Could More Groups Cause Us Problems?

Considering our online propensity to jump to the conclusion that someone is out to get us, might the ability to join more groups cause us more trouble than it's worth?

We already suffer slings and arrows when we refuse people's calling cards and friendship offers. How are they going to react when we refuse to join their latest and greatest best of the best of the best sir group? Depending on how all this pans out, especially if they allow us to join a hundred or more, we won't necessarily have the excuse of a limit.

Plus, being in dozens of groups has the potential to burden us with more responsibility, expectation, and chatter IM than we can bear. People seem to leave SL as often for being overwhelmed as they do for being bored. I hope that a few people needing to belong to more fifteen groups doesn't adversely affect the bulk of the population.

Is the concept of a synthetic world solid enough yet for us to begin educating people about such ideas as arbitrarily joining every group that comes along to the detriment of their fun and freedom? Or would such considerations be laughed off the stage?

These are just thoughts I should post in a blog but they're here instead so feel free to comment all over them.

Personally, I am not in a ton of groups simply because the spam from the groups was getting rather bothersome. However, for those that are merchants and are renting spaces, they have to join the group for that rental space in order to put down their stuff. It doesn't take long for these individuals to max out their groups. I understand where you are coming from, but I don't see harm in upping the amount of groups that you can be in.

Yep...I have to be in a group for the few places I have my shops, be in groups for the hosting I do, have a few groups dedicated to big ticket items I have purchased and the continued support for them. I haven't felt the *crunch* till this week actually and would like to see my limit upped.

I think we can safely leave it up to the individual as to what they can take with regards to groups. And what Felicity said about vendor groups is a problem for many, who are left with no social groups at all.

Increasing the number of groups allowed should be coupled with adding the ability to turn the group chat off.

Yesssss.....there are some groups I won't quit, but at times the chatter in IM drives me nutz.

Not in mine you don't

I doubt it's doable, but I'd LOVE to not get invited to an event I'm already at.

Nothing more than an irritant in that case.

One of the reasons I don't rent many spaces in malls etc is because of having to join the groups, the IM spam drives me insane.

Being able to join groups (if I really HAVE to), and being able to turn off the group IM would be excellent.

I have had applications in for various SL volunteer groups for the longest times.

It occurs to me that I might not be able to get put in the groups because I am grouped up.

When the Lindens accept you into a volunteer group do they put you in the group or do they invite you or what?

Lindens invite us into groups to join volunteer organizations, even small ones such as upkeeping the mansion. I think there's one for Luna and Ben's now as well. Maybe the fact that a resident can now belong to half-a-dozen Linden groups has prompted them to think about increasing the number.

It would be nice to turn off group SPAM but I think that shouldn't include IMs from people with the IM everybody box checked or something. In other words, the founder and the odd "officer" type will need to be able to open an session that includes every member of the group, on or offline, SPAM checked or unchecked, no matter what. Does that seem reasonable?

Lemme rephrase my original question. Is Second Life established enough to develop unique rules of general decency and etiquette? We teach netiquette now such as when, and when not, to type in caps or leet; web page design that considers the current least capable client configuration et cetera.

As there are only two functioning non-gaming synthetic worlds, is it yet reasonable for us to observe, compile, and begin to educate new residents in, some generally accepted and practiced synthiquette? Or am I way jumping the expectation gun this early in the process?

I used to join groups cos my friends made them, I haven't been part of any large cliquey group, cos I'm obviously not popular enough!

Now I just want to know when the new hair is out baby! So I find myself joining more and more designers groups to be told of new arrivals, much better than having to fly around checking places

Group spam is ANNOYING, especially if its NOT your group and you are advertising an event in it, I must admit last night when we were doing the AV towering event, I *SO* wanted to IM my whole friends list, or groups and say PLEASE HELP US BEAT THE RECORD, but, that is still spam, so therefore I didn't.

Its not hard to use groups properly, hell I wish I could have more, I was even considering joining live help, but i'd be totally useless .

I'm not quite sure what this ramble was about but I enjoyed it!

Yep. I prolly offended some people when I dumped ALL of my 'VIP' groups. I even left BTMs because of the IM spam. I'm down to something like give groups, most of them my own.

I'll assume those two worlds are Second Life and the rest of the Internet. I can't speak for Second Life, but I know on the rest of the 'Net such forms of etiquette are usually coded into the interface -- code is etiquette.

Take Yahoo!Groups, I can be on a hundred lists, but I have the option of not recieving a single email. I'm not bugged by mail I don't feel like reading, yet I have access to the archives, files, etc. Certainly there are trade-offs. I miss files attached to emails, but like life: I have to strike the balance I'm comfortable with. If I check my box everyday, weed through those hundreds of emails, then I can catch the attached files I like. If I don't, then the mail starts hitting my spam filter, my messages start bouncing, and I miss the files again. Yahoo! codes for maximum options, but expects a certain amount of user responsibility.

Maybe I'm missing your point -- and I'll assume if I am, you'll laugh at me like usual -- but you seem to be asking if we can codify good sense. The answer to that, which I thought you would know, is N.O. -- no. There's no way to put together a F.A.Q. for this kind of thing, because that assumes people will know where to find the F.A.Q. in the first place.

The only way to combat ignorance is with incentive. Look at a lot of MMOG's out there. They don't have simple interfaces, they cost more than SL does, but people stick around and figure it out because the reward for doing so (being able to play with friends, fighting as an elf, or staring at a superheroine's spandex covered butt) is an incentive. Maybe I'm jaded to the SL exerience, but I don't see any incentive for people to hang around long enough learn how IM's, groups, etc. work -- especially people who dump a couple of grand into SL, buy land expecting to double their investment for just being here, and then cash out a week or so later. You might as well try talking to a Nigerian Prince about the latest episode of Stargate and expect him to respect spoiler warnings.

Again, the entire line of thought here -- and not really you, Khamon, but your reasoning -- is backwards. Utterly and completely backwards. You're looking for a set of top-down rules of etiquette, when the truth is that etiquette (like any set of social rules) is evolved from the bottom up. I don't mean to ostracize any group by citing them as an example, but I'm going to... Look at the Furs.

The Furs are probably the most entrenched, well behaved, polite, and accepting group of beings in Second Life. They did not get this way because they play Second Life. They've had years on IRC, in MUCK's, on mailing lists, and at conventions to sort out their rules of etiquette. What SL offers them is just a better tool for interaction, it doesn't (it shouldn't) offer them a codified sense of community.

So, to answer your question, no. If there was enough of a grassroots to establish rules, the grassroots would have established them. You could ask Cory about this, I assume he'll be at E-Tech next month, and maybe he could pass on your question to Clay Shirky. He knows more about this stuff than I could ever pretend to know.

That's just so funny I forgot to laugh.

I didn't mean to publish a set of stone rules; but to safely consider that everyone would teach the same things synthettical norms, by example more than instruction.

This is an interesting point, I think. Actually I think that I have to think about this some more before commenting

My question is actually asking whether those bottom up norms have sufficiently gelled for us to assume that there are expected behaviours and considerations, especially ones that are different from those we use in reality, ones we model already without realizing it such as IMing a dozen people on the side while supposedly having an intimate conversation. That's considered normal inworld right?

Thank you for reasoning through my post enough to answer my question.

Well I ask avatars 1o1 if they are interested in my groups. If they say no I figure there are only 2 reasons. 1) A group they aqre in does not agree with them joining a group similar to them, or 2) They are not interested with my group ideas.

I hold no grudges because unlike most ppl I believe in freewill. Else I would not choose to be a god in sl. My only rule is do wat thou wilt.