Inactive groups archived

I've gone ahead and archived groups that haven't received a post in two years. Archived groups can be viewed, but can't be added to.

We discussed this five years ago (https://www.librarything.com/topic/325036). At that time "archived" was for groups that hadn't had a post in a year. We went round and round a bit on it, with me eventually removing the "archived" status. (In 2020 we also discussed combining groups; I haven't done any of that.)

My argument is simple: LibraryThing has a lot of "zombie groups." As I put it back in 2020:

"There is a loss here. I'm sad to see certain groups go. Even if it's been dead for years, I liked having the Alexander the Great group on my profile. And if I posted to it, maybe it would find its way to someone interested in the topic. But the overall effect of so many groups has been to add dead weight to the social experience. We need to prune to let the plant grow, as it were."

These zombie groups are a drag on growth. Members think they're in ten groups, and don't go looking for others, but they're really in 2. They also turn off admins who might kick-start a group. Groups are all about active, excited members, especially the admin—see the recent Poetry Collective group (https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24862/The-Poetry-Collective) for an example. With zombie groups, however, the admin is often no longer active, or no longer interested in the group. So exited people have an idea, search, see that there is already an X group, and get discouraged. Finally, a lot of now-archived groups are essentially duplicates. See "Cookbook Collectors" https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/1369/Cookbook-Collectors, which is dead, versus Cookbookers https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/175/Cookbookers, which is alive.

Health of Talk. In the previous thread, it was expressed that LibraryThing had declining social activity. This was and is false. 2024 had more posts than 2023, 2023 than 2022, 2022 than 2021, etc. 2025 isn't done yet, but September 2025 had more than September 2024, September 2024 than 2023, September 2023 than 2022, etc. When you go by members reading posts these numbers are really stark. September 2025 had only 6% more users posting than September 2024, but 22% more members reading Talk, and 51% more topics read! Critically, as Talk has risen, it's done so on fewer groups. This goes to my general feeling—fewer, more active groups is better than many, less active ones.

Reviving Groups Will we revive groups? My feeling is: No. It's going to be much better for a member who's excited about talking about something to create a new group, and post about it on Book Talk. New things draw new, excited people. If you disagree, create a new group and let's see how it goes.

Feature. I'm going some notifications around groups--telling you of archived ones. I might be willing to allow groups to mark that they are successors of another group, so that can be part of the process too. But think the key change will be giving people suggestions of groups to join—groups that are on the upswing, not zombie groups.

I'm open to suggestions, but I don't see reversing myself on this. We need to prune to grow.

>1 timspalding: Okay. I'd rather see a dormant group revived than have a new one that will probably die too, but I understand your position.

What I'd really like to see is the TOS prohibition on "the creation of multiple, duplicative and contentless groups" enforced. It looks like most of the groups created today violate this rule.

>1 timspalding:

Without disagreeing with the conclusion, I have to wonder if people are actually sitting there counting groups they are in and saying, "Oh, I'm only in 23; I need to make it to 24!"

The one thing I might suggest for zombie groups is a way to petition to re-activate them, as opposed to having to start a new group.

And, of course, the perennial suggestion: We need more ways to find people to talk to. If I knew I could find people to talk about pre-1534 printings of Robin Hood romances, or Arrow's Voting Theorem, or William Elderton's career as a broadside writer, or the false rhymes in Henryson's "The Bludy Serk" and whether it has anything to do with "waving the bloody shirt," I might be more likely to join or create a group. :-)

>2 amanda4242:

There remains a "dormant" status--groups are dormant at 9 months. I change the display somewhat so they aren't singled out as much as dormant in the UI. Archived groups, however are now set aside and sorted to the bottom more. I'm still tweaking thing.

What I'd really like to see is the TOS prohibition on "the creation of multiple, duplicative and contentless groups" enforced. It looks like most of the groups created today violate this rule.

Thanks. I'll ask Abigail to look at it.

>3 waltzmn: The one thing I might suggest for zombie groups is a way to petition to re-activate them, as opposed to having to start a new group.

There is a way to reactivate them: Make a new one. A new group is a blank slate. People are drawn to something new. A revived group is a turgid thing. That's my feeling and I'm sticking to it! :)

And, of course, the perennial suggestion: We need more ways to find people to talk to. If I knew I could find people to talk about pre-1534 printings of Robin Hood romances, or Arrow's Voting Theorem, or William Elderton's career as a broadside writer, or the false rhymes in Henryson's "The Bludy Serk" and whether it has anything to do with "waving the bloody shirt," I might be more likely to join or create a group. :-)

Suggestions appreciated. You can certainly find such people in many ways on LT—just look who has books of interest to you—but perhaps it's not inviting enough?

I'm wondering if this might be a case for some AI/stats. We could look at active members and their collections, and then suggest groups that could be started?

One issue is that many members—most, depending on circumstance—are not very social. It creates a barrier. I can find people interested in, say, Hellensitic History, but will they want to talk to me? A tricky problem.

Funny you should do this now since I recently went through all the groups I was watching or a member of and culled heavily. Talk is now more pleasant with topics I don't care about not appearing (interests changed). I still only post in basically one though. Just too much else going on to spend as much time here as I used to.

>1 timspalding: Please don't take away my Cheese group. ;o)
(Just checked and we will squeak under the wire.)

>8 timspalding:

Scrape the mold off!

Eh, this kinda stinks for me. I wanted to post two threads to the Pynchon Pandæmonium group, because of the current film One Battle After Another based on Vineland, and the new novel Shadow Ticket.

How is it better for me to start a new group than to post to the old one with 202 members? How is my new group supposed to rise to the attention of any of those people in a timely manner?

>8 timspalding: Always!

>5 timspalding: People are drawn to something new.

Yes, but for how long? If a group on a topic has already died once, what are the odds of a new one thriving?

On a related note, how many of the dormant and archived groups have admins who are no longer active on LT? Opening admin applications might help revive groups with inactive admins.

>9 paradoxosalpha: How is it better for me to start a new group than to post to the old one with 202 members? How is my new group supposed to rise to the attention of any of those people in a timely manner?

This!

I really dislike this.

Take https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/415/Elizabethan-England for example which has 199 members. If someone wants to talk about the period, how is starting a new group helpful when the people who would be interested in the topic won't even see it? If you post in the group, I (and probably a lot of the other regulars) will see the post and may decide to engage. You start a new group? I don't look at new groups or at "All Posts" so I won't see it and that's probably true for a lot of the people who had been here long enough for their group lists to mature.

Yes, I know, I can post thus keeping this one alive. But that's not the point. And posting just to make sure that the almighty algorithm does not zap the group does not help Talk either...

