Social Groups

[Ralle]

I have deleted 344 social groups and disabled the creation of new ones.
I know some of you will hate me for this but most of the social groups were just spam and not useful. I have now restricted the creation of new groups to shamans and me.
We will hopefully soon have a ruleset on how to deal with social groups.

EDIT:

I have disabled social groups for now. I have reimported all the old groups. Hakeem will start a purge next time I see him.

 

[busterkomo]

Thank you, Ralle. While originally not a bad idea, the social groups have caused a lot of drama, and their memes are just annoying. Also, what do you mean by Global Moderators?

I'm not sure how a ruleset implantation would help. If the creation is restricted to admins, then the groups that would be created would be focused on something other than the social aspect, which is perfectly fine.

 

[Hakeem]

I'm noticing a very interesting pattern in the groups that were kept...

Thank you Ralle. While not a bad idea, the social groups have caused a lot of drama, and their memes are just annoying.

OH! DRAMA! BZZT! IT'S DRAMA! THE ANSWER IS DRAMA! I'M SURE OF IT!

Aside from hideous usage of buzzword, the groups came after the meme. The duck groups being deleted hasn't changed a single avatar that I know of. Of course, I may be wrong, so feel free to cite... OH. WAIT.


Okay, yeah, so it is best to have rules before you go about doing something, but how are we supposed to make rules without any information on how people use the feature? Without using all the groups that had been made so far as a reference, we have to start the rule making process again. This means constant rule revision. If we use the old groups as a reference, we have lots of material that we can use to make a solid set of rules.

 

[busterkomo]

Aside from hideous usage of buzzword, the groups came after the meme. The duck groups being deleted hasn't changed a single avatar that I know of. Of course, I may be wrong, so feel free to cite... OH. WAIT.

Regardless of the chronological order of the groups and the meme, the meme would have never such an impact without the social groups. They were used to meet, recruit, plan, whatever.

 

[Hakeem]

Regardless of the chronological order of the groups and the meme, the meme would have never such an impact without the social groups. They were used to meet, recruit, plan, whatever.

Without the social groups a thread would have been made. In fact, several were. This changes nothing.

 

[Skudgemuffin]

 

[busterkomo]

Without the social groups a thread would have been made. In fact, several were. This changes nothing.

We can debate all we want. Without anyway of knowing for sure, it's pretty much a waste of time.

 

[Hakeem]

Why did you bother bringing it up, if it is an invalid point?

 

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

The Jury lives on.

But really, now all you need to do is delete rep.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Does it matter why he brought it up? There's no need to continue discussing it.

While this may anger a few people, I think overall motive for deleting them was reasonable. Most of them were full of spam and completely useless.

 

[busterkomo]

Why did you bother bringing it up, if it is an invalid point?

I didn't bring it up to be discussed. It was a loose point established by my original post. The focus was on complimenting the good decisions made by Ralle (and the rest of the administration?). Besides, it's not exactly on topic.

Okay, yeah, so it is best to have rules before you go about doing something, but how are we supposed to make rules without any information on how people use the feature? Without using all the groups that had been made so far as a reference, we have to start the rule making process again. This means constant rule revision. If we use the old groups as a reference, we have lots of material that we can use to make a solid set of rules.

Fair point, but administrators should be able to judge whether or not a group has the site's well being in mind. There's a reason why Rui's groups still remain, while ones without reasonable justification have been removed.

 

[Belgarath]

Pretty good, IMO. They never had any use to me, so I really don't mind, and apparently they've been shit
Also, the "duck buzz" was overrated IMO. It lasted for like, 2 days, and people already changed their avatars.

 

[PurplePoot]

Finally (And for those of you who will inevitably blame Ralle, I deserve some blame too).

 

[RaijinSpark]

well some people might hate you but not me

anyway what you did is better to avoid spam and everything..

also to improve Hiveworkshop

 

[Hakeem]

While this may anger a few people, I think overall motive for deleting them was reasonable. Most of them were full of spam and completely useless.

Yeah, most, but all of them? No. Most definitely not.

It was a loose point established by my original post. The focus was on complimenting the good decisions made by Ralle (and the rest of the administration?).

