- Shishka
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Posted by: stosh
A core of what? Core of fabulous content? How can you have content when you don't have features? The Seventh Column is weak right now because all the group communties look the same and provide the same sort of content. Why? Because we only have a couple useful features and maybe two or three usable themes. Features, ranks and gimmicks all help make groups different and worth visiting.
You say that as though the ratio of "failed" groups to "successful" wasn't 10,000:1 in the old column as well.
Giving groups calanders and polls will not magically make successful groups. The groups that are successful would have been successful back then, as well. Take off the rose colored glasses for a sec, stoshy, 'n hear me out.
Everybody has the same features that everyone else has. Just like in the old column, there's nothing one group can do, site-wise, that another group cannot. This has not changed. Polls and calanders are not what makes a group unique.
What makes a group work is the people in it. When I say a "core," I mean a core group of people with similar interests, and a solid base for discussion.
Features do not create this. A calander system doesn't improve the quality of life in a group that discusses Halo story theories. Usage stats do not make the quality of discussion in a group better.
Too many people approach making a group as one might approach building a theme park. They pick from a hundred different successful (or less than successful) ideas that they see in other forums, start a group with a bunch of these features listed, and then wonder why their "Say x in reply to the thread above you," or why people aren't role playing as grunts, or why their forum game only lasted for three posts.
Nevermind the fact that they've only got three or five people in their group, and those people only joined because they join every group they see.
The founders get so caught up in creating features and amusements for people (or whining about not being able to create particular features and amusements for people), that they all too often forget the most important part of a group: The people! The majority of people are so busy thinking about how the group they founded is going to be so successful because of all these elements they've taken from other groups that they don't stop to realize that that in order for the group to be successful, they need a group first.
Promises of features that every other group has only brings in momentary attention. "Yay, I joined this group, now I've got a ranking that's higher than my ranking in five other groups, but lower than my ranking in ten other groups." If there's nothing to do in a group but sit and say the same things you say in a hundred other groups, you're going to lose interest and forget about that group. More features won't change this; it just means there's more monotony amongst the groups.