A group is a collection, a pool of photos referring to a certain topic. Practically seen it's simply impossible to look into all groups very often, where you are a member. This is practicable, if one is member of very few, lets say three to five groups. These collections have the purpose for people who - for whatever reason - want to see and browse all photos with e.g. "red bricks". If I post a photo in this group, it's because I want to contribute to this collection so that such a user has this option. It doesn't imperatively mean, that I myself am interested every day or week in this special collection.
You are completely right with the described user beahvior. And I know, that most of all groups are not the place to make a photo popular, with exceptions, like HFF or similar groups. But I really think, you demand way too much, if you say, a group member has to visit each group each week or so.

I did not say the groups should be visited on weekly bases. And I do acknowledge the value of some groups providing great collections to discover interesting collections even once in a lifetime. But do judge yourself, what is reasonable:

www.ipernity.com/search/group?w=0&q=flower

Way too many thematical duplicates makes it difficult to see the forest for the trees.

I think you make a good point about groups being collections, and adding to them is not necessarily for getting ones photo more notice. For this reason I'm supporting keeping some unused groups that have great collections (closed, not deleted). If someone wanted to open such a group up again, they could contact the ima team to see if it could happen.

I also think that there are many ways to use a group.

I am most interested in making sure groups are administered so a group's name matches the content.

Thanks to Sami for working to help that happen. Also good to challenge ones self to not just 'dump' to groups. I've done just that, but am now trying to be more conscious.

Personally, I am starting by going through the groups I am a member of, to see if the administrator is even noticing what is going into the group. I am choosing to leave groups that aren't well administered AND giving the names of those groups to the Groupbusters group.

Flowers (2), (3), (4).........crazy indeed ;-)

An example of an abandoned group that has gone out of order:

www.ipernity.com/group/60276

Members does not care about the description:

"No skies please, anything else"

The possible person who has established the group has left the external link referring to a personal external web site, which does not even exist anymore.

And that is not the only case of similar neglected groups.

So Sami, you're saying people are not reading your "read me" post!

One thing we might be able to do is to promote the tools that help people easily see what is new in their groups. While right in front of us, I don't think it is well used.

Well, Berny is right that one or few weeks is too much to expect.

BUT, it is not about one or two individuals! The discussion started concerning very small "Red bricks" group. So, there one really can not expect to get much visits.

But there are number of groups now, where are many many active contributors. One would expect that at least one or two out of ten would notice:
www.ipernity.com/user/2609502/group

I dont't know all groups here but I would be cautious with groups, which - while not often visited - are active. They have acvtive members and postings are fresh and new.
1) Why to close "Composing the Abstract"??? Is there another such group which is more active?
2) "Old People": Please do not close. Search for an admin instead.
3) "Mirrors and reflective surfaces": There are enough active members, it should not be difficult to find an admin.
4) "Metal": same as 3
5) "Industrie im Detail": I'm active in this group and in some others, for which you posted a "Read Me". To be honest, I will not answer all of this Read me, this is too time consuming.
6)............

This action of you, Sami, is understandable on one side, but it makes stress and sort of fear on the other side. You are right for sure, there are many groups in your link, which are dispensable, but also many which I really would miss and I'm sure others too. Why such a stress. Do we need storage? We are in fear, that groups which have a "Read me" will be closed as others already are.

I agree it's suboptimal to have many similar groups, but please look at this:
www.flickr.com/search/groups/?text=Flowers

Much. much. much worse then with Ipernity!

Much more important than closing groups is deleting images which doesn't fit in a group. I woul like to see a group of "Imagebusters", who have the access privilege to delete such images, if they find one. This must not be by browsing and searching but can also be accidentally.

Sami, look in the group "Zeitgenössische Abstraktionen", in which you are posting some of your images. How many images are "abstract" in the sense of the group description? Is this a reason to close the group? No, it should only be better moderated.

Personnellement, je quitte régulièrement des groupes où je ne retrouve que mes photos. Cela signifie que ces groupes sont inactifs.

I wish many others would do the same.

1) Why to close "Composing the Abstract"??? Is there another such group which is more active?

www.ipernity.com/group/abstract

2) "Old People": Please do not close. Search for an admin instead.

Not closed, but no one volunteered yet. I will remove this from all similar calls:

"If none found, the group will become closed and deleted."

Thanks for feedback.

3) "Mirrors and reflective surfaces": There are enough active members, it should not be difficult to find an admin.

Yes, next stage could be to promote the most active members to group moderators, and then ask if anyone is interested.

4) "Metal": same as 3

The same as 3.

5) "Industrie im Detail": I'm active in this group and in some others, for which you posted a "Read Me". To be honest, I will not answer all of this Read me, this is too time consuming.

Yes, this is too time consuming... But the plan on all those README cases is not to close immediately. If no one views and cares for them, then the plan is to start using the new group mail feature.

I would like to warn of a too strict group deletion.
Closing down a group should not be a function of response time - this might mean that only pensioners' groups will survive ;-)))))
just kidding.

Groups are kind of an organisation method, too, not always an effective one but they are. One can find certain pictures by searching for groups. Maybe key words would work better but if photographers chose to post their pictures to groups we should accept their decision.
Cleaning up unaskedly might appear kind of aggressive.
Even if there is no quick response to a "call for order" a group may be attended regularly - perhaps once in a fortnight.

So the teams concept of tidiness should not be seen as absolute - others' opinion may vary.

Last but not least, cleaning up groups is in my opinion only a side issue. Groups do not cause costs (these few bytes for a flag will be affordable) and users will re-open deleted groups.
It's like fighting the hydra - endless and probably useless ;-)))

And I doubt that random visitors from the depths of the web will be scared off by the number of groups. Most of them will probably not take care of it.

Accepting a certain amount of fuss is way easier ;-)

Few opinions of mine, which hopefully help us to find a balance:

Thematical duplicates

If people keep on starting numerous groups on flowers, which may become abandoned in time, then how does that help people to find good collections? Average people does a "quick and dirty" search:

www.ipernity.com/search/group?w=0&q=flower

First what I got is this:

www.ipernity.com/group/romantical.flowers

At least it is administrated by a Club member. But a very small group, and description not translated.

Therefore I would keep on closing groups left without administration for years and with poor descriptions and translations.

Lack of collaboration

The worst on all this is lack of collaboration, and lack of communication. Everyone wish to play solo. It would be better to join the forces, run only few groups together in band, to make sure there's always some group admins to reach out.

Lack of active administration and/or moderation

You wrote: Much more important than closing groups is deleting images which doesn't fit in a group.
And I totally agree. But that is the point of closing some groups AND calling out for people to start doing it. Unfortunately in some cases it makes more sense to also close the thematical duplicates and guide people to join their forces on better options.

Deleting images that does not fit into the group requires group administration and moderation. If we have ten groups on the same topic, then who has time and energy to look after all of those ten? Once again, better to have only few groups, that are properly looked after.

Summa summarum

- Close and delete thematical duplicates!

- Collaborate!

- Translate!

- Administrate and moderate!

- Communicate!

okay