How do I find the archived groups I am (was?) a member of? Or is "archived" a euphemism for "deleted"?

>13 anglemark: They are still in your Groups list https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/yourgroups - but you need to change the Filter from Active to All.

This seems counter to the "book discussions" conversations that have been going on. If I want to talk about a book I just read and there was a discussion topic about it 2 years and 1 day ago and now that group is archived I'm just out of luck? I could take the time to make a new group with a similar name and a new discussion topic for that book and then @ mention everyone who was a part of the original discussion but that is a lot of redundant work.

>9 paradoxosalpha: You have a few choices. First, you could start a new group and announce it in Book talk. If you'd like to message some of the members of the old group who are still active, go ahead. I think that'll do a lot better.

Or, given that the Pynchon group had one topic in 2022 and the one before that was in 2017, maybe you should post in a more general group.

>2 amanda4242: What I'd really like to see is the TOS prohibition on "the creation of multiple, duplicative and contentless groups" enforced

I'm not sure how this could be enforced at all anymore since this change now requires the creation of multiple duplicative groups.

>5 timspalding: There is a way to reactivate them: Make a new one. A new group is a blank slate. People are drawn to something new. A revived group is a turgid thing. That's my feeling and I'm sticking to it! :)

There is a hole in the logic here, and that is that people may need time off. One of my old friends just went into a nursing home. There is hope he will come out -- but it is likely to be a long time. He needs a lot of rehabilitation. And he doesn't have internet there (and, based on what his wife says, he might not be able to use it at present anyway).

I can't point to a group that is "on hiatus" rather than simply dead due to people who are temporarily unable to post, but a group obviously needs critical mass. Lose one person, it goes dead. If that person comes back, it could be revived.

And in the sort of groups I'm interested in, the institutional knowledge may be important.

Suggestions appreciated. You can certainly find such people in many ways on LT—just look who has books of interest to you—but perhaps it's not inviting enough?

Hmph. At present I have 368 items for which I am the only LT person with a copy. Admittedly a lot of those are 78s rather than books, but those 368 items also include some of the most interesting and important books I have. I could cite examples, but I won't try to bore anyone more than they already are. :-) But how am I supposed to find other people based on books where I have the only copy?

Also, remember, introversion. :-) I would much rather put up a want ad that says "Anyone else interested (oh, let's be goofy) in the the rampant Pelagianism in the Harry Potter books than to contact someone who has books on the Pelagian Heresy. From experience, the people who direct message me are often... kooky in a way that isn't my kind of kooky.

I'm wondering if this might be a case for some AI/stats. We could look at active members and their collections, and then suggest groups that could be started?

Worth a try.

One issue is that many members—most, depending on circumstance—are not very social. It creates a barrier. I can find people interested in, say, Hellensitic History, but will they want to talk to me? A tricky problem.

Exactly the problem I referred to above. I don't like the people on LT who are pushy. I want to learn more about them before I start direct messaging.

Take Hellenistic history. Are you team "Ptolemy Physcon should be called Ptolemy VII" or "Ptolemy Physcon should be called Ptolemy VIII"? And team "Ptolemy Auletes played the flute" or "His enemies said Ptolemy Auletes played the flute?" And, "Do you think Antiochus Sidetes was a good or a bad general?" Gotta know these things before wanting to talk more. :-)

(Actually, I have no particular opinions on the first two. But I'm trying to make a point. I find the Hellenistic period interesting -- and irritating, due to the lack of documentation. But just saying "I'm interested in Hellenistic history" isn't enough.)

I understand that archiving is necessary to ensure LT isn’t bogged down by inactive groups. But I agree with those pointing out that a new group is unlikely to be able to grab the attention of old members of similar groups. I do think it’s be better is archived groups could be revived instead of just permanently dead.

On the topic of getting people to finding groups - is it possible to add tags to groups? I’ve always found it difficult to figure out what groups might be of interest to me, and what the “point” of certain groups is - it’s not always clear from the name and going into them all is time-consuming.

And I agree with Amanda about banning the useless groups and duplicates - they’re just spam.

>9 paradoxosalpha: It is very unlikely that most if those 202 members are still active on LT and still interested. The lest time somebody started a new topic (over three years ago), only one member responded. The topic before that was 5 years earlier. I think you are likely to get more response if you start a topic in Book Talk. If it takes off you can start a new group.

I tried once to restart a dying group, posted fairly often, and finally gave up.

Also there have been several spam accounts using really old topics recently. Even in continuing groups, is there really any sense in allowing people to reopen topics from 2008?

>12 AnnieMod: If someone wants to talk about the period, how is starting a new group helpful when the people who would be interested in the topic won't even see it?

Look, nobody had posted to the group since 2023. I very much doubt anyone would have posted this year either. In 2023 three people did--you and two others. You could message them. You could message everyone who's posted in the last five or even ten years easily. You could put the topic in a more general group, acknowledging that there wasn't really a critical mass before, or make a new group--general or specific.

This is the deal: Moribund groups have a cost. They fragment discussion between groups with few active members. They weigh down and clog up LibraryThing's social world. We need to prune to grow.

>19 PawsforThought: And I agree with Amanda about banning the useless groups and duplicates - they’re just spam.

Abigail is going to be working on this. There was a miscommunication about her powers here. She has the power to do it, and will be doing so.

>18 waltzmn: Today I learned about the Pelagian heresy.

>16 timspalding:
You have a few choices. First, you could start a new group and announce it in Book talk. If you'd like to message some of the members of the old group who are still active, go ahead. I think that'll do a lot better.

No. Absolutely not. Do not encourage people to contact loads of other members willy-nilly about a group they’ve just started. That is the road to spamageddon.
I don’t want strangers contacting me I general, and certainly not about getting me to join a group - no matter how interesting it might be. That’s the LT equivalent of being visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses. If someone messages me about joining a group, I’m more likely to block them than join the group.
And posting in Book Talk is only going to get the attention of people in Book Talk - if that. I’m sure the members there will get fed up with posts about new groups fairly quickly. And everyone else won’t hear about it. Not a good strategy.

>18 waltzmn: I agree with every word you said.

>16 timspalding:

To talk about the movie currently on big screens, I have just rescued the dormant Made into a Movie group. I guess I will wait until I have read Shadow Ticket to start a thread about it somewhere. But I still think it's a shame not to be able to interact with the previously self-selected 200-plus members of Pynchon Pandæmonium as such.

Pynchon hasn't had a new novel for 12 years, so it's not surprising that a group dedicated to him has gotten quiet. But right now there's a lot of Pynchonian stuff to Talk about.

>21 timspalding: So you are going to advise new members that it is ok to send a message to someone just because they found their name in a topic somewhere? If that is the case, I think I am turning off my messages...

