OH! I forgot to add probably the most important one... CATEGORIES! A site with more than a couple of dozen groups becomes ridiculous to navigate without the groups in categories!

Look... I go to another OSSN site about every 2 days that has over 100 groups... EVERY one of them is DEAD! Not because they are bad topics, or something wrong with them, but because the people who started the groups have NO WAY to get the word out to people, and when they do join they lose interest only because they don't know when there is new posts... this is just plain and simple facts. The OSSN groups in the current state SUCK.

I also frequent many other social networks on a variety of different software platforms, and EVERY ONE of them has groups that have the features I mention.... categories, notifications, and sharing with a tag that shows what group it came from. EVERY ONE! That is STANDARD features... not advanced, not extra, STANDARD, and what users expect, and are used to. Why is OSSN so special that users should bend over backwards and do things differently than they do everywhere else?

Those sites, that have the features, have have varying degrees of activity in the groups based on whether the group topic sucks, or the owner sucks, or not... they aren't doomed from the start even if they are good because the software feature sucks.

Why is there such resistance every time this is brought up??? WHY? I really want to know! Does not OSSN want to be AT LEAST as good as the competitors, and give social media users what they want? Are the developers capable of putting these simple features that everybody else sees as standard, or not? It must not be THAT hard if EVERY other damn social networking software can do it as STANDARD, for crying out loud!

Sorry if it sounds rude, but... well... I find it rude to have the thought of having what others see as basic just being tossed aside as trivial. Very rude, and counter productive to the thought of OSSN being used by the "serious" webmaster.

As much as there are things to love about OSSN, and some things I DO LOVE, this is DEFINITELY not one of them!

Phil

Honestly... I get complaints about the group funtionality CONSTANTLY! It is causing a loss in user retention. The poor quality of the groups is a hindrance. It's about what the USERS like... not the admin... after all, they're the ones that use the system, and use the items that generate revenue.

I 100% disagree. That is not the way people do social media these days. Everything is done fast, and on the fly. If they don't receive notifications, they're not going to go into every single group to check. look... I belong to OVER 150 facebook groups. Some get 100+ posts a day, some 1 or 2 a week. I am NOT going to check each group every time I'm on facebook. Why stay in a low traffic group? Some of them are for very spicific niche items that only get updated occasionally.

I stand by what I say, and by what user practices are in social media today... groups without AT LEAST the two items I stated above are USELESS. If you can't promote them they don't exist!

Why hide them??? Would you put the light switch for your bathroom in a dresser drawer in your bedroom?

Regards,

Phil

When users join a group, they like and post for one day... then with lack of ANY kind of notification there are new posts they never come back again.

Honestly, I simply would forget about these people. They don't seem to be interested - so what? Staying involved and active is mainly a part of someones own personality and thinking - it needs no 3rd party pushing. And if it really needs notifications and reminders to keep a group alive, then there's something wrong from the very beginning.