Support groups

[cphuntington97]

support groups using bangtags

[Gargron]

I made a decision not to implement groups. They offer little benefit over a cost of added complexity, and the bangtag syntax personally irks me too.

[joshp23]

This is the main reason that I'm not using Mastadon. Groups are a wonderful feature of GNU Social, and I would love to see them implemented on Mastadon.

However, while that certainly does keep me from enjoying Mastadon, the root of the matter is that...

1. This is an opinion (subjective) based exclusion of an established feature that many, myself included, find far more valuable than is implied above, and not at all visually irksome. "My personal, subjective opinion is better than yours because I hold it," is not a good reason to exclude an established feature set.
   • Also, it is entirely possible to avoid groups if you so choose when they are implemented.
2. Treating subjective opinions as objective truths (ie, "It is my opinion that this provides little value, it is therefore a fact that this is so,") is just bad directional thinking.

This, being an old and closed issue, likely doesn't get the attention that it deserves, but I know that I am not the only one that holds this view.

At any rate, It would be great to see groups in Mastadon, please reconsider.

[Gargron]

Reopening, but not high priority.

[schiessle]

Coming from GNU Social I also miss groups a lot. It is a easy way to exchange messages about a specific topic without the need to follow all the people (and also get all the unrelated messages).

But after thinking about it for a while I wonder why there is this arbitrary distinction between groups and hash tags? Maybe it would be better to simply add the possibility to follow hash tags, similar to Diaspora. It achieves the same but makes it probably easier to use and understand for new users.

[Cassolotl]

Maybe it would be better to simply add the possibility to follow hash tags, similar to Diaspora. It achieves the same but makes it probably easier to use and understand for new users.

I agree! And @schiessle, that's #1096, if that helps at all.

[joshp23]

I think that either option (following hashtags or creating groups) is a good idea. However, groups has a potential edge in viewership/participant restriction.

[fsnk]

I would very much like groups.

I think they would help users find other people who share their interests, especially since Mastodon by design limits discoverability by not allowing full text search, and other social media platforms have been training users off hashtagging. (Twitter no longer requires a post contain the actual hashtag in order to appear in the hashtag search results.)

[schiessle]

I heard rumors that groups might come in one of the next releases. 😉 It would be good to learn from the mistakes of status.net aka GNU Social which are in my opinion:

• on GNU Social there can't be a group "foo" and a user "foo". Would be great if the namespace would be decoupled so that it is possible to have users and groups with the same name.

• GNU Social has group aliases. So you can have for example a group for all FOSS enthusiasts and let them address the group as !FreeSoftware !OpenSource !FOSS or !FLOSS. I think this is great and useful in many areas. But on GNU Social this aliases are only available on the server which hosts the group, all other servers only know the main group name. If we have group aliases it would be great if they would federate as well.

[deutrino]

There is a fair amount of discussion on the merit of !groups on #1096 in case anybody missed the link to that issue upthread.

[Cassolotl]

I note that ~option to follow hashtags 1096~ Ability to subscribe or follow tags #945 has a lot more thumbs-ups than this one, despite this issue being much older. I'm wondering if there is a plan to implement both? I know that !groups is on the roadmap for the near future, and I'm concerned that that's instead of the ability to follow hashtags?

Edit: It was pointed out that #1096 is a duplicate, but I think my point still holds! #1096 has 35 👍 and #945 has 13.

[deutrino]

Is #945 an implementation of #1096?

Also, there's the wrinkle of groups, as implemented in gnusocial, making sure the messages sent to the !group will federate to all subscribers. Following hashtags doesn't do that.

[Cassolotl]

Oh yes, you're right, I already suggested #1096 be closed as a duplicate of #945, oops. :S

groups, as implemented in gnusocial, making sure the messages sent to the !group will federate to all subscribers.

Good point!

[nightpool]

@Cassolotl can you talk a little bit more about what you think the difference between the two requests are? I can think of a few, but the two issues seem to have a lot of overlap, so i'm interested in hearing which parts you think are important.

[Cassolotl]

Sure! :)

So, when I used !groups on GNU Social, my main feeling was that they were pretty confusing. It required someone to set it up, and there could be three groups with the same name on three different instances all with different rules about who can join. If an admin made a group where members (followers and posters) had to be approved, and then the admin became inactive, the group just became stagnant forever.

So it seemed to me like following a hashtag might be better, because there were no leaders and anyone could keep joining in without having to wait for permission.

So it's a pros and cons situation. Someone could spam a bunch of people following a hashtag, whereas in a !group the admin/group leader could stop that happening by removing a spammer from the group and revoking posting rights.

Also deutrino pointed out that if you're part of a !group on any instance then messages from the !group get to you even if you're not following anyone who posts to the group, whereas with a hashtag search you might never see a post in that hashtag if you don't follow or share an instance with anyone who uses it.