I am not asking how I can talk about that. I know how to find the people to talk about a topic. A new member (who supposedly is the one you are trying to help here) won't know who to message and the old members won't see the thread. And when they put the thread in a more general group, the people from the group (who may have been useful or at least interested) won't see it.

How exactly is a dead group that noone ever sees a problem at all? They don't fragment anything because there is nothing to fragment. If noone sees them and posts in them, how exactly are they are problem? Because search finds them? If someone is looking for it, then there is interest.

And if the problem is that low-activity (or dead) groups fragment conversations, isn't creating new groups actually making the problem worse?

No. Absolutely not. Do not encourage people to contact loads of other members willy-nilly about a group they’ve just started. That is the road to spamageddon.

It's three people in the last three years, one of them the poster.

>27 timspalding: If you are talking about the most recent Pynchon topic, there are three messages, but 2 and 3 are the same member.

If someone new posts in one of my existing groups about {topic} I will see it and likely interact. If they have to make a new group about the same thing I am not going to see it.

The problem is that people are thinking dead groups aren't dead.

Pynchon Pandæmonium
Founded: July 29, 2006
Members: 202 (counting watches)
Average (mean) date of joining: June 11, 2010

Members in 2025: 0
Members 2020-2025: 13

Members who've logged into the site in the last month: 31
Members who've logged into the site in the last month and read 10 topics in Talk: 7

Compare that with a new group:

The Poetry Collective

Members: 22 (counting watches)
Members who've logged into the site in the last month: 22
Members who've logged into the site in the last month and read 10 topics in Talk: 19

It's my contention that you can get a lot more from a new group, or putting the conversation in a larger group, than trying to revive an old one.

>2 amanda4242: >4 timspalding: I have now deleted a number of groups created today, which seem to have been duplicates. It looks like some kind of social cohort/group of students joined recently. I have messaged the group creators, to draw their attention to our TOS. The groups retained all seem to have messages/activity.

This is not something we've policed before, so if anyone sees a specific group where there might be an issue, please feel free to reach out to me, either by sending me a PM here on the site, or emailing me at info@librarything.com

>22 timspalding:

A site lives or dies based on activity. Posting to dead groups seldom works. If a member found Pynchon Pandæmonium and posted, very few people would have responded. The last time there was a message—in 2022—two people joined in. It looks like it's got 200 members, but it really has 16 at best. It's MUCH better to focus attention on places where other people are paying attention, to get some new members involved than to post to groups with no recent members.

We HAVE to get people talking where people are actually talking. We have to stop pretending that having hundreds of dead groups around has no cost. It absolutely does. It makes the site dead. It leads people to fruitless engagement. It strands topics in groups that simply don't have the critical mass to make conversation work.

>30 timspalding: I don't think it's really fair to compare those two groups. The Poetry Collective is seeing activity because it's shiny and new *and* because it has a creator who is actively starting conversations. Maybe the Pynchon group is too specialized to thrive, or maybe it just needs a new, active admin to revive it.

>33 amanda4242:

maybe it just needs a new, active admin to revive it.

Right. Maybe. But moving admins is a tricky process. It's cumbersome to replace one. People don't want to move. They feel protective about their group.

Maybe the Pynchon group is too specialized to thrive

Sometimes a group can get interest for a period and then it fades out. There's lots of things I'd talk about for a month that I don't want to talk about for years. That's okay. It's okay for groups to come and go, if the end result is more activity and engagement.

But is there a practical reason for making dormant groups unable to post to? Is there a savings of resources to the site?
They remain visible and readable, right?
I really don’t see the logic to this action. Is it just to satisfy Tim’s sense of orderliness?

>34 timspalding: People don't want to move. They feel protective about their group.

Yes, but what about admins who haven't been around in years? If you want Talk to be active, you have to have group admins who are active.

>30 timspalding:

I had put in the wrong group id. Here's the real numbers for the Pynchon Group:

Members who've logged into the site in the last month: 31
Members who've logged into the site in the last month and read 10 topics in Talk: 7

We have to get away from patterns that decrease engagement. Holding onto old, dead groups isn't helping. It's hurting.

>30 timspalding: No one thinks dead groups aren't dead. They just believe it's better to revive them than to start a completely new duplicate group and contact everyone who was in the old group to ask them if they want to join the new group.

If only one person wants to talk about Pynchon, why is it better for them to create a second Pynchon group for them to talk about Pynchon in than to continue talking about Pynchon in the group already established for people to talk about Pynchon?

>32 timspalding: We have to stop pretending that having hundreds of dead groups around has no cost. It absolutely does. It makes the site dead. It leads people to fruitless engagement. It strands topics in groups that simply don't have the critical mass to make conversation work.
This change will create more dead groups. If the Pynchon group is archived and someone wants to talk about Pynchon they have to create a new group to do so. That's one dead group and one alive group. If the second Pynchon group gets archived in 2 years and someone wants to talk about Pynchon then they will have to create a third Pynchon group. Then there are two dead groups and one alive group. Forcing people to create new groups does not equal fewer dead groups, it equals more dead groups.

>36 amanda4242: Yes, but what about admins who haven't been around in years? If you want Talk to be active, you have to have group admins who are active.

Yes, you do. So in theory we could dump people out of admin seats regularly. But you can be SURE that would have members up in arms. And it still would be someone else's baby. People like starting new things a lot better than they like taking over something old and with a history—more so if the old admin is hanging around, unhappy.

Want fresh admins? Archive dead groups that were keeping engagement down and preventing new groups from forming.

>39 timspalding: People like starting new things a lot better than they like taking over something old and with a history.

I don't. And that's the attitude that leads to duplicatave groups that die out.

ETA: And I'm talking about groups where the admin is MIA. The point is they aren't hanging around.

I just looked at my complete groups list, and a few of them have been archived. Is it possible to leave an archived group? All I can see is the option to ignore group, which seems pointless since there's no posting to ignore. Some of them are too specific (Diana Wynne Jones Fans, Edmonton), some I just don't find that LT is the best place for discussion of that topic (Practical Organic Vegetable Growers). I know I don't see them in my Active list, but I feel the need to tidy things up by getting out of them completely.

I totally get Tim's feeling about starting new groups instead of reviving dusty old ones with nothing from recent years.

It feels very off-putting to me, like "well obviously no one is really that interested, may as well not bother".

But also, some of those quiet members just need a good topic at the right time to get chatty.

Maybe there's a way to archive/hide all the threads with no posts in X time, so the group looks fresh and new, with a new admin, etc?

And a dedicated "New Group" thread in Book Talk, if it gets to be too much.

