the GROUPS section of COMMUNITY
Again I bring up the issue that the GROUPS section of Community seems to be almost dead with no signs of serious life support being made to bring it to life.
I totally realize certain groups no longer make sense to exist with the current format of the Community. And there seem to be numerous groups that have simply taken their course and are no longer needed or wanted.
BUT there are various others that totally make sense to exist and thrive - if simply there was a group to lead, maintain, build up and nurture them.
Seems to me the group that once administered, supported, and promoted these groups has pretty much fallen apart for quite some time now.
If given enough attention and advertising these groups could surely thrive
BUT most of them have been abandoned for so long that people no longer even think they are functional
Check out the groups - and see which ones you might be interested in. If you find that the subject is an important one - submit a post on such group and ask the group admins where we stand with these groups and what can be done to promote them better and support them more effectively.
Note the groups area has not (up till this point) been supported by the same set of admins and moderators as the rest of the Community. That will probably change at some point.
Here is just a subset of the groups below.
for a list of all the groups see this link: https://community.familysearch.org/en/categories/gp-groups-en
Please consider picking a topic of interest and submitting a post on such group.
also let Community Leadership know of your value to such areas of the community (based on how valuable these resources COULD be if just given the support)
Note (unfortunately) you have to "join" a group - before you can submit a post to it- but joining is no more than just licking a button and unjoining the same
SUBJECTS in the groups
Adoption and Unknown Family Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/1-adoption-and-unknown-family-research
Africa Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/3-africa-genealogy-research
African American Genealogical Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/4-african-american-genealogy-research
Asia Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/10-asia-genealogy-research
Australia Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/12-australia-genealogy-research
Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/14-belgium-luxembourg-and-the-netherlands
British Isles Family Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/16-british-isles-family-history-research
Canada Family Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/17-canada-events-research
Family Bible Records
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/57-family-bible-records
First Nations of North America
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/78-first-nations-of-north-america
France Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/79-france-genealogy-research
Genetic Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/85-genetic-genealogy-research
Germany Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/88-germany-genealogy-research
India Genealogical Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/235-descendants-of-the-indian-subcontinent
Latin American Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/115-latin-american-genealogy-research-wiki
Military Records
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/121-military-records
Nordic Country Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/137-nordic-countries-genealogy-research
Relative Finder
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/281-byu-relativefinder-familysearch-family-tree
Southern States Family History Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/174-southern-states-family-history-research
Surname Specific Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/184-surname-specific-family-history-research
Wales Genealogy Research
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/205-wales-genealogy-research
Working TOGETHER we can make the community a better and more valuable place.
Lets all be part of the solution . . .
Answers
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Some Groups never appeared to usefully transition to the new Vanilla Community platform at all, such as Descendants of the Indian Subcontinent Group mentioned above, where I have in the past, under the old platform, answered queries, although not a Group member, such as https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/242005/#Comment_242005
I have seen many comments by Group members about the lack of email notification, which apparently is not possible under the Vanilla Community Platform.
The owner of many groups is given as "System", this appears to be FamilySearch. My suggestion for these FamilySearch groups would be to transfer them out of Groups and into the Community Category "Research Help", still maintaining the individual group structure. Being under "Research Help" IT WOULD NOT BE NECESSARY TO HAVE AN ADDITIONAL SIGN IN to post new questions, AND NON GROUP MEMBERS COULD ANSWER QUESTIONS WITHOUT HAVING TO JOIN THE GROUP.
Then establish a "Research Help" Discussion stream, so that with one click people would be able to see the new discussions for Research Help which included the FamilySearch groups, and also integrate this stream into the All Discussions stream for Family Search Help. This would perhaps be of benefit to those who liked receiving an email notification under the old system. This would hopefully widen the number of people who actually saw the new question, and also hopefully would widen the group of people who responded to a question, who could now do so without the formality of joining the specific group.For a certain time period, Group questions seemed to be appearing in the Discussions stream for Family Search Help, although you couldn't answers unless you were a Group member, but that seemed to stop a while ago.
In saying this, I realise the Community category "Research Help" currently seems almost "dead", and posts seem to have been deleted from it, (General Research Questions currently showing two posts, including one from Admin) but there doesn't seem to be any underlying reason why thing couldn't function better.
Before writing this post I looked at BRITISH ISLES FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH which says FamilySearchSponsoredGroups. However I note it is not listed under the category "Research Groups". Also initially when I looked at it (although not now) there was a banner saying "Social Group". It seems odd to me that it is not classified as a "Research Group"
edit: Firstly: bold large type is because I copied some text, not because I want it like that.
Secondly: For the Group British Isles Family History Research, I now can see that the "Social Group" banner appears if you are looking at the "All Discussions" stream within the Group.
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The reason the research groups are quiet is there is no notification support. Nor is there any interest in making the research groups have the same functionality as the help categories. I say this because I submitted a suggestion (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/112566/email-notification-for-for-all-groups#latest) and it initially got moved out of Suggest an Idea by an admin and into another category. When people "discussing" it with me kept urging me to suggest it, I told them I had, and it had been moved out (this is all visible in the link). It eventually got moved back to Suggest an Idea, but as you will see, no one can vote on it.
The powers that be do not seem to understand how notifications that can go out via email to people will draw crowds into the discussions. Who has time to go into the groups, check the dates and figure out if there is anything new. I used to love my weekly emails and a couple of groups I had set to daily.
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Yes I am sure that is a factor.
But there are other major factors as well - I get the impression that the team that used to support the GROUPS area is not functioning at the level it once was (if it is functioning at all)
one other major flaw was the ability to cross post which no longer exists.
Just seems like the GROUPS area is in limbo
little activity and little support and no vision or leadership of how that will change . . .
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Yes, I no longer recommend FamilySearch research groups to people looking for help in localized places around the world.
The only exception to that was someone who said she was up against a brick wall with the Yancey family name and I referred her to YOUR group. I assume she went there and you helped her, but I didn't follow up.
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As a missionary based in England, I am involved with the British Isles group referred to by @MaureenE123. I note her comments which I found rather strange, having not noticed them before. But I do not consider that these are impairments to the functioning of the group. We do not get many posts in the group but usually a few each week which we try our best to answer.
British missionaries are also now involved in the other groups for the British Isles - England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I regularly visit the English group and help answer questions there (my ancestry is almost exclusively English at least in the last few centuries). All these groups are getting regular traffic and are well worth a visit if you have ancestry from there.
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