So I guess I would like to be able to follow hashtags regardless, because there are some hashtags I always want to have pinned columns of, and pinned columns can get unwieldy and require a lot of scrolling so I'd rather all the toots were just rolled into my home feed. I don't think that !groups are a good solution to that for me, because I would rather risk spam and avoid the complications of group administration.

Overall they're kinda the same - having posts about a particular topic in your Home feed regardless of whether you're following the people involved. But they seem to each be useful in different ways, so I don't want one to replace the other. I welcome more thoughts/ideas/discussion/comments if anyone has them!

[joshp23]

Groups federate. That's the main difference that I see. Secondly, groups can be made private.

[nightpool]

@Cassolotl the main problem is that it's very, very hard to try and solve the problem of having hashtags federate out for discoverability. The main reason I see to implement groups is that it allows people who are on brand new instances or don't have any followers to find people who want to see their posts! and with hashtags, there are a lot of thorny problems of "well, who is following this hashtag, how can we know that they're following it on a tech level, and how do we get posts to them". Groups solve these problems, but they come with their own downsides. Following hashtags is useful, but the main reason to go with groups is to help new user discoverability, and right now implementing that for hashtags would be very hard.

ideally we would have both. But i think of the two, i think groups are more useful for us right now.

[Cassolotl]

Since they are different and have different purposes, I do hope we can have both. I'm not denying that groups are good for various reasons, obviously there are plenty of people into the idea and Gargron is apparently more up for it now. But clearly there are also plenty of people who'd like to be able to follow hashtags too, so I'm just hoping that adding groups won't mean that following hashtags becomes a forgotten feature request.

Edit:

The main reason I see to implement groups is that it allows people who are on brand new instances or don't have any followers to find people who want to see their posts!

A lot of these people will be brand new users, and I definitely agree that them having some groups to follow would be excellent for helping them get settled in. Mastodon has so far been much more new-user-friendly than GNU Social, so I imagine folks will have an easier time finding and joining groups on Mastodon than I did on GNU Social? I do look forward to finding out how it all turns out.

But yes, follow hashtags. I don't want it to be forgotten.

[LEW21]

Groups are the killer feature of Facebook, and are probably necessary if we want people to migrate from Facebook to Mastodon massively.

I've invited people from a Polish IT group ("Jak będzie w Maszynie Turinga") on Facebook to Mastodon, and used hashtag "#turingi" to "recreate" the group on Mastodon. Unfortunately, people on other instances don't see all the posts there, and that's a major roadblock. Additionaly, if this migration would succeed, we would probably have a problem with spam - as the Facebook group is moderated, and useless posts are getting removed - which we can't do with a hashtag.

[hcs0]

I would like to see this feature. I recently tried out GNUSocial and I love the Groups feature (I have one just for travel) and would love to have something like this available in Mastodon too.

[semente]

The global and local public timelines are now flooded by a huge amount of new young Brazilians and they share a common interest (they are part of a fandom community leaving Twitter after some rules changed there making some of them loosing their Twitter accounts).

As Portuguese speaker I noticed that what these new users most enjoy in Mastodon are the public timelines - or the ability to interact with an audience outside their followers circle. Looks like they are the majority of active users on Mastodon now hahaha and because of that they made the Federated Timeline like their chat channel (and many believe it is "their channel": they often complain about "gringos" and other people they don't share the same interest like being intruders).

Based on that I think the ability to follow different public timelines makes more sense now.

Some thoughts and opinions:

I don't like how "groups" are implemented in GNU Social. The use of !bangtag syntax to post make the post dirtier, and it compete with hashtags. Also I don't think "group" is an accurate name for what I have in mind (and forgive me if I'm missing the point of this Issue). "channel" or "public timeline" may fits better.

In my opinion, private groups and communities are already possible with separated instances.

And the ability of following hashtags may be interesting, the existing UI ability to pinning hashtags, for those that do not want mess with your personal timeline, helps. I believe that once people are able to follow hashtags they will start using it more effectively instead creating many nonsense tags or using different hashtags for a same subject.

[pwFoo]

Private groups would be awesome for some of my needs... But separated instances would be waste resources I think?

[pwFoo]

Maybe technical easier could bei a list based group feature?

Copied from private hashtags issue #4513

Maybe instead of private hashtags visibility by list members? A list is a timeline / stream filtered by users. List users -> group members

So lists could be additional visibility / access filter like public, followers only or direct?

Select a list to share direct to all list users (shortcut for mention all the users to Post direct / private).

If that would be possible it would be great to have a way to share a list (group) with all the users (group members) to the members.

[joachimesque]

There's one remark I read from time to time when new people join Mastodon, is “we should make a new instance for design/photography/veganism/my city”… these ideas would be better served by groups, as I would only require one account for many groups.