But also a lot of times I get frustrated by seeing "go to XYZ Group" as the first reply when someone posts to Book Talk. It feels too splintered, like maybe there could be a way for threads to live in multiple places?

For example, based on my current reading, I want to talk to people about antique children's books and build my reading list. I'm particularly interested in the ones written for adolescent girls. I could go to a group for Children's Books, or one for Stratemeyer Series, or Tattered But Still Lovely, or general Book Talk. In this case, maybe I want the more general open discussion that Book Talk might bring, with links to relevant Lists. A first reply of "you might get better answers in the 'Nostalgic Children's Book' group" puts a damper on things. But if the thread could be cross-posted, instead...? to show up for all those groups, but only the single thread.

>39 timspalding: I agree with Amanda, I would much much rather become the new admin of an existing group than try to create a new active group out of nothing. Most new groups never get off the ground. The Poetry Collective is an outlier (and also only a month old...who knows if it will keep the momentum going for years)

I suddenly have a thought that doesn't seem to have been expressed here (apologies if I missed it). I am a member of another, hm, specialized database devoted to folk music.

There is a bad tendency there for topics that have been dead for five or ten or even 25 years to be revived in a completely irrelevant way. I hate those. So, in that sense, I agree with @timspalding that truly inactive groups should be archived.

But it should not be done without notice. Ever. That's the big problem here. No one had the slightest warning.

I don't think a group should be shut down without informing the members. Let's say a group has been inactive for 23 months. It may well be time to archive it. So: Send a message to all members of the group saying, "Group 'Numbering the Kings of the Seleucid Dynasty' has had no posts since the kalends of October, 803 A.U.C. If it remains inactive until November 6, 2025, it will be archived."

This will let people decide whether to keep it alive.

This lets the groups that are truly inactive go away, while letting people keep groups in hibernation if need be.

>19 PawsforThought: There are already tags on groups but they are completely useless, which is why most people don't notice them!

The group tags are visible on the groups home page, and I have often used them to find groups I know are in there somewhere.

>44 waltzmn: The lack of warning irks me too. Two years is a generous amount of time to allow before archive, but giving a warning would be better.

>27 timspalding: It's three people in the last three years, one of them the poster.

In that particular group, sure. But what about all the other groups? Not all “dead” groups have that few members who are still on LT (and fairly active, albeit not in that group). And even if it IS only three people, so what? Doesn’t make contacting them and more okay.

I don’t want to be mean, but this is starting to feel like you just want to have it your way even though people are explaining why such a hard line isn’t the best idea. Lots of people have pointed out why it’d be better to have a softer approach but it seems like you just don’t want to see it.

>45 norabelle414: I think there might be a bug in them, too. I just clicked on some of the tags on Name that Book, and tags made up of two or more words lead to a page that says "No groups found."

see
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/tag/find%252Bbook
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/tag/book%252Bidentification
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/tag/lost%252Btitle

>45 norabelle414: and >46 MarthaJeanne: Thanks for confirming! I thought there must be, but couldn’t recall ever seeing it. I’ve been on LT for 13 years but never notised the group tags, so maybe they’re aren’t functional? Improving that system could go some way towards helping people find the best groups for them.

>44 waltzmn: Count me irked as well.

To take one example Elizabethan England, how does it help to make another group with almost the same name? It just seems that marginal topics are going to have a long series of dead groups, which isn't going to help anything.

>1 timspalding: I'm open to suggestions, but I don't see reversing myself on this. We need to prune to grow.

This is a classic case where a few members complain, and nobody will disagree with them because why bother? The site simply cannot have THOUSANDS of dead groups. There is a cost to it. It looks terrible. It scares people off. It fragments engagement. It prevents fresh engagement. It hurts the site. We have to do something about it.

So I'll think about how to do notifications, but here too, I'm not going to go with "nobody can kill dead groups, but I don't want to hear about living ones." Of course we'll allow people to turn notifications off. But the system needs to favor engagement.

>16 timspalding: Every one of your suggestions are frowned upon by the site's users and likely to get the person sending out the notices flagged as a spammer. Even long term users.
So asking people to message people or post in Book Talk to advertise seems like it's anathema to the purposes of what you want to occur.

>39 timspalding: People like starting new things a lot better than they like taking over something old and with a history

You're talking book groups, often about old dead authors. Surely this is a group of people who understand the value of tradition and heritage, of not having a radical break with the past.

Can I make a request if this is going to be the way forward? This may be a pony, but since Tim is stuck on the only way forward is to prune:

-- In the Groups You Admin section of talk - Create an alert for 3 months prior to archiving the admin will see through a notification. If no activity happens during that three month period, fine, the group's dead.

Hmm, please let us leave an archived group.
Also, I think there's a bug in the Your Groups > All function. There are a lot of groups here I don't remember joining.

>53 timspalding: This is a classic case where a few members complain, and nobody will disagree with them because why bother? The site simply cannot have THOUSANDS of dead groups. There is a cost to it. It looks terrible. It scares people off. It fragments engagement. It prevents fresh engagement. It hurts the site. We have to do something about it.

Are you actively trying to make old users irritated and frustrated? Because it’s working. And talking like this about the group of people who are most active - something you’ve repeatedly said you want more people to be - is r a great look.

And if you don’t want to have thousands of dead groups, encouraging people to start new groups all the time is really not the right way to go.

>53 timspalding: I don't think anyone is saying *never* archive groups. We're saying don't do it without notice. We're saying don't do it without a way to let people make an appeal to dearchive a group. We're saying have a system that makes it easier to find niche groups so they don't become inactive.

Archiving groups is one way to help talk, but there needs to be other changes, too. There should be a tutorial on creating groups, covering how to set one up, the powers of an admin, how to create a group wiki, and tips for helping keep conversations active. Maybe feature a few less active groups every month, like how conversations are highlighted in the State of the Thing newsletter.

I also think there is merit to the idea of combining groups. Two or more small groups on closely related subjects might do better combined into one larger group, with pinned topics and a wiki to keep things organized.

And maybe give admins the ability to archive a group before two years have passed. The various yearly challenge groups are very active in their year, but become a locus for spam after that.

>53 timspalding: If the groups were already dead then why do you need to kill them? By all means, hide any group that hasn't been posted on in awhile but why prevent people who want to be able to engage with an older group from doing so? Where were these groups showing up before that was such a huge problem, and how does making them read-only do anything to fix that?

>59 amanda4242: Yes to everything you wrote.

>60 norabelle414: Wholeheartedly agree.

It occurs to me that I can cite an example of a talk thread that hasn't seen any posts since 2022 but which assuredly should be kept open:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/334776#n7614594

The topic is camp songs. Various people contributed songs they remembered. Eventually, they ran down, and so nothing has been contributed since July 22, 2022.

