[Noram]

I personally don't think it is likely to become an issue. I may not know every member of our community, but I think it's cynical to expect anyone to openly and seriously attack another member for their nationality, beliefs, orientation, or alignment. I'd hope that any such attack would immediately call the attackers suitability as a member into question, but happily that's a decision well above my pay-grade.

[Dark]

My question is what this adds.

As y'all may know, I'm on these forums fairly regularly. I'm not even familiar with the forum organization because I just tap "Update" and see what's going on. Ignoring administrative stuff (requests for invites and the like), we tend to get less than one page of updated/new topics per day. I'd say at most a dozen per day.

As such, if these groups are private (non-members can't see the conversations), then I'm strongly against it. The community is nowhere active enough to need to divide into sub-communities.

If they're not private (so basically just more subforums?), then I'm not too sure what's being proposed here. Just adding bits of flair, and seeing who else has the same flair? Sure, that's a neat little toy/feature. Throw on a GW2 tag and see who else plays/played GW2, that sort of thing?

[KraziyK]

Interesting thought. I think a photographer group or a photographer & videographer group would be called "Photons & Photogs".

[Sysil]

My question is what this adds.

As y'all may know, I'm on these forums fairly regularly. I'm not even familiar with the forum organization because I just tap "Update" and see what's going on. Ignoring administrative stuff (requests for invites and the like), we tend to get less than one page of updated/new topics per day. I'd say at most a dozen per day.

As such, if these groups are private (non-members can't see the conversations), then I'm strongly against it. The community is nowhere active enough to need to divide into sub-communities.

If they're not private (so basically just more subforums?), then I'm not too sure what's being proposed here. Just adding bits of flair, and seeing who else has the same flair? Sure, that's a neat little toy/feature. Throw on a GW2 tag and see who else plays/played GW2, that sort of thing?

I share Dark's feelings on this proposal. If these groups are private I'm afraid that the general topics will get less updated in favour of the private group's topics. Also new topics that could be of interest to everyone would be available only to a few people.

Maybe I'm seeing too much into this but I don't want to see the community divided.

[Kains]

I don't think they are supposed to be 'hidden' forums/posts or anything, I believe the core idea is simply seeing a list of 'interest' tags that result in more discussion. Sort of a 'Hey, that guy likes Star Wars! He should like this post showing info about new Star Wars Legos!' kind of thing.

Despite my reservations, for obvious reasons, I personally think the idea has a lot of merit. As a couple people have mentioned there are only a dozen or so unique topics (Outside of the paperwork kind of stuff) and I believe this will help generate more conversation, as opposed to hinder the current efforts.

I could be interpreting this wrong of course but I do think the concept is to generate more forum 'content', if you will, as opposed to creating even more content that no one can see.

[Three of Seven]

Not sure what form the social groups will take, they probably wouldn't be forums as such (I'm sure anyone working on this can clarify) but in my mind, they are just more along the lines of what a Facebook group wall would be. Bringing people together who have a similar interest to other members and encouraging others to take part in any group activities going on, be it discussions or watch togethers on TeamSpeak, so a Picard group might hold a Picard Day viewing one day, as an example. A group for the love of pink (50 Shades of Pink?) might just post nice pictures on their wall of all things pink, or discuss which hair dye makes for the better shade.

Straying into topics of politics, religion and so forth isn't something we should shy away from, just because someone doesn't share a view point doesn't mean they are being insulting. We have rules in place to prevent discrimination and moderators who actively watch out for this, so these realms should be safe for groups. We can obviously draw lines at extremist groups, though I don't see that being a problem anyway!

Really, to me, it's just a way to bring people together and if two groups even want to get together to roleplay or have a debate night, great, that encourages interaction and I for one support greater interaction. Do not be scared to hold an opposing view nor be offended because someone disagrees, we can and have had mature debates in the past.

[Jackie Weaver]

I think allowing Social Groups to host an event where they livestream an episode or movie relating to that group could be an interesting idea. For example, A Star Wars group could ask for a viewing of Episode V, then the attendees could get together on Teamspeak in a channel and watch the Livestream. Anyone could be able to tag along if they wished, it wouldn't necessarily be closed to people who aren't a member of that Social Group.

The only problem I see arising with this is one of Copyright.

[laibcoms]

A ruler that I can think of is, if a particular "topic" will generate a lot of discussion, I think it's best to have it in the forums.

For example, for our book/reading section in the forums, it's currently not generating much discussion -- which is understandable, we are reading and most if not all, doesn't want spoilers -- this section would fit a "group" system, say, a Yahoo/Google Group or FB group or Google+ group. Having this section in the forums and rarely used will make the forums look cluttered and confusing or overwhelming for some.

Another that I can think is, religious discussions. If we're going to have that, I personally think it's best as a group than in the forums. This way, if discussion (or debate) suddenly spikes, it won't fill the forums' "latest updates".

For topics like, say, health, we can have it in the forums. After all, we all need to be healthy to continue doing what we love -- watch trek, play games, and socialize. So any information under this topic, even if a member doesn't participate, can get them curious to check and read.

