2253206

Could one write a MySQL routine that replaces the attached group index with another one? Then one could move thousands of postings from one group to another with a single command. Duplicates would thus be sorted out automatically, and the emptied group could be deleted without any loss of postings.

Great idea Bernhrad!! That would be amazing! Stefan? Rob?

I almost think that the duplicate issue is more important than the unused groups - so taking care of those would be an incredible help.

It might be a quick query to change the group_id in the uadoc table that ties a photo to a group, from "to be closed" group to the "to be kept" group, and rely on the database not allowing duplicates. But I would have to test whether the duplicated ord field would be a problem, first for the update, but surely for subsequent operations not coping with photos having the same ord number, especially if you then merged another group.
So that would need some php to re-sequence.

But also a quick query would not update the tallies of "this photo is in this many groups"
So again the concept of automatic merging indicates the need for a php function to work through all the photos.

Initial thoughts, select all pics for both groups, ordered by created_at (when added to group), and go through these records, deleting the older of any duplicates and updating the tally. Then update 'ord' for those remaining, in whichever group. Finally the old group_id can be updated.
Also note there are tallies for how many photos a user has in the group (and separate for public, family, etc), (the need for, or functioning of, not fully understood).

Oh, and further, which users need to be added to the kept group, who were only in in the old.
And update the tally for how many members the kept group then has.

Besides, I am worried about the consent. Some people may have good reasons why they does not want their photos added to certain groups, no matter how similar the topic is. For example, they may not like the group admins.

So, people must be asked, which of them wants it.

Besides, the better option would be to ask people to use organise tool to first create a group for the images at the group that becomes deleted. And then start add them as new to the group which stays.

Consent is not necessary in such cases. See Group Guidelines, part 1, administration:

Bullet 8: "Public groups are not your property. . . . . If your group doesn't succeed, dissolve it or merge it with a thematically matching group. Help ensure that the overall public perception of ipernity does not appear too fragmented."/i>

Bullet 3: ". . . A public group should never be without administration for long periods of time. If this occurs, the ima team can install a replacement admin. Alternatively, abandoned groups can be merged with thematically fitting active groups, closed while this is achieved, to be deleted in due course.

I am having hard time to find out what to do with groups under topic "monochrom":

www.ipernity.com/search/group?opt=&q=monochrom&w=0&s=0&m=0

Only few of them seem to be properly looked after by active Club members:

www.ipernity.com/group/artnb
www.ipernity.com/group/310291
www.ipernity.com/group/1078513

At the following group, there is a Club member as admin, but no new posts for years(?):

www.ipernity.com/group/42436

Then there is this group, not found with the search above:

www.ipernity.com/group/25280

So, which one out of them should be kept and passed to someone interested to look after? Especially there is need for a group that allows also other tones than just black and white.

Please comment only on the issues concerning this discussion topic.

I will leave this topic open, at least for few days.

About www.ipernity.com/group/artnb:
This group isn´t moderated well. It contains also some color photos like www.ipernity.com/doc/paolo-paolo.tanino/50721208/in/group/1678460, www.ipernity.com/doc/arlequin_photographie/50682674/in/group/1678460, www.ipernity.com/doc/anna.schramm/50624348/in/group/1678460, www.ipernity.com/doc/1122707/50623276/in/group/1678460 and www.ipernity.com/doc/jowo/50593868/in/group/1678460 - even in pretty "older" photos several pages from start page of the group away. Also it contains several sephia photos which aren´t monochrome in my understanding. So this won´t be the good moderated one which should be stay.

About www.ipernity.com/group/310291:
At least apparently no colour photos included. On the other hand, the group description says "black and white preferred". But for "black and white" there are thematically more suitable groups, I think. The Monocrome group should be limited to such photos, but specifically exclude black and whites that would fit better thematically in a black and white group. But basically this group seems well administered. But no smart url.

About www.ipernity.com/group/1078513:
Relatively few photos in total in the group (485 visible to non-members).
Further back I came across colour photos: www.ipernity.com/doc/733893/40134322/in/group/1078513, www.ipernity.com/doc/99766/39434446/in/group/1078513
The group has only 14 members, 11 of whom are administrators. The vast majority of photos are posted by "Tan Tee Huah" (201 of the 485 publicly visible posts, is a club member), followed by Martainn (36, club member), Amazingstoker (32, club member), Jim Kerslake (25, club member), Laurence (13, guest), Dinesh (8, club member), Filippo Tosi (6, club member), Vanishing Point (4, guest), Éric Guéret (3, guest), Roadscum (2, guest), Nora Caracci (2, club member). Roland (guest) and Scott Chaffin (club member) have not posted anything. So 332 of the 485 contributions come from group members, 22 of which are from guest accounts, so may soon be dropped.
I think the group has too little participation and should be deleted.

About www.ipernity.com/group/42436:
I don't think "(Images by invitation only)" in conjunction with "This is a public, invitation-only group." can really work. Here it seems that one of the administrators does not know the "Favourite" function and is using a group for it, for whatever reason. One of the two group admins is now a guest account only (and is the group admin who has been in the group longer). In addition, neither of the two group admins has posted anything in the group themselves and there are also only 12 group members, of which a total of 4 members have any photos in the group at all (11 photos, in fact). 4 photos are from guest accounts, so they will also be gone soon. Do away with the group, it's already rotten.