However, this thread has been the subject of scholarly folkloric publication. I know, because I'm the one who did the scholarship. :-)

These songs were passed on orally, and so are of interest to folklorists. I noticed this, and probably puffed up the thread inordinately, but I got 73 citations out of it. One random example, of a song which has never been collected anywhere else but in this LT thread, is "Charlie Had a Pigeon." To prove that it has its folklore place, here is the article about it (content warning: it's scatological):

https://balladindex.org/Ballads/LTCSCHAP.html

If you want a clean song, here is an a pop song which was never known to have become a folk song until it turned up right here on LibraryThing:

https://balladindex.org/Ballads/LTCSLAGS.html

So this thread is an actual scholarly resource which I have cited. 73 times, as I said.

The thread shut down because all the contributors had thought of what they had to contribute. But if new people joined the thread, we might get additional contributions.

And we absolutely, positively, entirely want the old posts to be part of the new thread, so people can have examples of what we mean by a camp song, and can think if they have heard these particular songs. Starting another group on the same topic is not the same.

If I had known that the thread had to be kept "fresh" to make it possible for new people to post to it, I would have done something like post periodic reminders that this is a place where people could contribute to folklore studies. But this is only possible if we are told before things get archived.

I emphasize that I am not saying that dead groups should not be archived. I am saying that people need to be told so that they can keep them alive. Making an arbitrary change without notice is really not fair to users.

Brainstorming other ideas (some already mentioned above):

- Combining groups - this seems the obvious answer. If there's too much talk going on in too many different groups then combine some groups together.

- Raise the bar for creating a new group - from reviewing the list of new groups, even after Abigail has culled them, the majority seem to have no purpose and no activity. Should it be more difficult to create new groups? Maybe users have to have been here for awhile, or have buy-in from 2 other members, or submit a request that gets approved by other members.

- Probation for groups - when new groups are started they have a certain amount of time to build up a membership and activity level or they will be combined or archived or deleted.

- Established groups - the flip side of probation, groups that are confirmed to be popular and active over time could get extra promotion on the Groups page and elsewhere. There are plenty of groups here that are good and lively so why not promote them instead of encouraging people to create new groups.

- Official categories for groups - this has been discussed recently on several other topics but staff has not acknowledged it. Groups could easily be put into large-bucket categories such as "book/author discussion" "reading tracking" "book collecting" "socializing only" "affinity group" "games", etc. which would make it easier for people to find what they're looking for, and require group-creators to be clearer about the purpose of the group.

>53 timspalding: Where do these thousands of dead groups show themselves?

>63 norabelle414: Raise the bar for creating a new group

I think this was brought up last time Tim wanted to archive groups. I'd be in favor of requiring that someone be a member for at least 24 hours and have at least one book cataloged before they are allowed to start a group. And put a limit on the number of groups a person is allowed to start, either by week or month.

Site search marks Archived groups as Dormant.

See https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=Kipling&searchtype=groups&amp...

Three groups, all marked Dormant.

Click on each group and find that two are Archived, not Dormant.

EDIT:

Also, is there an alphabetical list of Groups anywhere? I can't see it at https://www.librarything.com/ngroups People might like to browse it. I would like to browse it, and I am people.

>8 timspalding: Unless it’s Roquefort.

>17 norabelle414:

this change now requires the creation of multiple duplicative groups.

Only when the earlier group is archived. But those annoying kids who create duplicative groups at the same time need to be stopped.

If this is about the kids, I'd rather use the Ignore function. Maybe I'm too sentimental but if LT has a future I think that perhaps it's with some of them, if they keep coming or remember the site fondly. I'd rather put up with a small amount of annoyance (to me personally it hardly counts as any) than alienate a whole crowd of youngsters.

Any group that has now been archived has been marked as dormant for quite a while. Certainly that should have been a notice that something should have been done to keep it alive.

I don't understand why the sudden need for change. Does dormancy somehow "cost" more than archiving? Since the idea seems to be that a new group would be made instead, I'm guessing not?

>69 LolaWalser: It is very easy to ignore the teen groups, but the problem is the groups tend to breed more groups: someone will say something someone else doesn't like, there'll be drama, and instead of blocking members or contacting staff about TOS violations, someone will leave in a huff and start an identical group. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Again, it's easy to ignore the groups, but they flood the new group page and drown out everyone else.

>68 lilithcat: Yes, creating nonsense groups is a problem, but I don't see how the TOS can be applied in one situation but not the other unless it gets very granular (e.g. "the creation of multiple, duplicative and contentless groups is against these terms unless the group that is being duplicated has been archived due to inactivity")

>69 LolaWalser: I won't pretend I understand what the impetus for this is but I don't think it could have anything to do with an influx of off-topic chatting. This is about groups that do not have any recent posts, not ones that do.

>70 MarthaJeanne: I personally don’t check to see if the groups I’m in have been marked dormant so didn’t realise that the European Endless Challenge was now inactive enough to become archived due to this new change. If I’d realised, I would have posted just to keep it active.
And sometimes you just don’t notice how fast time flies.

>74 PawsforThought:

Exactly. Especially for those of us who are old enough that time flies quickly.

Again, I don't object to archiving inactive groups; I object to doing it without notice, and with no way to undo it.

If a group is archived, should it be removed from the administration panel for groups? I mean, it's not able to accept new members or new posts. Nothing to administer, so why keep it in the list? Or maybe create a secondary list under the same page for archived groups.

(I know I had two get archived, both were very niche and I expected them to go years ago.)

I just discovered that if you select miscellaneous from the menu in the groups tab, you get a list of groups in need of an admin. Some of the groups have submissions that haven't been approved; perhaps because they don't have an admin to do it?

https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/misc

>77 amanda4242: I can tell you that one group on that list just opened up for a new second admin to help keep it active. I know because I clicked the needs an admin button.

>77 amanda4242: Discarded is listed as seeking an admin. I asked for help due to health problems. Another active member of the group agreed to become a second admin, was added as admin, but the 'seeking an admin' status was not removed. Other groups may be similar.

That group doesn't need much admin work, but both of us are frequent posters, and there is no danger that it will die soon.

>78 gilroy: Okay. I know there are several listed that have had submissions for a while.

>79 MarthaJeanne: Is there a button in your admin menu to close it to applications? If not, there might be a bug.

>77 amanda4242: I brought this up a short time ago (2021) but nothing was done
https://www.librarything.com/topic/328882#7545209

When you continue a thread, it posts on both the old and new thread reciprocal links so you can see the continuity.

Why not make it an option when creating a new, fresh group to say if it connects to an old group? Have the system post reciprocal links in both groups and maybe notify members of the old archived group about the new group creation. Members who don't want new group notifications can manage that in their notifications settings.

