Group: Group Guidelines

In the first phase of our joint work, let's collect the problems without debating them or proposing possible solutions. There will be time for that later (see: Procedure Proposal).

The question is:
"What problems do you have as administrators or members with regard to groups?"

(Put it in your own words, preferably in the first person.)

Example: "I am not very enthusiastic when the administration of a group that I have not applied for falls to me. I am not motivated to be forced to take care of something. I find the officially offered solution that I could leave the group immediately in such a case and join again unsatisfactory. Likewise, I'm just passing the buck and possibly frustrating someone else."

You are invited to unload everything here without anything being censored or scrutinized.



The emoij symbolizes that a stated topic has been taken up and is listed here:

The phrasing in this list is not a literal quotation. Sometimes the information has been reworded or shortened to make it easier to understand.)

1. The current arrangement of automatically replacing a departing administrator with the group member with the longest group membership is annoying and demotivating. (Bergfex)

2. The use of another member's image normally requires the creator's consent. (Steve Paxton) If the creator is unreachable, does the same rule apply as for homepage images? There we find: "<The use of this edited picture for the purpose of presenting and promoting our association is in accordance with the Terms of Use, Article 5.10"

3. There are frequently members who are bothered by the maximum number of posts per time unit set by the administrators. Generally guiding standards that are objectively justified would be useful here. Administrators could follow them and would only have to justify justified exceptions. (HeidiHo)

4. It is not in keeping with the times to exclude images produced with AI support from general groups. (Luis Miguel)

5. It is perceived as unpleasant when rules are unexpectedly changed by 'ordre di mufti' without discussion with the group members. (Luis Miguel)

6. Most of the groups at ipernity are abandoned. They are nothing else but shared folders to dump as many images as people like to. Not much different than to view through some search results or keywords. (Sami Serola)

7. If the number of uploads is not limited, group anarchy can take place, with saboteurs bombarding the groups with an extremely high number of posts. (Sami Serola)

8. People have used to ignore group rules and discussions unless they are forced to realize that something is going on. (Sami Serola)

9. At least when we hopefully get enough money to reprogram ipernity, we then should reconsider the whole group thing. It is most certainly not easy to please everyone. Or let's acknowledge it, it is impossible to please everyone. But we can at least try to. (Sami Serola)

10. We just want to have fun here. Sometimes too much is simply talked up in discussions - that's a shame. (Percy Schramm)

11. It's very unpleasant to be banned from a group without being warned in advance and being heard about the reasons. (Damir)

12. Groups are often poorly described. The lack of comprehensibility reduces the motivation to read or pay attention to the description. (Ingo Krehl)

13. It is often difficult to find an admin successor. In this respect, it is understandable if most people choose the easier way of quiet quitting. (Steve Paxton)

14. Disputatious members can make it very difficult for admins to fulfil their duties. This kind of trouble is simply too much for some volunteers. (Herb Riddle)

15. Fun groups often taken too seriously. (uwschu)

16. Deleting a post without prior notification can be perceived as a punishment. (uwschu)

17. The excluding of images that are not photos (DigiArt, painting, graphics, etc.) from a group that aims to communicate club-wide could be a violation of the principle of equal treatment of club members (Bergfex)

18. It would be a pitty to exclude artworks, etc. from HFF, one of the most popular groups of ipernity. (Gillian Everett)

19. There does not seem to be a standardised procedure for setting limits in public groups. (Be◉bachter)

20. We should avoid creating duplicates for each group that deals with a specific photo content. This would lead to an extreme fragmentation of the group landscape with many groups in which there is hardly anything going on. (Guido Werner, RCW.)

21. No members should be excluded from fun groups (such as HFF). (Guido Werner)

22. There are groups that have a subject-related title but are actually about club-wide communication and social interaction. Nobody should be excluded from this. (Boarischa Krautmo)

23. The translations of the French title "Charte des groupes" into other languages ( "Richtlinien, Guidelines, Directivas, Direttive, Richtlijnen, Guia) are misleading. They should be corrected. (Bergfex)

24. There are numerous groups where the admins do not monitor compliance with the rules. (Bergfex, *ઇઉ*)

25. Descriptions and rules that must be accepted before joining are often only formally accepted in practice. (*ઇઉ*)

26. There is a lack of clear communication channels for administrators and moderators to avoid misunderstandings. (*ઇઉ*)

27. Administrators who have created groups appear to have a higher rank - and therefore different rights - than administrators who have been tasked by the IMA team with managing orphaned groups. (*ઇઉ*)

28. The group guidelines have so far been formulated in the imperative. A form of language that we are used to from public authorities. This contributes to the perception of a gap between those who "determine" something (ima team ?) and those who have to observe something. That's not so good. (Bergfex)

29. It is annoying if the group title is preceded by any special characters. This makes the alphabetical search more difficult. (aNNa schramm, Ulrich John, José Manuel Polo, Bergfex)

30. If someone wants to set up a new group, they should only be allowed to do so if there is no existing group for the topic. (José Manuel Polo)

31. The current chaos in the groups should be eliminated and they should be organised according to uniform and efficient criteria that have been agreed beforehand. (José Manuel Polo)

32. Anyone who takes over a well-functioning but orphaned group should not be allowed to arbitrarily change the rules. (Max Biobauer)

33. There is no "guideline" on when to open a public group as "generally accessible" or when to choose the "by invitation only" option. (Bergfex)

34. The Group Busters initiative launched two years ago has not been well received. Perhaps the processes are too bureaucratic. (Bergfex)

35. A lightbox view of the group posts is missing. (MJ Maccardini)

36. Neglected groups are an old basic evil of ipernity. (Eberhard Fritsche, *ઇઉ*)

37. Setting the following option in the group settings: "Yes, I want to systematically review all the contributions" leads to huge backlogs when the admin is not diligent. (Bergfex, Malik Raoulda)

38. Description of the group rules in only one language, not in all 7 provided ones. (Bergfex)

39. Very large groups on global topics can also be unattractive to visitors and cast a bad light on our community. (Bergfex)

40. A multi-year search for an admin ("admin wanted") is embarrassing for our community. (Bergfex)

41. More than a dozen "best of" groups are also embarrassing for our community. (*ઇઉ*)


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(in progress)