Help Understanding Creating all these Groups
I will be the "black sheep" in the crowd and ask this question. Would like to understand the philosophy behind creating all these "approval required" or "join" type groups. I am somewhat new to EN, not completely new, I am not social media or internet expert, just wondering what is the purpose of not allowing free looking into every group you are interested in reading. Say, I have raced 70.3 Kansas two years in a row with some decent times, am local to the course, but not racing this year. I could be an asset to that group of members, yet, I don't plan on joining the group. Who is at a loss here. Just wondering. Am I missing an important point. And please feel free to point me in a direction to think properly on this subject.
What this comes down to, if I want say Vineman 70.3 info, I guess I will have to head over to dreaded slowtwitch, ask a question and than have to read through 3 pages of arguments before I can read some actual info on it.
Someone, correct me, please. Thanks.
Comments
I am having a hard time navigating this as well. I just created a group but I wanna check the membership so I can let anyone see what I am doing.
To answer your question about groups, you can see any of them by going to the groups page. If you have a question on a particular event, you can always post it to the dashboard and get referred to a group (which, I assume, you would have already tried to find before posting there). At the end of the day, we haven't taken anything away, just reorganized it!
P - I think another part of the divided forums that is making for sad-faced crying, ENers is that we are having trouble finding our current EN friends and training partners. I know I read threads a lot of the time more for who started them and is contributing to them ('cuz I've learned from experience they are smart and they are probably saying something I should pay attention to). There are lots of people I'd miss if I couldn't duck my head in threads and see what they are saying. They are the reason I am here.
I think this is especially true for those of us who are in Ironman off years -- we kinda wander anyway.
Also, as a culture, you know we all like to err on the side of being too helpful and too inclusive. Help us do that, please. (bat eyelashes smiley)
As a head honcho, I need to be everywhere, every day. From forums to threads to groups to emails to tweets to text messages and yes, about 5 voicemails. But it's my job.
I have to agree with the concerns voiced here. "Basically EN is moving beyond the point where everyone can listen/play in everything". That quote seems like a very different philosophy from the concept of "team". Especially for the paying cutomers / team members.
It seems you are building layers, special groups, private groups, etc. One concern is that all of the elite, or experienced, or WSMs will play in their own groups. I joined EN precisly because I wanted access to these people. That is a selling point when you are marketting to new members. I want an easy way to "listen/play in everything". There are a lot of new members that may not have a bunch, or any EN "friends" yet. It is odd to me that you would have to join all the groups just to read all of the content.
Maybe you could try again to articulate the reasons behind the new format. Maybe we just do not understand the reasons.
John
Example: We have 20-ish people training for Boston. We have been training for 12+ weeks, using the same 90+ long thread in the general discussion forum to chat. Now with a group, we have set an event to meet up, created an album to share pics with each other, and are able to have multiple Boston threads (taper, lodging, logistics) instead of it all being piled into one massive thread in front of everyone.
At the end of the day, the group functionality is WAY MORE robust and cool for people training for specific events -- which is a large part of what the Team does from March to November. The regular forums are not affected in anyway, it's just up to the Poster, not the Listener to decide where to put things. Should I post my powertap question to the IMWI group cuz I am racing there or to the Power/Pace forum cuz thats where the power questions go? Even if I am in the IMWI group, I can choose where my note goes by clicking the Everyone or Group Only notification option.
As a user you CAN still see everything...you'd just have to opt in to each of the groups if that's what you want to do. Instead of default everything, you add as you are comfortable...very you-driven, not forced on you by the EN platform.
I can assure you there are no secret groups inside of EN, with people hoarding knowledge so you can't see it. There are so many cool things being done,led,built by our members that hopefully you can see that's just not the nature of the Team or how we operate.
Please keep the feedback coming. The growth from 85 in Year 1 to over 650 members has been a rollercoaster ride. We are here to do our best to keep the Team rolling (on a personal and technological level). Thanks for your input!
Thanks
What John said. Glad to hear this is working better in the IM forums. I'm still finding it difficult to invest effort/time -- but that might be because I'm in an Ironman off year. Oh, well.
Patrick, as Al said Chris G does in fact have a "secret" group. When you create a group it allows you to keep it invite-only if I remember correctly. So as Al says you cannot find the group but you do in fact see other "cool" members joining it. So as John said, all the WSMs could in fact have their own group and keep knowledge to themselves. I'm not saying it is happening but it is in fact possible.
Why can't people just bookmark their "My Groups" page as a quick way to get there? I've done it, it works. Only thing I would like is for the newer groups to show up first.
