Fight 25 Groups As Max Limit

I could really use a 100-group limit, mostly because of the restrictions that LL has placed on group roles and parcel permissions controls.

I have to join groups constantly for my clients, so I can terraform or build on their land.

I have other groups that I have to be part of to manage my own property and that of my clients.

Every mall I rent space in has its own group that I must join, to be a merchant there.

The store that I sell my textures in has THREE groups that I have to be part of!

As a registered SL developer, belonging to the SLDEV group is mandatory...

I am ALWAYS having to drop one group in favor of another, so I can work somewhere else. I have to use a couple of my alts for the strictly 'voluntary' groups that I want to keep track of, like groups for other merchants to be notified of product updates or new product releases.

As it stands, if I get many more client groups that I must join, I'll have to do it as one of my alts...

Run one business, then two, then three... then try and manage on 25 groups when you need to place vendors in malls, have fan clubs, vip groups, update groups etc...

I am all for more than 25 groups though I am not sure if 50 or 100 should be the limit, 100 sounds a little heavy on server load.. but surely something could be done so that some groups could be set to "inactive" where they do not impact on server load and only need to be activated when required to rez items in stores etc...

I was all for getting rid of the limit, citing the zero-one-infinity rule, but your post has convinced me that it's a good thing. Down with infinite groups!

Would be nice to have some groups without all the fluff... Update groups, etc don't need a lot of roles, don't need voting, don't need for non managers the ability to post notices, don't need land info, don't need a lot of the abilities...


Why not have a set of "lite groups" to use for that? 3 levels (sound like old times?) - Owner, Officer, Member..

LL... think "Update Groups" or "Mall Merchants" and imagine what limited things they would need.

Lets Yell Some More, Maybe More People Can Hear Me If I Turn My Caps Lock On!

Hello?!?

[edit]
Oddly, this message was typed in all caps. Curious.
Maybe it has to do with the multiplicitive commas.

I work as an assistant manager at a club, and as a result, my groups list is mostly full of groups I need for work to post notices to, which includes my work's group, music fan groups, and also the DJs who work with me, plus because contacts I've made have been through said DJs, I've also got new friends who are DJs with groups that I am in, plus a friends club, a singer's group from said club etc etc.

So I'm always having to find groups to delete to make room for new ones. I have about 2 groups that are clothes stores, and I like to keep upto date with them, but soon I'll have to delete those too to make room for some more work related groups.

25 might be enough for other people, but for me it's needs to be doubled atleast"

It seems to me that groups are used for a couple of distinct purposes, the main ones being:

- Allowing to manage/control ownership and permissions on land;

- Having means to broadcast messages to an indefinite number of people with similar interests;

- A nifty way to wear tags over the head thus demonstrating a particular sense of belonging to a certain community;

- etc.

Would it be too too far off to think about introducing new concepts to accomplish these different purposes?

E.g. having some sort of broadcasting channels without the overhead of maintaining group roles, ownerships, permissions etc. solely for the purpose of allowing communication between community members?

And having some tagging feature allowing to create some title to be worn?

A lot of groups are used for purposes which simply don't require all the overhead currently imposed on groups. If new "light-weight groups" for those other purposes were introduced it would lift the burden off the whole group system and groups can be more accurately used for their originally intended purpose which is to be seen in controlling land-related permissions and options. Perhaps this would allow the Lindens to increase the group limit which currently is a *real* restriction for landlords, mall managers and other kind of business people.

As more and more of my groups get used up by administrative tasks for myself and my friends less and less are available for keeping up with things I'm interested in. The longer I'm in SL the more I have of both of these. When I had only been a resident for 6 months I thought I would never use 25. Now as I approach the 2 year mark I could easily use twice that. Why the artificial limit anyway? People who get too much junk from groups drop out of those groups anyway. We can handle thousands of inventory items but we can only manage 25 groups?

It's not an artificial limit - the group searches and data takes up more server processes than any other kind of browsing and search on sl. I'd like it if they -lowered- the group limit, as it would decrease lag a bit.

Increasing the limit will only cause more lag, more tp issues, as the servers are busier with group rattle than now.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/01/robin-linden-on.html

It would possibly help to do as was suggested earlier -- have a couple of different group "types." Perhaps separate Chat/notice groups and land/build groups.

That could work.. or having classes on managing groups, organizing them so that people know how to combine roles. Instead of 5 groups for one club.. it can all be in 1 with 5 roles.

Also a solution to merchants would be.. sell throguh an alt. All business groups on the alt, your own 'company' group and fun groups on your main. Or just don't sell in 16 malls and use that rent money to buy a plot of land...

I have trouble with the 25 groups limit too.

My group limit is very full. and how the culture of SL deals with the importance of everyone needing a group and seeing it as important for every place you visit makes it worse.

In general groups fall into five categories

1. GROUPS YOU JOIN AND WANT TO BELONG TO: Generally these are groups of people you find fun, supportive, or feel you have something in common with. Technically we could even push this category further into FUN GROUPS and SUPPORT GROUPS.

