by Amy B.
Member since:
January 4, 2007

Group Overload ?

July 10, 2007 03:30 PM EDT
views: 34 | comments: 19

I've been reading various suggestions about Gather allowing us to categorize our groups to make it easier to find and post content to the various groups that we belong to. I think that's a good idea because I find myself hunting around when trying to post articles, and I don't post a lot, nor did I think I belonged to as many groups as most of y'all belong to.

Well, I just did a copy/paste of my group list (from where you select what you want to post) into Word and discovered that I belong to 144 groups. Way more than I realized - no wonder I can't keep up with my reading! I tried to sort all my groups based on their titles and came up with 18 unique categores for the groups I belong to. And that only worked for the first 95 groups. I still have 49 groups that had nebulous titles, so I have to go look them up to figure out what category they would belong to. And I'm sure I'll still end up with a huge "miscellaneous" category of groups that don't fit anywhere else.

I probably should go through and remove some of my memberships just to make things a little bit more manageable. Do I really need to belong to twelve different groups for book reviews? There is a lot of duplication out there in Gather-land, so I may just have to focus on the groups that get the most activity, or at least the activity that I enjoy reading. I suppose I should also remove myself from groups that I haven't ever posted to nor see myself ever posting to. But there are groups that I enjoy reading even if it's not something I'd probably post to myself.

How many groups do most of you belong to? Are you active in all of them? Or have they just piled up as you've accepted group invites? How do you manage all the groups you belong to?

 

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Comments: 19

Carol P. Jul 10, 2007, 3:33pm EDT
I belong to way too many to keep up with. I need to do a little house cleaning as well.
Stacey "Yeah, I Said It" H. Jul 10, 2007, 3:38pm EDT
I started cleaning and actually found a group that I had started and completely forgotten about! It's good advice to do some house cleaning from time to time...
CyberGwen ! Jul 10, 2007, 3:38pm EDT
I belong to too many too. Recently I tried to go through them and make a links list that had them catagorized. I got tired of doing it after a while!

I hate to get rid of some, but others are easy. I wish that I could look at them all on one page other then when I am publishing. Maybe I will use your cut and paste method!
Marge H. Jul 10, 2007, 3:45pm EDT
Ditto! I wish that some of my groups had a succinct and accurate description of what they will accept in their titles. In the last 2 days I have had several articles removed from one in particular that I have submitted over the course of about two weeks. Apparently they are doing some housecleaning of their own. I really don't have a problem with their removing them if they don't feel like they fit in with their group but it would save them a lot of time if that was made clear in their title. I try to not submit articles that are not applicable.
Amy B. Jul 10, 2007, 3:46pm EDT
Out of curiosity I just looked at the Group lists and there are 493 pages of groups! At 20 groups listed per page, that's almost 10,000 different groups out there!!! And I only belong to 1.5% of them. I think Gather needs to do some cleaning as well - I can't believe that all 10,000 groups are still active.
wow, 10000 groups? that's a lot!
Rob Appell Jul 10, 2007, 4:09pm EDT
I belong to about 150 groups...and only ones that I would publish anything to now or in the future; some being generic in the sense they'll accept anything. A few are specialized, but I may create something that would fit them, so I remain a member. I get invited to join many groups, which I decline as they're not something I'd ever post to. Just like the 350,000 members; many of whom are no longer active on Gather, 10,000 groups are more than there are active members. It's a numbers game and both members and groups will remain to promote how well the site is doing when recruiting advertisers.
♥ Adair ♥ K. Jul 10, 2007, 4:15pm EDT
I just looked I only belong to 34 groups. There are some group invites in my inbox that I have not had a chance to go check out.
Jill~Sexy Back~ V. Jul 10, 2007, 5:39pm EDT
I'm not sure how many groups I belong to, but it's too many. From time to time, I try to clean house a little bit and remove myself from groups I never post to.
c.l.m. 180˚ Jul 10, 2007, 6:10pm EDT
only four pages of groups that I belong too ... too many? nah!
flit . Jul 10, 2007, 7:22pm EDT
I have 11 pages....think I need to do some cleaning up soon too
Cassie R. Jul 10, 2007, 10:16pm EDT
I'm recent to Gather so I don't belong to many groups, but the whole group thing in general is one I've been curious about. It does seem like there are many duplicates (or trips, or quads, or whatever) so even if it the group name sounds like one you'd be interested in, how do you know which one to join?

It also seems like a lot of groups have postings that have nothing to do with the topic of the group, as though the posters check off every group they belong to, no matter what they're posting about. And I've noticed in many posts that the poster seems to have posted to hundreds of groups -- kind of defeats the purpose of groups, doesn't it?

Then there are the ones that seem to be just about getting points. I haven't really perused any of them -- what are they all about?

Since I am new and don't want to be overwhelmed, I'm limiting the number of groups I'm joining, but even so, already have a hard time keeping up.
☀ Aunt Shanny Jul 10, 2007, 10:18pm EDT
I just dropped out of a bunch of groups, I belonged to too many. I think there are WAY too many duplicate groups and I wish they could get consolidated in some way. But folks like to own their own groups I guess.
Jennine D. Jul 11, 2007, 12:19am EDT
WAY to many, I need to clean house again same with my people too many there too and some have not posted for months and or left Gather. There are too many duplicates and some need to be weeded out by Gather. Many only have 1 or two members.
Lisa B. Jul 11, 2007, 4:52am EDT
I belong to a crap load of groups too. I just wish there was a way to organize them on this site so that when I go searching for a certain group to read those posts that I dont have to go through pages and pages of groups.
Bonnie S. Jul 11, 2007, 6:09am EDT
I don't read thr groups that oftem, I just read articles for me and regular articles. I guess I should clean house also.
Karolyn Q. Jul 12, 2007, 3:21pm EDT
I started doing some housecleaning of groups this week. There were quite a few that I am not active with.

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