>82 elorin: +1 I like this.

>83 Aquila: +1. Perfect. Anyone who likes from the old group's members can just jump over without the need for private pestering. And those who are no longer active will no longer be puzzlingly silent.

>53 timspalding: If the problem is thousands of dormant groups that show in searches and on the group page could you solve it in a less drastic fashion by just hiding those groups? On the groups page hide them away at the bottom of the page in a closed Dormant section. And don't show dormant groups in a search unless the user specifically asks for them.

I've gone ahead and removed the archived status from everything 2, 3 and 4 years without a post. Over 5, it's archived.

I'll work on a notification regime so if a group languished for five years, but they have high hopes it can be revived, they'll get a notice before we archive it.

Some members don't seem to get how these groups are a problem. So let me explain it as clearly as I can.

This is the trap:

1. If we show and promote moribund groups, then people will see them. They’ll see they’re ghost towns, won’t join and it will look terrible—a bad experience for members. If however they join and post, the discussion will almost always go nowhere because the groups are moribund. Again a bad experience.

2. If we don’t show and promote moribund groups, nobody will join, so they will be even more dead over time. A handful of older members may talk to each other, but they’ll have a lonely experience and think LibraryThing is dead whereas in fact they’ve just chosen to talk where nobody is. Their engagement which could make them happy and make others happy will be wasted. A bad experience.

This is the situation with all these dead groups. They are engagement killers. They silo and fragment conversation in places where people aren't going to see it. Members could be talking to each other, but the circumstance are working to trap them in a cup de sac.

>83 Aquila:

Yeah. I proposed this in the first message.

>80 amanda4242: If there is a button there, I don't see it or know where to find it.

>86 timspalding: One thing you're not taking into account - not all groups are meant to be hubs of activity. Some are just places for people to create their own threads and list books. In my case, the Endless European Challenge - which admittedly I've been terrible at posting in, but stuff happens in life sometimes.

It's not a matter of people not "getting why it's a problem", it's people not agreeing that it is necessarily a problem. And suggestions have been made as to how it could be less of a problem.

Thanks for changing the time limit, and trying to get a notification system. However this made me confused: if a group languished for five years, but they have high hopes it can be revived, they'll get a notice before we archive i
Only groups people have "high hopes" about? Not all groups?

>86 timspalding: "People won't join groups if we do promote them, people won't join them if we don't promote them"

Yes of course (!)

But to return to my points at >66 DuncanHill:

Site search marks groups as Dormant when they are in fact Archived. So we have to visit Groups we can't join to see we can't join them. A bad experience, as one might say.

And is there a list of all Groups so people can browse them and join any that look interesting? Nobody ever joined a group that they didn't know existed. Yes you can search - but browsing is not the same as searching, as anyone who ever browsed in a book-shop knows. Sometimes you don't know what you want until you see it. Lots of my books I never knew I wanted until I saw them.

@timspalding I'm fairly new to LT and only recently started having a look at other groups outside of the ones I was initially interested in when I first joined. The groups I first joined were all from the top of the Groups Page under 'active this week', easy to see and browse.

I had no idea there were thousands of groups until I read this thread.

I wonder if having categories for groups might solve a number of problems:

1. Having to choose a category when creating a new group would help organise very niche topics and make them more visible.

2. Categories would make for a much easier browsing experience. While sometimes you don't know exactly what you are looking for in a group, one can generally decide on a category to start browsing through.

3. Being able to search a category before creating a new group might help to avoid duplicate or very similar groups being created.

For example, some likely categories might be: Author Groups / Genre Groups / Publisher Groups / Reading Log & Challenge Groups / Helper Groups... etc.

Perhaps categories could be even more specific, I don't know enough about existing groups to tell. Anyway, was just a thought. I can completely understand the need to tidy up dormant groups and moving forward coming up with a solution to avoid having so many of them.

Maybe it would be an idea for anyone who wants to start a new group have to garner a certain amount of interest in it before it can be created? I can't think how that could be easily done right now but it would deter super niche groups being created that may only result in a few conversations and then dormancy.

>86 timspalding: Your thought model is different from the members who are engaging here in this thread.

By archiving groups and allowing no new activity in them, you are treating that segment of LT as a museum with a no touch policy.

Groups are clubs. Some of them even have imaginary constructs for meeting spaces. People might wander away and the space accumulates dust; but members feel ownership and expect to be able to come back at any time and still own it.

What’s the difference between the experience of a new member posting on a new, absolutely empty group or one that’s full but currently quiet? They both show up in All Topics. Only the latter will show in Your Groups and Posts. I think you’re defeating yourself by viewing this old groups as dead.

Somewhere above you seemed to dismiss us as a small segment of LT. But we are its heart blood. We are the members who continue to build the data, who protect the site, who welcome and teach new members.

>86 timspalding: I don't think any of this is as bad of an experience for a new user as starting new group, having no one see it* and no one post in it and then they have to sit there and watch it die, while they assume no one wants to talk to them. At least if they post in an old group there's a chance someone who cares might see the post and add to the conversation

* How are you expecting users to see brand new groups that no one else is a member of if the "all topics" view has been demoted to the bottom of the sidebar? I use talk constantly and if someone created a new group to replace one that is now archived (e.g. the Washington DC group, which I would be thrilled to see new posts in) I would probably never know.

Also, a recent experience.

For several years I maintained a thread that discussed the illustrators of The Wind in the Willows. Just last month, a new member messaged me with a question about his collection.
Would he have found me if it had been archived?

So, I'm now running an experiment that really doesn't rise above the level of anecdotal result. I posted to the moribund Pynchon group (once the archive block was raised to five years) and to the slightly less dusty Made into a Movie group. So far, neither has attracted any response.

>86 timspalding: "If we show and promote moribund groups, then people will see them. They’ll see they’re ghost towns, won’t join and it will look terrible—a bad experience for members. If however they join and post, the discussion will almost always go nowhere because the groups are moribund. Again a bad experience."

Don't call them moribund groups then. Call them historical, resources that can be mined to find out what people were thinking at the time, or that contain useful information that people have gathered and we don't want to be lost. But make it clear in the presentation of the group that no one has posted to it in 8 years so don't expect a response.

Then create a new official group for discussions about groups. A place where people can get advise on if or how an old group could be revived or whether a new group should be started, perhaps with a different slant or with a more general subject. Put text on the screen for creating new groups to advise users to bring their new group idea to this new group first.

The advantage of LT is that there is a large group of people who want to help so instead of butting heads with them when they disagree with you, find a way to get them to help make something better!

