The Hive's Social Groups

[Apheraz Lucent]

I got this on my mind for a very lenghty period. The social groups. Currently, there are no explanations on how to create one. There are several bugs, in the lack of words, which are bringing our social groups down.

1. Creation
You have to bug certain people to get a group. I tried, and nobody responded to me. This cuts out a large portion of Hive's health. Oh well.
Suggestion: make all users available to create groups, but keep them hidden until a mod approves them. You can't invite people until approval, but you don't have to bug people who won't respond.

2. Closed Groups
I want to join the Hivegirls group, but it's a closed one. I asked for an invite, but to no avail. Closed groups need something to get people able to join, cuz some creators of those groups are inactive, meaning that the groups are practically dead.
Suggestion: make everyone able to ask for an invite. Creator can decide what to do. Make creators able to place minipage mods, that can also approve members.

Your opinion about these suggestions? Are there any other issues you've been encountering?

Suggest, share you thoughts & discuss.

[Crazed_seal2]

1. This will allow everyone to make groups, and there will have to be moderation is place. So either way, this will bug a person.

2. If the creator of that group is inactive. And if the person doesn't respond in a good amount of time then the group is either disbanded or the leader is resigned and a new one to take his/hers place.

[Rui]

I believe social groups are going to be dumped for Hive 2. I have to agree. Aside from the Map Reviewers group, I find the functionality overall useless.

[Arcisal]

Originally Posted by Apheraz Lucent

Suggestion: make all users available to create groups, but keep them hidden until a mod approves them. You can't invite people until approval, but you don't have to bug people who won't respond.

Honestly, I think that would be a bad idea. It would just pile up the already increasing mass of pending submissions each mod has, especially the map moderators.

I don't think social group are absolutely useless. It's like a nice little place where groups of friends can discuss whatever the hell they want to without any nosey people interfering with their conversations. It just needs more activity.

[Rui]

Maybe that's because Off-Topic is let running too much like Something Else. You should be free to discuss what you want in there without having to worry about trolling or derailing attempts on your thread at all times. If threads are moderated properly, then it supposedly gets you all the good of social groups with the additional benefit of new people being able to contribute without the bureaucracies of requesting membership.

[Arcisal]

On the other hand, there will most certainly people who would post on Off-topic for no particular useful reason, such as to increase post count. Hence why social groups are important for private threads among groups of people whose conversations are perhaps too large for the chat, but too private for it to be on public forums. Besides, social groups offer a unifying theme for members to chat and discuss about, such as a particular topic of interest like Literature or another game. I think if the My Little Ponies thread were confined to a private group, it would cause much less debate over the use of Off-Topic.

[Rui]

Okay, I think I get it, you want it to be private. I think Archian and Ralle are not planning to implement them though. I'll pass the word.

[Apheraz Lucent]

Indeed, social groups can be a place for groups of people to discuss just about anything they like. Too bad that there are some groups that are just not making any sense, besides spam and trolling.

On a side note, if the social groups will be dropped in Hive 2, I suggest to atleast make something that will allow several users at once to talk in private. Maybe some sort of shared private messages between more than two people?

[Vengeancekael]

Or more chat channels.