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Group chats rule the world

sriramk.com

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Re: Group chats rule the world

#91

Post by wepple »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #13

On shared rituals, the ones I like the most are 1. Good mornings. Where it's a norm to post "Good morning" or equivalent at the start of your day. It signals that you're continuing to participate and value the group. 2. @Welcomes. When a new member joins, they are @-ed with a welcome message by the users currently present. It helps expand the join->engage funnel. Some groups have a lot of people show up and then neve…

#2 is one of those things like wishing happy birthday on Facebook: once there’s a hint or automation involved, it becomes absolutely meaningless.

If it’s organic, then it is indeed a great starter

Re: Group chats rule the world

#93

Post by noprocrasted »

fsmv wrote: post #73

Private chats solve the problem of anonymity allowing people to behave badly. In a chat you have reputation and you get kicked if you're an asshole.

It doesn't have to be specific to private group chats. The same model worked well on public forums.

The only reason it doesn't work on mainstream social media is that "assholes" not only still "engage" with the product (and watch ads) but they also cause other people to argue with them and "engage" more, so it's actually profitable to keep them around.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#94

Post by footy »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #13

On shared rituals, the ones I like the most are 1. Good mornings. Where it's a norm to post "Good morning" or equivalent at the start of your day. It signals that you're continuing to participate and value the group. 2. @Welcomes. When a new member joins, they are @-ed with a welcome message by the users currently present. It helps expand the join->engage funnel. Some groups have a lot of people show up and then neve…

I know I am not the first person to say this, but those are the types of things that make me leave a group chat.

Then again I don't even "good morning" my partner unless maybe if it's a big day for either one of us, so I may just be way way outside the intended target audience for this type of group chat.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#95

Post by verticalscaler »

haolez wrote: post #38

I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…

> This left me wondering if there is enough demand for smaller social networks with very limited visibility that can foster rich and insightful discussions (although this sounds like forums from the nineties). And if it's possible to keep the sales people away, or at least invite-only.

You can't keep sales people a.k.a phonies away it will always happen. Every underground subculture gets appropriated as soon as even one of these people shows up.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_punk_subculture

Imagine you run into Patti Smith and her friends in the 70s, if you're lame you won't be staying long. In fact you might get punched in the face. There is proper gatekeeping.

Once the scene grows even a little there's money to be made. A different sort shows up who understands the culture and likes the music OK but don't truly give a fuck it is about selling t-shirts and bootlegs for them. And/Or getting laid.

They'll start promoting it to grow it bigger and make more money. That's when the real sharks show up and the original members start leaving. Later still normies shop your style at the mall with no idea what any of it means or where it came from.

Sadly, can't punch people in the face over the internet. Even worse everything is all about forced inclusivity now.

This ain't a technological problem.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#96

Post by Adachi91 »

pphysch wrote: post #5

See also "influencer cabals" that specifically manipulate social media platforms, usually organized in group chats on the same platform.

This is prominent in all engagement circles. A few months ago I somehow stumbled into a sex workers chat and it was filled with "Need boosts" and "I mod X, Y, Z subreddit and can get you verified and submission accepted faster". Engagement systems are awful imo, they've always been able to be gamed via click farms but most places can filter through inorganic engagement from mobile click farms in a single region, the "cheap" ones at least.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#97

Post by PhilippGille »

ibaikov wrote: post #47
haolez wrote: post #38

I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…

I had similar experience on Telegram where groups that grew in size plummeted in quality. I just came up with the following concept reading your comment: a slowmode, so that people can write once every x minutes, but others who are mostly read-only can give 'points' to those writing messages in the moment to bypass slowmode, basically they are voting for quality discussions to continue.

There is https://slowsocial.us for "write once per week", but no upvoting to remove the limit.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#98

Post by Seattle3503 »

fragmede wrote: post #83

> This leads to one of my favorite axioms: every group chat has a n-1 group containing everyone except that annoying member. And if you think your chat doesn’t have such a group, oh boy, do I have some bad news for you. This is directly at odds with the aforementioned moderation. The slack that I'm in has no qualms about warning toxic members of their shit, and making them ex-members if they have to. Thus the only N-…

I disagree. I have chats where some people engage in good faith and aren't malicious, but nonetheless they are exhausting at times. You can tell them the rules and they will engage in good faith efforts to follow but the letter and spirit of the rules, but the simple truth is some people aren't "cool" or socially graced.

One of my more social group chats has someone who is both autistic and extremely romantically lonely. He is, as the article describes, "the very online person who is familiar with participating in chat at all times". It is a net positive because anyone can get a response at any time, but they can be a bit much at times.

You can either kick those people out, or take a break from them.

Re: Group chats rule the world

#100

Post by astrange »

verticalscaler wrote: post #95
haolez wrote: post #38

I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…

> This left me wondering if there is enough demand for smaller social networks with very limited visibility that can foster rich and insightful discussions (although this sounds like forums from the nineties). And if it's possible to keep the sales people away, or at least invite-only. You can't keep sales people a.k.a phonies away it will always happen. Every underground subculture gets appropriated as soon as even…

> Sadly, can't punch people in the face over the internet. Even worse everything is all about forced inclusivity now.

Nobody is going to do that anymore because we don't all have lead poisoning from gasoline fumes.

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