The Usergroups.

Hey, I just wanted to ask what is up with the usergroups on here? There are over 40 groups on this forum and it seems a bit ridiculous. What are your guys thoughts on the amount? I am new here so it just really surprised me.

Groups are done a bit differently here. Typically groups are reserved for people who wish to purchase them, however here it is quite the opposite. Once you hit level 10 you're permitted to make 1 group. This allows pretty much anyone to form their own group centered around whatever.

Furthermore, the only requirements for groups to remain is that they have some activity in their subforums. There are not any automatic deletions set up so a member of staff has to manually remove a group that is below par, which means that a lot of groups get by with only a post or two a month.
I know for a fact there have only been that many posts in my group this month, because apparently nobody on this forum likes fanfiction as much as I do.

5 days later

35384
Groups are done a bit differently here. Typically groups are reserved for people
who wish to purchase them, however here it is quite the opposite. Once you hit level
10 you're permitted to make 1 group. This allows pretty much anyone to form their
own group centered around whatever.

To me it just makes things look LQ and disorganized. Just giving my point of view of it.

35798
What is your definition of LQ? Because if it's a comparison to how other forums use groups, you're comparing apples and oranges.

The groups here are not meant to give you any sort of special status like they would on other forums, they're here as social groups, where anyone can create their own group to discuss a topic that they like. Although I do agree that I need to cut back on the unused groups and groups that obviously exist for the sole purpose of having a pretty colour.

I'll be pruning groups and raising the requirements for creating one shortly (but I'll also be letting users ask me whether they can bypass the requirements if their idea for a group is good enough).

Personally I've just seen groups here are a small subforum for people that have the same interests where they can discuss it and share content related to it, so it might be different to what you might be used to from other forums. However I do agree there are more than it should be considering the active members at the moment and should clear the most inactive ones.

I also think having group specific boards kill the overall activity of the website. I think a forum like this is a bit to slow to have boards that can only be seen by joining a specific group.

Like there are probably a few threads in group specific boards that I would enjoy, but joining every damn group just to make sure I'm not missing any cool threads is just a pain in the ass.

5 days later

35813

35798
What is your definition of LQ? Because if it's a comparison to how other forums
use groups, you're comparing apples and oranges.

The groups here are not meant to give you any sort of special status like they would
on other forums, they're here as social groups, where anyone can create their own
group to discuss a topic that they like. Although I do agree that I need to cut
back on the unused groups and groups that obviously exist for the sole purpose of
having a pretty colour.

I'll be pruning groups and raising the requirements for creating one shortly (but
I'll also be letting users ask me whether they can bypass the requirements if their
idea for a group is good enough).

Anyone with Level 10 can create a group so it just leaves a shit ton of groups that are most likely going to be inactive. That's what I mean by LQ.