2. STORE GROUPS: Some stores want you to join their groups for updates and info. Others just sort of randomly give you a group by default on buying stuff. stores just giving out groups randomly is where part of the groups problem starts.

3. CLUB GROUPS: Here is where the problem really starts getting out of hand, and part of why I rarely go to dance clubs in SL much anymore. I used to frequent SL dance clubs alot and many of my friends were club owners. But the attitude of clubs towards group membership is a large part of where the trouble comes in. Clubs often take group membership VERY seriously. I have seen many clubs demand that members accept and wear their tag. I have seen clubs get hostile to people who wear tags from competing clubs, I have seen club owners take people removing themselves from that clubs group very seriously, even taking it as an insult to their friendship at times. To make it woprse club owners use their groups to spam every event and update multiple times a day. This attitude of clubs that can be summed up in a very exaggerated way (exaggerated as not every club does all of these) of "to be a part of our club you must be in our group, and not wear the group tags of another club, and if you leave the group it is an insult to the club owner personally, we will use this membership to spam you events endlessly" is a large contributer to the group problem. I'd drop all my dance club groups it I could, but i have way too many friends who have dance clubs to risk that.

4. LAND GROUPS: Some communities are gated or restricted to prevent vandals, harassment, and sabotage (I have one or two friends whose land owners restricted visiting their house to group members to prevent vandals and griefers). to go their to visit your friends you must be in their group. Others you need to be in a group to hear announcement from people you rent land from, or are seeking to rent land from. If your looking for alot of land, or have a few friends in different gated lands, things get tough.

5. MAKERS/CUSTOMIZERS: If your ever looking for anything custom in SL you sometimes have to join groups to get the makers updates and info.

i agree, we DO need more groups in SL. Though admittedly if you could change dance clubs and stores attitudes towards group membership and change how land entry permission works it'd help alot. Clubs are by far among the worst offenders for pointlessly demanding membership to visitors. And if you used to visit 6 or 8 clubs regularly, it gets really bad fast.

The tell your friends why you are dropping the group. Unless they can be changed over to another format for queries, adding more groups does -not- justify impacting its already wobbly performance for everyone, when those who cannot manage groups are the only ones who need more, really.

yea I was wondering about the server resources more groups would take up..i mean heck..why not just make it unlimited?..right?..well some idiot out there would make it their SL dream to be a member of every group that ever existed....IN TIME!

It's like this..there are a few groups I'm a member of..strictly for the tag...nothing else..maybe a little bit of networking involved too..but i hate giving those up..cause they were started by me.(theres really only one )

I have one group I joined and I rely heavily on that groups updating to feed my shopping addiction. Its my favorite clothing vendor to date(if that changes i'll leave that group)

However..I think it would be nice if LL put restrictions on group notices...a fee to the group founder or owner( for each notice sent out to be compounded and added to the next fee within an SL day)..or maybe even limitations on how many times a group notice can be sent out(in an SL day). Oddly enough there are people out there who fancy themselves as third world group leaders who like to have chats with their minions "hourly". I leave groups quickly when this happens.

Some people simply dont realise they're "obnoxious". I don't want to know every hour on the hour if DJ bla bla bla is really rocking the joint...If I'm not there..it's cause i can't or don't want to be...after i've clicked ok or decline attachment for that 30th identical landmark..in the course of a couple of days I really start to wonder if that group is "worth" my attentions.

Also you can turn off "receive group notices" in group info tab. (It's very useful)((Might be better to give us the ability to determine how many group notices we can receive within an SL day))

That said.....yea..I feel for the person who needs to join a group for a contract or work related matter and thusly has to sacrifice a friends group or social group to make space.
(I've been there)

There must be a happy medium.

~Lana Tomba

If the SL infrastructure is such that increasing the group limit would seriously impact performance across the grid, the infrastructure needs to change. In other words, I don't see technical limits as an excuse. It's an important function that a lot of SL business people require- and these are the folks who make SL a compelling place for the rest of the population to visit. I quit groups every couple of weeks due to the limit and I'm not even the one who lists our products in malls.

And to the person who said, "Actually I have never heard anyone say they had to delete a group in order to join another because of the group limit. lol." Well, you have now.

You know how much I've always called their grid stable Wilde

Simply not true as you may have noticed when reading this discussion carefully.

OTOH, it turns out that it doesn't seem trivial to increase the number of groups as there are obviously side effects caused by technical constraints how groups are currently implemented.

It boils down to following two main points:

1. There *is* a vital interest from the community to increase the number of groups.

2. Nobody wants to increase lag.

The only solution to this dilemma is obviously -- as already said -- to change the infrastructure of the current group implementation as simply increasing the present limit of 25 groups won't work out.

A possible solution will require to carefully analyze how groups are used today and to find alternatives to implement certain tasks differently (e.g. using groups as a way to only broadcast messages is real overhead and could be solved differently).