Many people think that a healthy group is a lot of members or perhaps a healthy group requires a lot of posts. And some people believe both are needed. But are they?
The website http://bestdiscussiongroups.com takes the above perspective and lists groups according to the bald statistics of number of members. It also limits its focus on groups that are actively moderated. This to me is a useful filter since generally unmoderated groups may be simply saturated with spammers or so-called “business opportunities.”
This brings me onto testhoopla, which is a web service that provides a paid service to analysing what it thinks are the best groups. Sadly (imo) it seems to deem advertising groups as high-value groups. Even if the ones it lists are not populated by spammers they, to me are very far from the best groups.
Understanding testhoopla’s strategy is quite useful, and I would certainly recommend anyone interested in group traffic analysis to learn from them, their good points and their mistakes. On the good side their statistical theory seems comprehensively thought through and reasonably well documented. On the bad side they have created a self-fulfilling prophesy. That is they groups they think are good will in turn be good (by their definition).
What I mean by this is the kind of customers they seem to want are people who want to know where to advertise business opportunities, and lo-and-behold their top 10 groups just happen to be this kind of group.
So, it is all very well to criticise, but what is really good about a group. Yes it is membership, yes it is a suitable number of posts. But too many members means that many people end up being lurkers.
Lurkers are people who remain members but take no active part in the group. Actually there are sub-groups of lurkers. There are those who truly are just members and otherwise have nothing to do with the group. Other lurkers may actually read some or all posts, but simply choose not to post. Others may actively monitor the group for certain kind of messages.
Even if you are an active poster in a given group that does not mean that you positively contribute to the group. Some active posters simply flame the group or its individuals. And depending on the level of active moderation and skill of moderators such flaming activity might go on for months. I have seen otherwise healthy groups brought to their knees by such activity.
So a healthy group for me is neither full of lurkers, nor is it subject to serious flaming wars or floods of spam. Also a good group is not dead.
Deadness is another aspect of group life that is not all it seems. Group life goes through cycles. That is periods of heavy activity and periods of quiescence. Post-hurricane last year various groups were set up and ran effectively to support Katrina response. Obviously that Hurricane is no more and so those groups are quiet. Yet through that event various bondings occurred which may recur in future events.
And that to me is what good group activity is about. It is more than the success of a particular group it is about society being supportive of some campaign or initiative. It is a multitude of places where people can gather in large and small groups and discuss and hopefully inch forward the debate, finding common ground, agreeing to disagree.
What is a good group is a very nebulous thing. Yes there are bald mathematical stats that can help. But like with a “normal” website just getting traffic does not mean the website is good. What matters in general is getting people there who appreciate what is going on and are prepared to stop by and contribute. What matters to each person is to be able to effectively and efficiently participate in whichever way is possible, given personal time constraints. What matters to group owners and moderators is keeping the group on an even keel and keeping it reasonably true to its roots but also allowing subtle changes of agenda over time.