Yeah, and it contradicts the focus of my post that it is a hasty decision that is not wise. The question is which of us is right. You don't make yourself right by giving loose points.

There's a reason why Rui's groups still remain

Yeah, because those were the only two brought up explicitly as "not spam." If any others had been mentioned at the time, they probably would have been kept. But the decision was made too fast for anyone to give a proper list of what to keep.

They never had any use to me

I'm sure everyone who made a group feels the same way. This is sarcasm, by the way.

apparently they've been shit

So you really have no idea what they were like? Tell me, why do you bother posting your comments on this if you never had anything to do with them?

 

[PurplePoot]

Hakeem, if useful groups are proposed they can still be created. However, note useful.

 

[NoAmmoSrry]

Well you know what this means. Duck season has finished and Moose season just began.
*Loads shotgun* Ok so who wants to go hunt some zombie moose's down?! >.> EH?!

 

[Hakeem]

Hakeem, if useful groups are proposed they can still be created. However, note useful.

That's not what I'm concerned with. I'm complaining about the deletion of so many groups that did not need to be deleted.

 

[NoAmmoSrry]

That's not what I'm concerned with. I'm complaining about the deletion of so many groups that did not need to be deleted.

Yes like the Duck Association and the Legion of Zombies. The Legion of Zombies were just about to send a raid to infiltrate the Association and loot there precious daffy duck figurines. Like come on! It was going to be epic. It was going to be in the news, onion.

 

[Hakeem]

Obviously those ones were ones to delete, but that is NOT what all the groups were. There were many more groups than the two that remain that should not have been deleted.

 

[Chaos.]

NOOOOO!!! My naga fans group had over 1200 posts, and because of that group Misha, Varsaigan, and 67chrome have been inspired to make some awesome skins and models. Interceptors has been working on a naga race and has created an awesome naga UI. And i will be creating a naga campaign soon, we were discussing it in that group. And gyrosphinx has been writing a really cool story that maybe one day could turn into an epic cinematic. So how can you possibly consider that useless???

They are freaking "social" groups. Why do they have to be useful. The point is to "social". You could have atleast deleted the inactive ones and left the active groups, like my naga fans. So much info... lost. Thank you very much. (sarcasm)

 

[Ricardo Irving]

Really, Bungie.net had the wait for group creation for 14 days, and the groups were the only good thing about the site with so many people that forum conversation is boring, and with Bungie (they...made, Halo, remember?) calling everyone they see Folks then gunning them down with their Folk-Ray. Groups here aren't the highlight. Do something like their groups -- allow group leader to make his own ranks (w00t), choose a theme OR upload pictures to make their own (w00t), and have an inactivity thing and the NOT ENOUGH MEMBERS GET MORE OR GROUP DELETED thingy. The groups were mostly getting to be inactive, and the group I started had no point after I realized the abomination of customization.

EDIT: Lol what about a zombie fan club.

 

[sacridshadow]

Ralle, like Chaos said, you could've just deleted the inactive ones. but the point remains. socail groups are to allow people to socialise and entertain through ideas. There were a lot of mod groups, and a lot of fun groups. By deleting them, you just made Hiveworkshop alot more boring, whether it's warcraft related or not. I don't even recall the rules saying it had to be about warcraft.

 

[HappyCockroach]

Man, you deleted all the groups I'd belong to!

Race Creators was a really serious and useful group, Pokemon RPG was an active group we used to store and discuss about our project's information, which is lost now, since the posts in our main thread were cleaned several times

I know you are the site owner, and I can't complain much, but such a blind mass deletion was ignorant and unecessary.

I'm pretty sure you started deleting everything just by their names, or their pictures, judging by such a big amount. I bet you didn't see how Race Creation was organized and carefully ran by Interceptor, for example.

 

[varsaigen]

..... Why not just delete the inactive groups? Social Groups would end if they only talked about Hive and Warcraft based things. Socializing is what many people did, so, they use the groups so they aren't spamming the forums with chit chat. But, there were many useful mod groups and RPs that had become very developed, and due to the latest events, have lost HUGE amounts of data that may never be recoverable. I don't know why threads and polls did not come out asking the public about this instead of deciding what was spam yourself, but I think it was a mistake. The inactive groups would be prefectly fine to take down, but not all the active groups that brought people together to socialize with one another.

