Quote:
Originally Posted by felix
One easy fix would be to have the Social Group categories liked to via vB Forum Links (ie. it's a fake forum that just links to somewhere) and place them in appropriate locations around the forum (a lot will subforum General Anime and Fan Creation most likely). However the mods will never do this, too much effort to go to the Forum Manager...
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No, it's not because of "effort", it's because of the appearance of endorsement. Social Groups are user-generated and user-maintained. They are not part of the forum proper, but rather something that exists on the periphery. Existing outside the core forum has benefits and drawbacks, most of which are related. A benefit is that you have more freedom and autonomy to control both the discussion topic and the group you're discussing with. A drawback is that the same freedom and autonomy keeps you a bit separated from the forum proper, so people need to take an extra step to find and connect with the group. This is by design.
Yes, we
could place links for every single social group that is related to one of the forum topics, but (beyond the fact that things will get cluttered with links) this gives the impression that these groups are endorsed by the Forum Staff and part of the Forum proper, which is not the case. Not to mention there is now the potential to be involved with "Social Group Politics" related to the way a group is listed, its placement, group splits/abandonments, who is allowed into the group (or not), and so on. As KiNA said above, advertising the group openly only to have "arbitrary" (individual member-set, not mod/policy-set) rules about who gets accepted doesn't seem very wise. Even if you discount the effort involved entirely, it's another opportunity where Moderators are now intruding on the autonomy of the Members. If that's the way it's going to be, it would better for us to remove Social Groups entirely and place the relevant sections into the Forums proper so that it's part of the regular, managed aspects of Forum life... and then we're missing the point and purpose of Social groups entirely. Besides, as was already pointed out, there are already forums for most of the major aspects mentioned.
Just like the thread that spawned this discussion, I feel this is another case where the staff is being asked to intervene in what's ultimately a member-to-member issue. As Arbitres stated above, it's up to the Group Creator to make the group work, and up to its members to contribute productively to keep it active. Group Members can certainly use their signatures and profiles as ways to raise interest about a social group they're involved in, and so increase its visibility beyond the existing listings. And perhaps at some point we could consider pruning some of the inactive groups (or changing/improving the organization), but that's really a separate discussion (that requires some degree of prudence and openness to make sure it's all carried out judiciously).
So, with due respect to the original poster for presenting this suggestion, I am going to close this thread at this point. At this time, I don't think we will be taking any action that will blur the line between the Forums and the Social Groups hosted here. If there is a new development that should cause this thread to be re-opened, please feel free to send a PM to me or any other member of the staff and we can discuss it.