I see groups as closed groups, where discussions are not shown on local/global feeds and you have to be approved to join in. That might mean some kind of moderation panel for group owners, which complicates things exponentially. "Open" groups would be served by followable hashtags (see #1096) or something of the sort.

Groups were the main feature I used on Facebook before I left the social network, and it's something I'd like to see it on Mastodon, too.

[duven87]

Yes! it would be nice finally a decentralized social network with groups and with the posibility to follow them.. I prefer follow groups and channels than people :)

[pwFoo]

Instead of build a group feature would it easier to build it with "shared lists"?

1. Build a mastodon list with users / members
2. Add feature to share the list (copy / share to list member users)
3. Share to list members (would be a new mastodon feature) as done with visibility modes "followers only" or "direct"

That isn't a closed group, but make it easy to share private to some users.

[nemobis]

Groups are also the one thing that Mastodon lacks compared to Google Plus, which could prevent some closed/invite-only/moderated communities from migrating.

[Angular-Angel]

Hmm. I've been thinking about this, and I think it would be really helpful. Also maybe look at the functionality for forums and listings? Depending on how things are implemented those could be basically the same things as groups. Or they could be different. Being able to use mastodon for the same kind of functionality as freecycle would be really cool, though that might be getting away from it's core functionality. :/

[Tjoppen]

Small idea: put !groups as their own timelines next to the local and federated ones in the main UI. And in the user's own timeline of course :)

To those suggesting using hashtags as groups: hashtags can't sew the fediverse together the same way bangtags do. You can't moderate a hashtag and you can't link hashtags together. Thinking like that is a twitterism.

Groups can also bring instances together that wouldn't otherwise talk to eachother. If I follow !electronics@example.com from my cybre.space account, I might see people from scholar.social also post to that group. But I would probably not see them if I used a hashtags, since hashtags don't proliferate that far.

Groups are also a useful way to quarantine interactions with people who you wouldn't otherwise want to talk to, but are fine talking to about a certain subject. Example: we have an amateur radio group on our GNU Social instance. One of the guys in it is on an edgelord instance, and I can't stand him when he talks about non-radio stuff. But since the group keeps conversation to a topic, interaction improves.

Finally, groups could potentially be linked together. So posts might flow between !electronics@example.com <==> !soldering@hackerz.foo

[hex-m]

Prismo is implementing a federated link aggregator (think of reddit). As they naturally need "groups" we should try to be compatible. There is a nice short article that gives an overview. Basically: "will follow the conventions for how GNU Social handles groups"

[ghost]

Reopening, but not high priority.

Hello, Has there been any development on the Groups feature front yet?

[m-ueberall]

It's a pity that this feature is not yet available now that all those Google+ groups are bound to dissolve in April… would/could have been a no-brainer for a number of those to switch to Mastodon.

[o5k4r]

This feature is absolute neccessary. Without groups (and comments) the whole project is not usable. If you want this to be successful, you have to implement (step by step) all the features FB is providing. If you don't empower the user to control all aspects of the mastodon experience, there will be no incentive to join.

[trwnh]

if you want this to be successful, you have to implement (step by step) all the features FB is providing

please no. facebook is an overly complicated usability nightmare. copying facebook step-by-step would ruin everything currently appealing about mastodon in the eyes of people who joined it simply for small posts and replies. if you want a ton of features you can use something like friendica, which is and always will be the better option for people looking for a facebook-like experience.

as far as mastodon is concerned, it should integrate features only in a way that is understandable and makes sense. right now, that means that the addition of groups probably depends on adding specific post audiences/addressing, aside from "to my followers, and optionally to public timelines". it could perhaps be seen as an extension to DMs/conversations, or as another column, etc. those details can be worked out in a way that isn't copying facebook and making the mastodon experience more complicated.

[pwFoo]

Do not copy facebook features! I don't like facebook. But groups are needed, that's true...

[duven87]

if you want this to be successful, you have to implement (step by step) all the features FB is providing

please no. facebook is an overly complicated usability nightmare. copying facebook step-by-step would ruin everything currently appealing about mastodon in the eyes of people who joined it simply for small posts and replies. if you want a ton of features you can use something like friendica, which is and always will be the better option for people looking for a facebook-like experience.

as far as mastodon is concerned, it should integrate features only in a way that is understandable and makes sense. right now, that means that the addition of groups probably depends on adding specific post audiences/addressing, aside from "to my followers, and optionally to public timelines". it could perhaps be seen as an extension to DMs/conversations, or as another column, etc. those details can be worked out in a way that isn't copying facebook and making the mastodon experience more complicated.