Honestly, Social Groups kept people from chatting away in the forums. And when people chat in the forums, neg rep and bans occur because of "off topicness". I think that if it is possible, that the active groups should be returned.

HC, exactly the same thing happened to me. All that remains of the huge numbers of groups that were deleted from the site are 2 pointless and likely inactive groups. >_>

 

[Hakeem]

Wait, you mean to tell me there were social groups that were actually talking about WC3 modding?


GEE. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD BE MAKING WARCRAFT III RELATED GROUPS ON A WARCRAFT III MODDING SITE?


Sorry for the caps, it just seems obvious to me that there were so many groups that should be kept, but were thrown out on a quick decision.

I believe the saying goes, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water."

Now, before the above happens for each useful group in turn, I'd like to remind you that Ralle has been making backups every day. I'm pretty sure the social groups are still preserved in a backup, if social group still don't have the soft deletion option.

Please just post the groups you think should be kept, and voice your disapproval.
Please try not to get too worked up just yet.

 

[NoAmmoSrry]

I believe the saying goes, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water."

Ralle is not capable of handling a baby.

 

[HappyCockroach]

If Ralle deleted them because they are NOT USEFUL, so should he delete all the SOMETHING ELSE section, along with many stupid threads talking about nonsense.

And, as a matter of fact, more than half of the groups would talk about:

• Map Idea Creation
• Project Development
• Story Writing
• Lots of useful stuff in a Modding Community

Groups I beg to be kept:

• Race Creators
• Pokemon RPG

About the rest, do what you think you should do... (If you even think about it this time)
I agree that groups like the Flock are pointless, but this way so the Off-Topic Forums are mostly pointless, why do they exist?

Sorry if I was arrogant or anything...

 

[Hakeem]

Try to calm down. The best way to get Ralle to reconsider what he has done is not to make this thread too long for him to read. Voice your complaints, but keep them short.

 

[Ricardo Irving]

... I was talking about deleting the inactive groups in my post. I think that if two people don't post within two weeks, that group should be deleted.

 

[varsaigen]

Groups that I was in that I would like to have kept because they are fun or are mod related:

Fun:
Order of RPing
Order of Elders

Mod-related:
Freespace Modding Group
Naga Group

All the other groups I was in were either hardly active, got boring to me, or were dead yet not disbanded. :/

 

[Mr. Bob]

Why yank all user created groups? Considering as how you can just make a whole separate forum containing groups that everyone can make, and a section of official groups. After a month with 5 members or less, or groups with similar attributes as other user created groups, an automatic deletion can work... I don't see the logic here. Does this have to do with the Hive's general cost?

 

[sacridshadow]

lol The groups that I loved were Order of Elders, Order of RPing, Naga Group, Dragons, Furries, Dragon Adopters, Freespace Mod. Yea,h there were a lot of spam groups, but one easily learns to ignore them. I'm still a little surprised Ralle didn't have anyone go through the groups to see what they were like and what their purpose was. probably the most surprising thing is that he didn't tell anyone about this until it had already happened. I bet he didn't expect taht many people to want their groups back, and to have access to recreating their groups. I don't care if the spam groups stay gone, but there were no rules against the topics of the groups.

 

[FrIkY]

"You are not a member of any groups" '

Doh!! Oh well... I never really used those social groups that much. But since "The Flock" is gone, gonna change my avatar. And I see, only "Map Reviewers" and "Map Mini-Jury" survived. :/

EDIT: Wow... my avatar looks so sharp now. xD

 

[varsaigen]

strange how 2 lately insugnificant groups that are rarely active manage to survive :/

 

[Pyritie]

Nooooooooooooooooo, my 200+ social groups! D:

If lost messages are the problem, like Hakeem said those can be recovered. As for the discussion, you could use a thread for the same thing.