A question that occcured to me last night: does editing a post equal posting in the sense that it would stop a group from becoming archived?

>96 jjwilson61: Yes! This!

>96 jjwilson61: Don't call them moribund groups then. Call them historical, resources that can be mined to find out what people were thinking at the time, or that contain useful information that people have gathered and we don't want to be lost.

The exact analogy to what I was talking about in >62 waltzmn:. I'd like that group to be active, but if it can't be right now (because we don't have any new people remembering camp songs), it is still, in fact, a scholarly resource that exists nowhere else. It should be maintained and, in fact, promoted, because it is a scholarly resource. (No, I don't claim camp songs are great art. But it is significant to see what people do and don't remember.)

The advantage of LT is that there is a large group of people who want to help so instead of butting heads with them when they disagree with you, find a way to get them to help make something better!

Yes. Many, many people at LT want to help -- witness Common Knowledge and the Combiners group just for starters. We may disagree on how to help (a problem in the wider world, too!). But these people are a resource, and we should give them their opportunity. If anything, we should be giving them more opportunities -- e.g. the ability to annotate books. That might even be an opportunity to create more active groups. :-)

Oh please. https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/1268/Fiber-Arts has been deader than a doornail for years. In fact, it has now been turned into 'join to post', which is the main reason I never went to the other group. No, I won't join either group. As long as I was able to do handwork, I would have been happy to have been part of an open needlework group. I even tried to resurrect this one. But for someone who was not part of it to decide to rescue it is totally rediculous.

>100 MarthaJeanne: The Needleworks group (which I’m assuming is the one you refer to as “the other group” is open for everyone, though you do need to join to post. Not sure why that’d be a bad thing, it help keep spammers out.

>86 timspalding: Thank you. I understand the need to archive groups that have no activity for years, but I don't think doing it, especially without warning, should have been the first step in improving groups/talk.

Again, I do want to see dead groups archived eventually, but there are other things I'd like to see implemented first:

1. Notify people when a group they're in goes dormant. This will prompt them to either engage with the group or leave it.

2. Have an option in the groups page menu to filter for dormant groups. This would allow people to easily find dormant groups they may want to revive, and it would also give people thinking of starting a group an idea of what doesn't thrive.

3. Identify groups that have admins who have not logged in for some time (maybe within the last year?) and open the group to admin applications. If no one applies and the group remains inactive, then it probably wasn't meant to be.

4. When a group goes dormant, add a line to the banner announcing how long it can remain dormant before it's archived. I think two years is a generous amount of time if it is known in advance.

5. Have better organization of groups. Having the ability to easily find general discussions, challenges, helpers, collectors, author discussions, etc. would be beneficial.

6. Give admins the option to archive groups early.

7. I think the option to combine groups could work. Two or more related groups floundering individually may find new life if they joined together.

8. Have an easy to find tutorial on starting and maintaining groups. Cover things like an admin's powers, how to create a group wiki, how to deal with TOS violations, tips to encourage posting, etc.

9. Give more guidance on the TOS rules regarding groups. We all know that advertising/spam groups aren't allowed, but do the near identical chat groups constitute "multiple, duplicative" groups? How long does a group have to recruit a second member before it's considered "purely personal"? How long can a group exist without a post before it's considered "contentless"?

10. Highlight some smaller groups, either in the monthly newsletter or in a featured section on the groups page.

11. Have some way to connect archived groups with a new group on the same subject. This would let members of the old group know that there's renewed interest in the topic, and it would allow members of the new group to easily peruse previous discussions.

12. Limit the number of groups people can start at a time. Maybe no more than three a month?

>101 PawsforThought: I don't join a group until I feel part of it. I do not join to post. It makes me feel unwelcome. At most, I suppose, if I really wanted to I could join, post, and leave. Join to post won't stop spammers, because they can do just that if they feel like it.

>102 amanda4242: All great points, thank you

>103 MarthaJeanne: I’m sorry to hear you feel that way. You would be most welcome.
Join to post does seem to work for our group, though, as the amount of spam is almost non-existent.

Most groups have little or no spam.

Reading this, I'm filled with a sad suspicion this is a case where what's good for the site isn't what's good for me. Tim may very well be right that starting a shiny new group to talk about something that interests me is better for LT than reviving an old one of which I'm a member, but I'm certainly more likely to see the thread in the latter case.

So I was thinking for a moment that the solution would be group recs, but of course we already have those - it's just that I basically never look at them. And looking at them now that seems to be the right choice: rather than shiny new groups about subjects that interest me, I get longstanding groups I know where to find if I wanted to join without needing the recs to tell me about them, and/or ones that definitely aren't up my alley. So there may be a need for improving the recommendations algorithm.

(Half of my group recs are about various fine presses and the like. Any algorithm that sees my library and concludes I'm particularly interested in such things has room for improvement.)

Tangentially, like MarthaJeanne I find it offputting when groups are "join to post".

By the way, the Groups tab page used to show the newest Groups in a catagory at the bottom of that page. I’m not seeing that now.

Has that changed, or am I misremembering?

>108 2wonderY: You have to click more in the left column then find newest there.

ETA: To be honest, most of the newest groups are junk groups, so the list is a little pointless. People keep creating two person chat groups, or spam groups for a college class, or just empty groups that have no reason to exist.

>109 gilroy: Ah. Thanks!

>53 timspalding: I really disagree with this. I really don't like the change, but was just too resigned to comment, thinking merely I'll get over it. But in reality and more importantly, I fail to see how this 'pruning' results in desired goals. As just one example, more discussion about specific books and authors with Abouts is crippled by archiving groups since many of those will have those, but now it is no longer possible to just add to previous comments. You can read them, but if you want to add something that occurred to you in response, you'd need to create a new topic in some active group, presumably linking to the old one for context. And for what purpose? Long-dormant groups can be relegated to low positions when searching groups without closing them for further contributions. Since they are archived, not deleted, what exactly is gained by not allowing new posts?

I also intensely dislike that dormant groups do not appear on my list of groups. How on earth is that conducive to me posting in them? I couldn't even find one of the poetry groups I'm in recently when I wanted to share it, let alone having it there as a reminder when I have something to post that fits there.

Finally, the Poetry Collective is growing fast and very active due to DebiCate's infectious enthusiasm and the fact that she announced the group in Talk About LT or a similar group that practically everyone follows. It is not a representative sample for what happens with new groups. Most have trouble getting off the ground and reviving an old one with established members is more often than not a far more viable solution to get people active, both existing members and attracting new ones to the group.

I didn't read the entire thread, but skimming through I believe it was already suggested that handing over the admin position when the old one is inactive could do wonders for some groups that linger in obscurity.

