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How to Create New Groups

dougw

This forum has about 358 groups or areas to explore, which is a lot. However there are a few other groups I think might increase site content and readership:

  • Repair (& troubleshooting) - many members repair things and there is a lot of skill, knowledge, equipment, tools, technology and components involved in the process. These activities are a nice addition to the content on the forum when they result in a blog. If a group (dedicated place to blog) was created for this activity it would allow better recognition of the effort and more incentive to publish these activities. There could even be a token award for the best repair blog annually.
  • Teardown I don't know how much activity there is in this area, but it isn't concentrated in a group to find out. This one probably need some incentive to get members to spend effort tearing things apart, but it would be another area to bolster content and readership activity.
  • Hacks There seems to be quite a bit of interest in hacks and hacking, but there isn't formally an area to publish and discuss hacks.

 

I don't do much with groups myself, beyond looking for the best place to publish something, because I look at almost all content.

However they could provide an opportunity to encourage participation or recognize outstanding content of a particular type.

  1. Are there other good reasons to create groups?
  2. Do you find it useful to subscribe to areas of interest?
  3. Do you find it hard to figure out the best place to publish content?
  4. Do groups need to also be organized by bigger categories or is alphabetical all that is needed for all 358 groups?

  • 1.Are there other good reasons to create groups?

    I don't think you can create groups, although the FAQ still suggests you can - it must have been possible once upon a time. Earlier this year I asked about where to publish analog design stuff and Michael had the idea of an 'Analog Design' group. He had a go at creating it but found that he couldn't. We were then steered to an existing group which someone had created quickly, with a misspelled URL. I managed to get the original name changed (to 'ANALOG DESIGN', which was close) but the URL remained as it was. I gave up at that point, demotivated and wondering why I was bothering to blog here [though I still seem to be blogging, for all that].

     

    So I imagine you'll just be given whatever is deemed the closest existing group.

     

    2.Do you find it useful to subscribe to areas of interest?

    I don't even know what that entails or means. Is there some benefit to being a 'subscriber' and what happens if I do?

     

    3.Do you find it hard to figure out the best place to publish content?

    Yes. I've recently been experimenting with putting stuff in groups. That's to see if they get more views and comments than in my personal blog. The recent capacitor ones I put in 'Passive Components'. I did wonder if I should have been publishing those in amongst what probably ought to be professional material. The MOSFET one I've just done I put in 'Power & Energy' - I wasn't very sure about that one at all, but there were some old discussions about MOSFETs there and an old 'help me with my problem' problem, so it didn't seem like too bad a place for it. Not sure where I'd put transistor blogs or op amp ones.

     

    4.Do groups need to also be organized by bigger categories or is alphabetical all that is needed for all 358 groups?

    I'm not sure you could organise them. Where do you place a 'Scotland' group in relation to all the rest? [Nothing against Scots engineers having a place to talk, just using it as an example of something that's difficult to classify in relation to a large mass of groups that predominantly aren't related to geography in any way.]

     

    Like David, I do think they ought to get rid of the 'nav_discuss' tag that limits the ones you see on the list.

  • in reply to cstanton

    If I select "Discuss / More >"  from the menu I get this. Clicking "Clear" removes the tag and shows more groups.

    image

  • in reply to Fred27

    Could I have a screenshot of where you're seeing that?

  • in reply to dougw

    The search seems to default to only showing groups with the tag nav_discuss. No idea why. Once you clear this more groups show up.

  • in reply to Fred27

    Thanks for the link. When I scrolled through the list of 358 alphabetically, that group was not there. Now it is. Maybe I was in some context sensitive list, or maybe I just missed it.

  • Like you, I don't use groups much except to put something in what seems to be the appropriate place and I have at least a quick look at most content.  For the most part I put things that are not e14 event related in my blog with tags at the bottom to make them searchable.  To be honest, I have not explored the groups that much but use searches for topics that are of immediate interest.

  • There already is a Maker, Hacker, Inventor and Hobbyist group, although I must admit I didn't know it existed until posted in it and it popped up in the recent content list.