It's a gray area but it's a start.

OR

If the "groups" will be within the forums, since we're using vBulletin and it has a built-in group system, then there shouldn't be a problem (although I find vB's group system not that effective. Posts and updates are not seen and is separate from the flow of the forums. Members will probably forget they belong to a group or check the group for new posts).

[JByb04]

My question is what this adds.

As y'all may know, I'm on these forums fairly regularly. I'm not even familiar with the forum organization because I just tap "Update" and see what's going on. Ignoring administrative stuff (requests for invites and the like), we tend to get less than one page of updated/new topics per day. I'd say at most a dozen per day.

As such, if these groups are private (non-members can't see the conversations), then I'm strongly against it. The community is nowhere active enough to need to divide into sub-communities.

If they're not private (so basically just more subforums?), then I'm not too sure what's being proposed here. Just adding bits of flair, and seeing who else has the same flair? Sure, that's a neat little toy/feature. Throw on a GW2 tag and see who else plays/played GW2, that sort of thing?

I agree with Dark as well. With the low amount of topic generations on the forums and relatively low traffic in general. I don't see this as the right time to divide into sub-communities. Although we already have some sub-division in terms of people who are in SFO or SFR as well as Holodeck etc. I would say that in time when we have more active participation this would be viable. But as it stands, I feel that any splintering of the community, would only serve to further decrease traffic on the forums.

[Dark]

Jeez, I see people talking about forming groups on other platforms. That's even more private, and even more divisive as people would gravitate towards one or the other.

[Three of Seven]

People will already have groups on other platforms, such as Facebook, Steam and other forums, I would say that is normal and if we can bring social groups closer to home, then I think that helps us more than it hinders us. Social groups will by no means divide people, if anything, it will unite more people based on an interest, lets say for example I never really spoke with Dentari (I'm sure he wishes!) and we both joined a BSG group, we would then start talking on a shared interest and that could get us talking together.

The idea of the groups is to bring people together by talking about shared interests, so it's a great opportunity for people to meet other members of the UFP, especially if we have some TeamSpeak based events and cross group interaction, the possibilities are endless! Social groups aren't designed to divide people but to unite them.

[LynxMukka]

A few questions and concerns have been raised here to which I am indeed grateful. The opinions help in identifying the weak areas and generally where opinion trends lie.

To settle a couple of people's concerns, the social groups will not be private, so anyone will be able to view the group and any discussions within, they just won't be able to post most likely.

Based on others' thoughts also, it's likely we won't be including religious groups in the first batch, at least to begin with. You're right Stormy, in that if we create one group, then it would only be fair to create one for all other major religions etc. The risk of where discussions might go is also a concern.

The fear that the creation of the social groups will create divisions is understandable (it's why I mentioned we're aware of that perception in my first post) though I think there's a fundamental principle we have for protection. The forums are designed for mass-discussion, because of the various sub-forums and tools provided. Social groups will not have a great deal of functionality except for what I've mentioned. So while social groups provide the possibility for discussion, they wouldn't be able to support members who want to use them for their own private forums (with lots of discussions), because the groups would simply not be big enough to support that. By nature, people will go the easiest route to achieving what they want to do, social groups will not be the easiest route. The emphasis as some people have mentioned, is more along the lines of allowing members to show off their support for a particular subject etc.

@Laibcoms, the precise integration that social groups will have with the rest of the site is not yet clear, but I'll bear your comments in mind in project discussions, so that members do not forget they're a part of the group etc. It might well be social group activity is included in the updates page or new discussions generate a notification for all social group members etc.

[Bridger]

I also see no reason for that, the last big social project was the UFP Reddit and it is also more dead than alive.

[Dark]

Yeah, I see most of us on reddit just go to /r/sto where we have a larger group of people to converse with.

Really, the idea of having smaller social groups only makes sense to me if attempts at that type of conversation is getting drowned out in the noise, but it's not like the forums that all that active. I also don't see the merit of locking out non-members from posting. If someone wasn't interested in engaging, they wouldn't be looking in the first place. (I certainly have yet to look at a topic tagged with [Star Citizen].)

If the point of this is to find people with similar interests, I think it would be better implemented by being able to tag our interests in our profiles. Select from a list of existing tags, or submit a request to create one to be added to the list. Then have those tags be clickable, such that we'd be able to see everyone else who added the tag.

This could even be implemented in the roll call - "these tags have been added in the last 3 months, are you interested in any of these?" - so that they would somewhat accurately reflect what members are interested in.

[Three of Seven]

I also see no reason for that, the last big social project was the UFP Reddit and it is also more dead than alive.

Well Reddit requires another account and is on a separate website, so social integration there was never going to be easy, however social groups would be a part of the main site and you'd be using the same account, this makes it easier for people to jump into and try.

I imagine a lot of questions and concerns will be addressed better once we can see the system in action, there's no harm in trying especially if the aim is to bring people together, it's a noble goal and one I think we should all give a go