By all means archive and relegate to the deepest of depths of search the groups that never had any traction to begin with, but doing the same to groups with hundreds of members and many threads of fruitful discussion is just pointless and counter-productive IMO.

I’m just going to jump in as an outlier. I like to find groups of interest to me.

However, I understand all of Tim’s points and agree with them

Just pointing out that there are users who will be absolutely fine with these changes, and they don’t seem to be represented here at all.

I think it's reasonable to assume that if a group hasn't been posted in for years it isn't really important to anyone. If it was why hasn't anyone posted anything to it?
Tim has said he will be addressing the notification issue. So use it or lose it.

Also, storing the immense amount of data this website surely has, costs money. The site is free to use, has no advertising and no other easily identifiable sources of income. Unless you guys are contributing to the cost of running it or am I missing something?

When you archive data it takes up less storage space, reducing costs and/or improving efficiency (which would be good manners if the storage is gifted). It's good business sense is it not?

Archiving unused data also has it stored where it is less accessible. It is harder to access by bots. If you are concerned about system bugs, data theft and AI development at all that would be another good reason to archive inactive groups.

I'm no tech expert but a quick google search would confirm this.

Thanks @timspalding for creating and continuing to provide this resource.
Much appreciated.

>113 TonjaE: None of this is correct. Groups that are archived do not take up less space or cost less money to maintain. They are still saved on the site just the same and are visible and searchable, they just can't be posted on. Bots can still access them. What will take up more space is if someone has to start a whole new group because the group they wanted to join is now locked.

>113 TonjaE: We understand the reasons for archiving dead groups, but we object to it being done without warning and with no improvements to help keep groups from dying; indeed, the "just make a brand new group" approach seems designed to lead to more dead groups.

Oh, and some of us did pay to use this site. I've more than gotten my twenty-five dollars out of it, but I just wanted to point out that some of us did hand over money.

ETA: LT makes its money selling products that, in part, use LT data. See https://blog.librarything.com/2020/03/librarything-goes-free/

>115 amanda4242: That's good to know, thanks :)

>113 TonjaE: When you archive data it takes up less storage space, reducing costs and/or improving efficiency (which would be good manners if the storage is gifted). It's good business sense is it not?

Thank you for the comments, but this is not a space issue. Archiving is a status, not a change in where or how things are stored.

>107 AndreasJ: My group recs with the current algorithm are not very good either. All I get are a group for anime fans (not that big of an anime fan, I assume this is because I have some manga in my library, some of which I read as a kid that ends up looking like a lot because of how manga is serialized) and for fans of Asian literature (I assume this might be related to the reasons I get the former, though this is more up my alley)

I, too, have held off on commenting before now. I wonder if this change was prompted, at least in part, by the large influx of spam accounts that are reviving sometimes decades-old threads because they have words in the title or post like 'plumbing' which is appealing to the (presumably) bots adding these comments. As someone who browses the 'All posts' view of Talk, (which I understand is a very rare way to use the site, perhaps because of the other complaint I'm about to make), this can get irritating and disruptive even after the spammer has been removed.

Likewise, I find the children's groups made to 'chat' irritating and disruptive, as well as impossible to get off my Talk page, because as someone else has noted, every time you 'ignore' one, the exact same group of children has a spat and creates two new, almost identical groups. This is against the Terms of Service as stated and I believe something should be done about it. I'm not particularly afraid of what will happen if these kids get bored of kicking around LT as a result, for several reasons, chief among them being that I don't believe 'but what if they leave' is a good reason to shelter anyone from the consequences of breaking rules they agreed to when they joined a space.

I'm not against the concept of archiving in general, but I think it should be possible to revive an archived group, perhaps if you have been on the website for a certain length of time and have posted enough messages in Talk, to prove that you are not a spam account nor someone who does not understand how Talk works. If this is just simply not ever going to happen, I agree that there should be a warning before a group is archived, and that there should be a way to 'continue' a Group in a new Group with a link, the way we can 'continue' Talk threads, and that all members of the archived group should get an automatic system message notifying them of the new Group so they can join. As I think someone already pointed out, this would also be helpful for yearly 'challenge' and reading tracking Groups.

Finally, I think the big solution here is to make it easier to find threads/Groups someone is interested in. I joined the thread mentioned in >62 waltzmn: because I am interested in the subject and had no idea such a thread was being discussed, and since posting (thereby 'reviving' it), the thread has had almost 20 new messages in the last ~24 hours after lying dormant for over 3 years. I only discovered it because of conversation here.

Perhaps Groups, and threads individually, can be 'tagged' with the same tags users use for books, so that, for example, if I were to browse for books tagged with 'oral traditions', I would find that thread as well and be able to join in the conversation? I see some past conversation about there being tags on Groups, but I didn't know these existed and can't find any way to view or browse them, and according to >49 amanda4242: it seems they don't actually work anyway. If they were connected to book tags, new users (or those who haven't used Talk yet, or those like me who had no idea there were tags in Groups even though I use Talk very frequently) wouldn't need to know anything about Group tags to be able to suddenly discover, 'oh hey, someone is already talking about Arrow's Voting Theorem/needlework/etc.'

And perhaps someone can revive a discussion the way I just did.

Isn’t the camp song thread in an active group that was in no danger of being archived?

>120 Charon07:

As it turns out, yes, but the thread itself was inactive and it had very little to do with the rest of the group. So it was safe -- but it wasn't obvious to me. The same thread would have fit as well, or as badly, in an inactive group. So the principle stands.

I was going to ask the French literature group (there must be one, I assumed, because the Japanese literature group is doing fine) for recommendations of a specific nature but discovered that all the groups that might be appropriate for the question are archived. I'm not knowledgeable enough about French literature that I could up and start a group, and to start a group just to ask a question feels awfully presumptuous. How should I proceed?

>122 defaults: The most effective way to do that in practice seems to be to ask the question in the first (active) group that occurs to you, then sit back and wait for indignant members to redirect you…

>122 defaults: A couple of the French lit groups with the most members are merely dormant, not archived, so you can still post to them (and maybe end up reactivating the group if it stirs up interest). Or you could post your question to Book Talk, https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/593/Book-talk, or to Book Recommendation Requests, https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23175/Book-Recommendations-Requests.

>123 thorold: No, archived groups can no longer receive new posts.

>125 gilroy:

He did specifically say to post in an active group.

How do you join a talk? Bc there is other talks I simple can’t look at it just says join to post

>127 iGotgame: I think there are multiple ways, but one way is to go to the Groups tab, search for the group using the search box in the upper right, and once you get to the group page, click on the Join or Watch button in the upper right. I'm not sure but if a group has been set up to be join by invitation then you'd have to message the admin of the group for an invite