There has been alot of discussion the last few days, since Ben Wiseley proposed limiting the numbers of groups we can post to.
I thought it would be fun to see and have a record of what the Activerain Community was really thinking. I have read everything. So take the pole, and lets see where this goes. Lots of smart bloggers here have different opinions.
Someone also recommended we consolidate the groups, and I thought that was a good idea since so many are almost alike.
This a great example of where it would have been advantages to post to more than 5 groups.
8 groups is plenty. It seems to me that when somene chooses to post to 20 groups, they are doing the AR version of spamming.
Now, I have bumped into posts that I thought were worthy of being added to groups I moderate, I would like to be able to add them myself, or with the writer's approval at least. That would be a nice feature to add.
I know the really large groups would scream but we could ask the moderators to "moderate" every post before it is added to a group.
I try to keep it to a minimum. Many times they do not pertain to what you are writing about. When I find someone that I enjoy reading, I add them to my list of favorites and try to read them everyday, even if it doesn't relate.
I agree with David. I think everyone should think about whether a post is relevant to the groups they are posting to before they do. Remember, just because you can, does not mean its appropriate. When I visit a group I go there because I expect specific information or content relating to that topic.
David, I agree but there are so many technology and all are similiar but with a different bent. The subject matter could go in most of them. Thanks for stopping by.
Steve, yep I can hear the screams from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Kay, me too.
Silvia, thanks for the comment. I go there too and most of the time the content is relevant.
Missy--I belong to many groups but only post according to the rules. Most of my articles are for Realtors so I post there most often. But from time to time I post listings by address,questions on staging, to KW agents, newbie info,and MN information.
What if we were allowed to join as many groups as we want but only able to send the post to 2-4 groups for each post?? That would require bloggers to think about where their post is most appropriate and prevent people from sending a post to every group on their list...Which I think is where most of the trouble is coming from...Just my two cents :)
It is about time...but it is too bad that imposing limits had to come, it is annoying to see posts that are not relevant to the group in which you are reading.
Missy, the consensus is clearly that the post should be relevant to the group. I agree. It's why I believe that there should be no limit to the number of groups you can post to, provided the post is relevant to that group.
In order for it to work, everyone has to take responsibility, including the moderators of the group. I've done some removal of posts in the group that I started. Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. But that's what moderators have to do. And that's what all of the other moderators will have to do. It will hopefully cause people to think twice before posting to a group if the topic isn't relevant. It doesn't take long to get the message.
This was my big problem from the get go, right when groups were started. Not to many people were on my side back then. They said it all would work out. Several people from AR said that the smaller groups would fall off.
In all honesty, something should have been done back then and needs to be done now. We should start with taking the top two groups in regards to each subject and drop the rest or merge them. We don't need 5 real estate groups and or 5 mortgage groups. Even if AR thinks that they are going to someday fall off.
Overall.... people will just be people, no matter how much we educate them. It always seems to be the same people in these posts that agree on the subject, but those that are not paying attention or doing what they want, will keep doing it until they are blocked and or deleted.
In regards to the comment that said that the moderators should read each post before it gets excepted... that is just way too much work. Hence the reason why ...as a group founder, you can have several people help you with this, going in and deleting certain posts.
Suggestion... maybe do what they do on myspace. The moderator has the choice or decision to have posts be checked before they go into the group. At least give them that option.
Personally, I've joined a few groups, but I don't utilize this feature to its fullest. I think the most groups I posted to was three. Currently, most of my posts now are geared towards Localism so I do limit posting to groups.
Good question, I think the post your writing should be directed to a group that would be interested in your subject, if that is several groups then fine, send them, otherwise I would send them to the groups you feel it would benefit the most. I think? LOL, good post!
In my mind, a well written blog will have a broad appeal, and a broad readership. Many of my posts that have received a lot of positvie feedback were posted in 10 or more groups, and the article fit the groups I posted them to, of course. I have started half a dozen or more groups, and it seems rediculous to me that I can't write a blog and post it to all of my own creations.
I also moderate several other groups. If I wanted to write a post to let people know in my groups that I was going to be on vacation for a week, and unavailable to reply to comments, I used to be able to write a single post, and put it in all the groups that I created and/or moderate. Now, under this new system, I would have to write the same thing mutiple times, a waste of my time and of AR's storage media. Posting multiple posts to cover all the groups I need to would actually get me more blogging points, since each post would be 200 pts (within the 10/week limit) so this posting cap actually increases the "point farming" that most of us object to, and was one of nominal reasons to limit the blogging groups you can post to. Again, this has backfired. Now, instead of "spammers" getting additional points for the comments they receive, legitimate blogggers, who are trying to contribute to the community here in Active Rain are being forced to essentially duplicate their blogs to reach the audiences that they already have built relationships with.
There are other ways to get filter out spammers. I suggeted one in a post titled 20k Milestones: A Celebration and a Call to Action (which, by the way, was a featured blog, and was appropriately posted in more than 10 groups) I want to update the post a bit, but if I do, more than half of the groups it is posted to will no longer have the blog included in them. Here is the list it is posted to. I can't think of any one of them that it doesn't fit with.
I think there should definitely be a limit. Spammers either don't care, or, more often here, they think that, of course, their posts aren't spam and should be sent to 10, 15, 20, or all groups; it's those other guys who are the problem. (This is a common misconception that some spammers have everywhere, not just in AR, which is one reason why the discussions of the problem go zooming right over their heads.)
5, however, may be too few, but 10 approaches too many. After all, I manage to find posts with Recipes that aren't posted to the Recipes group, and recommend that they be posted there; if I can find them, other people can no doubt find any post that is sent to 8 or so groups. And I think there needs to be some mechanism to force people to think about whether or not their post is appropriate to a particular group.
Another problem that I noticed just today was someone posting their blog to unrelated groups and justifying it on the basis that they had noticed posts that were unrelated on various groups and so it must be okay. Not doing something about it has caused some folks to think that, evidently, and it's quite justifiable for them to think so.
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I believe that a post to a group has to be relevant to that group, otherwise its spam.