In the meantime, I don't think it's any more work...it's the same information just distributed differently. Think of it this way. Before March 1, EN was a library with no order. Just a huge pile of books that you could walk in and see which were the most popular b/c they were right on the front table. Now EN is a library with the Dewey Decimal system. Same books. Same info. Just organized neatly for you to go where you want to find it.
Totally a geek reference...
One thing I would like to suggest is that we start thinking about how the Groups are organized and named. Yes, there is open access to create as many new groups as you want. However, before creating that group I think you need to ask yourself, "Should I or is there some other group that covers it?" We run the risk of group explosion were we won't be able to find anything.
For example, I know there are a few EN members racing the Tour of Battenkill in a couple weeks. It would be cool to have a place to discuss this race. I almost started a group. Then I thought well, maybe I should simply use "Island of the Misfit Toys" Group and just start a new discussion for the race. This seemed more logical rather than creating a group for just 5 people.
Another example my be for the IM race groups. We currently have groups designated by year. Maybe we should just have a group per race. That way we get a consolidated area for one particular race. People then can easily go back and see what others who have raced that race before had to say. Otherwise, we need a way to archive older groups do that we aren't wading through 1000's of groups.
Again, just my $0.02...
Hey Folks,
Just to back up Patrick here and give you a little more insight. This is our 4th year of EN. These are things we've learned are most important to you, regarding the communication aspects of EN:
We've always seen the 80/20 rule in pretty much everything we do. Regarding the 80/20 of bullet #4:
Now, please understand that 95% of what you see here is being built, in real time, as we move along together as a team. The way things typically work back here behind the curtain:
Sorry P, but a "geek reference" would be if you threw in some Star Trek or comic book stuff. I think library metaphors take you to a whole different place beyond geekdom.
After reading Coach P's explanation about the groups it starting to make more sense, especially in terms of adding functionality for race or topic specific content. So along those lines I totally agree with Peter's suggestion that the race related groups probably shouldn't be labled by year but possibly have the years listed as a major grouping in the discussion section and the actual discussions be minor grouping under each year. Think of it along the lines of the Nutrition or Medical headings but 2009, 2010, etc. But if the software doesn't work that way then there isn't much that can be done about that.
From reading all of the posts about the group format it seems the big concern is access to the various groups, the content, and the people.. The team vibe now is one that is very inclusive but it seems that we all have the concern that this will lead to fractioning of the team. It seams that there will be a bit of a learning curve with setting the security on them to allow anyone to join and this is adding to that fear.
Jeff,
Thanks for the discussion. EN is/always will be inclusive -- no attitues, people are respected for knowledge, contributing to the greater good of the community first, speed, performance a very distant second, etc.
But inclusive can't mean "the default setting for EN is that you see/hear/read/are presented with everything all the time, whether you want to or not," because 80% just want what they need and not much more.
Bottomline:
Having been around here since Moses wore short pants, I want to reassure the newer members that there is no secret handshake club of WSM's, there is no caste system within EN separating newbie from vet, or sub 10 from sub 15, whatever. That is what is so damn cool about this place. The forums were really well described by Patrick- they're simply being organized and sorted. The EN growth has been really explosive yet the owners have limited it smartly to the 650. The forum give and take, the level of support and experiential knowledge that is shared, the whole positive attitude of helpfulness and support with very very little snarky STness is absolutely what sets EN apart and adds value. Truly, plans for power and pace are great but not exclusive to EN. The virtual and real team that is created within EN is via the forums- the golden goose. The info and advice and tips and experiences shared there- the golden eggs.
Point is, let us not pull limb from limb the golden goose. All the coaches are doing is sorting the eggs. In the process they may break a few.
Thanks for listening.
Old MacDonald
I like the new group thing.
Just maybe remove the private option.
Mr. Gleason is MORE than capable of speaking for himself, but as a "member" of now-defunct super secret society I want to mention something that no one has. It was a lark. Nothing more. He set it up goofing around with the newly-found fact that such a group actually COULD be formed and have life. The people in it happened to be on his EN friends roster b/c that's how forming a group is set up. There was nothing nefarious or underhanded or exclusionary about it. At all. It would have faded into the sunset in short order.
But I felt I had to say that in this case it was goofy, silly, and nothing more--although I certainly understand how it would rankle.
I think it's good that the option is now eliminated for the reasons members have cited. Such a thing could be used as a force for evil, undermining a lot of goodwill.
My group was not just secret. It was super secret. Also did not contain any content at all. This morning I opened it up to everyone and then for whatever reason it was deleted in its entirety.
I can assure everyone that I am not hoarding knowledge about anything. Well nothing tri related anyhow...