_{EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, I don't really care about losing all of those groups. )}

 

[Masiah]

I approve... but you should have given a warning and some time (like 24h) for users to save any posts they wanted before deleting the groups.

 

[Vercas]

I don't really like it...

I don't really like this, but hey, who am I to complain?
I hope that you and shaman will make better groups...

 

[saphiree]

i dont really know what to say... I just dont like the idea, and then again. Maybe it was the right thing to do...

 

[varsaigen]

we all have our opinions, and those who never really used them would care less about the deletions than those who used them and required them for data storage a lot more. I used them more and more as time went on, and due to the deletion without warning, almost all data on a mod I was working in was lost. (except for the backups) and it was too much of a pain to gather the 500+ posts for the developement just to save them elsewhere, so I had left them in the social group, not expecting the groups to be purged.

 

[saphiree]

That really sucks. Next time admins do such a thing. Please then give a warning then. That would make people much more happy.

 

[Misha]

This.... is outrageous!

that's all i can say while using my head only.

EDIT: It seems that the free creation of the discussions is the reason for massive deletion....
yeah, i think that discussions should be also aproved/denied as users C: Yeah, discussions more than users. or, only maker of the group should be alowed to make discussions.

don't know what more....

 

[CMarket]

Most of them were full of spam and completely useless.

Most but not all! There were several social groups that had a lot of project data in them, such as my social group. Damn it I knew I should have backed up all the info!


Ralle, why didn't you give us a few days to retrieve anything we might need from the groups?!

 

[DoOs_101]

Ralle you want to start a war with the indonesians? Our group got deleted, you call it spam groups?

Please bring back this group, because we need it. Else we will bring this to another height... We got project data and discussions that are important. We need to atleast retrieve it if u can't restore it...

 

[Grim]

They are freaking "social" groups. Why do they have to be useful. The point is to "social". You could have atleast deleted the inactive ones and left the active groups, like my naga fans. So much info... lost. Thank you very much. (sarcasm)

I completley agree with what Chaos said, sure some were spam and maybe not needed... (I'll agree my own two groups were more things I made when I was bored) however I'm well aware that there were plenty of other groups that were not spam and allowed some fairly decent discussion within the community.

 

[Misha]

... hmm... also.... my campaign making group, "Bas Celik" got deleted, even if this is a map development group >=S

 

[varsaigen]

he has backups, so don't get enraged and begin making threats, etc. I'm just hoping he'll realize that there were several non-spam groups that were deleted before any data could be backed up. I lost an entire 500+ pages for a mod that had vital data on the plot that was lost (scattered throughout posts as developement stage commenced D

I do not, however, agree with the 4- users in a group being a reason to delete the group, as there were only 4 people who even knew what the mod was for, or even knew the game it was being made for. Sure, I can understand the logic in deleting spam groups, but deleting all groups is not the wisest of decisions and makes many users upset about the matter, even outraged. many useful groups were lost, and they did not all have to be related to hive or warcraft, as it was for social purposes, to chat and have fun, and catalog information about mods that were being developed, only to be deleted once the mod was complete. I have to agree with an earlier post about the idea of hive-related groups, warcraft related groups, misc. group tabs.

 

[sacridshadow]

It is rather dissapointing that Ralle didn't tell us about it. I only hope that the RPs (Order of Elders and Order of RP) and the freespace mod survive. WE had a heck of a lot of info on those, and the RPs were for pure fun. Now we don't have backstories. I really hope Ralle decides to bring back the groups that weren't spam. Still surprised he didn't check the groups first. At least contact the hosts to see what's going on. Good advice there. warning at least a week ahead, in case people were camping or busy. It'd allow for the mod groups and RP groups to save stuff and possibly not be deleted. I don't know what Ralle did, but he just played king and got rid of it without a poll or advice. Would've preferred a poll to see if we wanted the groups deleted. maybe mark down every group and have people vote on the ones they want to keep. The inactive ones go anyway (2-3 posts a week).

 

[Misha]

maybe placing groups into categories is a good idea C:

 

[varsaigen]

and those that didn't care about social groups would vote to delete it sicne they don't use them...

Misha, exactly. It's a great idea