I think that Mastodon should to have all functionalities possible. Groups are very important.. People like me dont follow people, if not themes, ideas, interests and in adition if I follow someone he can have a lot of themes to share and Im only interested in one of them. If I want search a keywork like "Linux" why I have to see it in all languages? i preffer find a group named "Linux en espanol" o something like that. Anyway Mastodon should to be the BASE. After that comes the forks like Pleroma that looks like more what I want (GNU Social). Mastodon its a kaos with all these timeslines. I hate it and are very narrow. I cant migrate to a decentralized Social Network til it has groups/private groups and the private messages are encrypted also for the admin.

[remram44]

That is a very bad use-case for groups because it can be completely addressed by hashtags (eg #linuxES). Also mentioning that it should have "all the functionality possible" is not going to help make this a priority 😅

[nemobis]

Remi Rampin, 06/03/19 19:10:

That is a very bad use-case for groups because it can be completely addressed by hashtags (eg #linuxES).

Not quite, because you cannot subscribe to hashtags. One of the major features of identi.ca was the !tags. Groups only need to be something like that with some possibility to moderate membership.

[duven87]

That is a very bad use-case for groups because it can be completely addressed by hashtags (eg #linuxES). Also mentioning that it should have "all the functionality possible" is not going to help make this a priority sweat_smile

Remi Rampin, 06/03/19 19:10: That is a very bad use-case for groups because it can be completely addressed by hashtags (eg #linuxES). Not quite, because you cannot subscribe to hashtags. One of the major features of identi.ca was the !tags. Groups only need to be something like that with some possibility to moderate membership.

Exactly! LinuxES is a valid option but it's what nemobis says, I can't follow it. Besides, not everybody falls for that conjecture of adding the extension like webs. Or maybe a group with a large name. For example: Pickers & Packers In Leaning Rock 2017. How should to be? Pickers&PackersInLeaningRock2017? Pickers_&_Packers_In_Leaning_Rock_2017? I hope not to write it everytime, just click and write and receive notifications when someone use this hashtag/group. Who says "all functionallity" says the basics. Groups and encrypted private messages. More than a social network this type of networks without groups looks like a blog.

[sgenoud]

I have spent some time trying to implement groups as another federated service. Groups can be another type of actor on the fediverse, not only hashtage.

I try to explain what I have been trying to do on my blog. You can try to use it here. Feedback welcome on any of it!

[Tjoppen]

@sgenoud It's good to see more fediverse developers care about groups. But consider using the established syntactic sugar: !groupname@example.com

[sgenoud]

@sgenoud It's good to see more fediverse developers care about groups. But consider using the established syntactic sugar: !groupname@example.com

It definitely would be nice to have something in that spirit. But this is more of the realm of how the clients implement it than anything else. I guess if federa groups ever take off it might make sense to add some syntactic sugar on top of them.

[jelutz77]

Me too!

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[lctrt]

I think this is still relevant and worth discussing / moving forward

[Vitalicus]

No groups yet?

[opitux]

Every time I talk about Mastodon as a privacy-friendly alternative to a member of my family, the notion of a group comes up...

Groups would be so useful to make them leave facebook :/

Pleaaaase :)

[oiceberg]

There is an instance (gab dot com) who uses Mastodon's but, apparently, doesn't compliance with Mastodon's GNU AGPLv3 license. In my opinion they made a very good implementation of Groups in their Mastodon instance, but probably it's source code is not shared, violating the GNU AGPLv3 license.

I'll attach here 6 print screens of Groups implementation in that instance:

1. Groups / Featured.
2. Groups / Member.
3. Inside a group / Members.
4. Inside a group / Posts (take attention for the most recent toot).
5. Inside a group / Posts / Filter turned on.
6. That most recent toot posted in the group how it's viewed on the timeline of the user who posted it, making explicit reference to the group in which it was posted.

The red squares are on my own emphasizing the highlights of the respective screen.

In summary, a toot posted inside a group is viewed in both the group's feed and the user's feed.

I hope it could inspire the community to implement Groups funcionality. <3

[jelutz77]

Probably? Sounds like prejudice to me. https://code.gab.com/gab/social/gab-social/

[pwFoo]

Public / private groups ist a important feature I would need. Tested mastodon, misskey and search more systems... Maybe I need to take a look into gab...?!

[James-E-A]

I wonder why there is this arbitrary distinction between groups and hash tags? Maybe it would be better to simply add the possibility to follow hash tags, similar to Diaspora.

I do think you're precisely right, schiessle, at least as far as Open groups are concerned; nemobis brings up

Groups only need to be something like that with some possibility to moderate membership.

I think the crux of this issue is Access Controls:

A "group"...

• may restrict who can post in it (beyond the base restrictions of the server)
• determines who can view posts in it (independently of the base restrictions of its posters)
  • trivial by comparison: requires opt-in to view technically-public posts in it

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Also, I want to signal-boost @sgenoud's above comment for providing us inspiration both motivational and technical.