About www.ipernity.com/group/25280:
Armando Taborda is violating the group rules since a long time. As you can see by watching www.ipernity.com/doc/armando.taborda/50721402/in/group/25280/self - it seems like nobody is complaining about it until now. So it doesn´t look like the other group members are really looking into this group.
But apart from that, it seems to be used by many members themselves, because the list of members is long and there are many different ones who post their photos there. But it definitely needs a moderator for this group, if only to either kick the mentioned user out of the group or at least remove his posts and ask him to abide by the group rules.
Apart from that, this is really a group that is thematically broader than just black-and-white photos. For example, you can also find sepia photos or photos in other colour tones, but they still don't turn the photo into a colour photo, precisely because they are limited to a narrow colour palette.
I therefore think the group is worth keeping, but it is not in competition with the previously mentioned groups, which contain mainly black and white photos.

Thank you, Stefan =)

Then I will consider keeping www.ipernity.com/group/25280 and see, which one out of the other thematical duplicates should be closed and deleted. And I will clean out Armando's contributions myself.

Topic church
www.ipernity.com/search/group?view=2&opt=1&q=church+%7Cchapel+%7CKirche+%7C%C3%A9glise&w=0&s=1&m=0

Which ones should be kept? Which to close and delete?

Most active, and already looked after (Club account admin):
Edifices religieux, églises, cathédrales, etc
www.ipernity.com/group/491523
Needs translations.

Second active
Churches
www.ipernity.com/group/26527
Translations on all languages. Needs new admin(s),

The first group includes buildings of all religions, the second exclusively Christian churches. This is not the same, the second group is thematically much narrower. Strictly speaking, the second group does not include Islamic mosques, Buddhist temples or Jewish synagogues (and whatever else there may be).

They are both active and used. I think they should both be preserved, because their subject areas overlap but are not identical.

On the other hand, these ones could be deleted (because of low participation compared to similar groups):
- www.ipernity.com/group/34706 "Photos about churches" by Dornenwolf (guest account)
- www.ipernity.com/group/98195 "Church towers" by Franck Alleron (guest account)
- www.ipernity.com/group/jewish - "Jewish World " by Gabriella Stier (guest account)

What happens to them?
- www.ipernity.com/group/mosques by Alsalam (guest account) - or ask Paolo Tanino if he would like to take them over, who posts very actively there and is a club member.

- www.ipernity.com/group/39478 - "Jews, Judaism and anything Jewish" - by Ron's Log (club member).
Very small group, very few members and few posts. But I myself have many such groups that function thematically like this because they serve a niche topic. As long as the administrator collects contributions from various users that revolve around the topic, I find it completely legitimate to have such small groups with very few group members. The contributions come from different people. So it looks like he's doing something similar to what I'm doing with the group. And an album is not a substitute for such a group, because you can't look at the few documents that exist on ipernity on the topic from different users in a bundle there.

Thank you, Stefan =)

Very helpful feedback. And I agree on each point given.

Another church related group by blueman (topic already opened): www.ipernity.com/group/324383 - "Church Interiors".

www.ipernity.com/group/all_churches - 160 members, several club account admins which are active, members also active.

www.ipernity.com/group/all_churches
Club members seem to look after =)

Topic old signs

Close and delete?
www.ipernity.com/group/84636
Only one or two "active" members. They could be asked to join the other.

Keep?
www.ipernity.com/group/33954
More members with Club account.

First one can be deleted I think, yes.

About the second one:
Note here: Quite a few of the photos there were invited to this group by me.
Just to go through the first page and name which photos are in the group because I invited them to it:
- The Pepsi Cola advertisement by Gerrit Fischer
- The photo of the Schiller Opera, the photo of the Persil advertisement and the photo of the bleach advertisement by HH-volker 2
- And then my two photos of the film theatre and the hotel on the Reeperbahn are coming soon. I put these photos in the group about one and a half years ago.
You can see from that that it is only apparently active. And even if I find it a pity - but this group is not really actively used (except by me or through me), I think. Leopold is also still a little active there, but I don't think this group would be able to survive if it wasn't constantly fed with photos by a few users.

As soon as we hopefully find a new admin for the second one, I will again allow members to suggest contributions.

I may also consider staying there as admin by my GroupBuster Sami account. Worth to keep.

There are competing groups of 5, 10... 40, 75+ Favourites www.ipernity.com/search/group?q=favourites

and 28+, 42, 49, 60, 70... Faves
www.ipernity.com/search/group?q=faves

I believe a system and a unification would be beneficial.

...
Similar issue is with the groups focusing Number of visits

My personal opinion is that I do not like any of those groups. I just don't get it.

But there are no exact duplicates. So, at least I don't find two with the exact same number (e.g. 10+).

So, better to tolerate. But some of them are not administrated (Guest account admin). Like this:
www.ipernity.com/group/127741

I say it is not urgent.

.film.forever. www.ipernity.com/group/322515
Fotografias análogas (positiv-negativ film 35mm.) www.ipernity.com/group/200737
Film Photography Film Photography www.ipernity.com/group/film-photography
I Shoot Film www.ipernity.com/group/i.shoot.film

www.ipernity.com/group/94276 GWENN HA DU / BLANC ET NOIR GWENN HA DU / BLANC ET NOIR
www.ipernity.com/group/bianconero Bianco e Nero - Black & White - Blanc et Noir - Blanco y Negro
www.ipernity.com/group/art_photography ! B&W - The Art of Photography ! B&W - The Art of Photography
www.ipernity.com/group/blanconegro B&W (Premiere)
www.ipernity.com/group/b.w B & W