Groups?

  • Manakia
    20th Feb 2019 Member 0 Permalink

    So I heard that groups would be phased out. 

     

    I have two points to make for this: 

     

    Firstly groups are extremely useful for TPTMP and general discussion, I personally think that not all groups should be removerd. 

     

    Secondly I still think groups should be able to be created under specific conditions, One being that a TPT moderator approves it, and Two being that the group isn't inactive for more than 90 days and has at least three members besides the owner, after which it will be deleted and it's posts migrated to the forum where they are either eventually deleted or stay relevant amongst others. 

     

    Also, there should still be a way to browse and join a group provided it meets both the criteria above.

     

    For pre-existing groups: Groups that have been inactive for more than 90 days (No posts, no mod actions, etc.) should be deleted as their users most likely don't do anything with the group anymore. 

     

    Groups that are active within the 90 day chopping block period an have three members besides the owner should be left alone. 

     

    This would also take a huge burden off TPT's servers as a whopping 80-90% of groups would disappear. There shouldn't be any warning on this or public info besides this post if this action is taken to prevent necro. Beyond this, this would allow for the group function without the problems of inactive and owner only groups. 

  • jacob1
    21st Feb 2019 Developer 0 Permalink
    These are some great suggestions, and basically how the groups system should have worked from the start. Although it doesn't convince me to keep the system.

    You go over a lot of the major problems it had though. Moderator approval would have solved a lot of things, like the constant flood of new empty groups, and there were even a few offensive groups registered.
    Deleting inactive groups would also have been good. I did the numbers while deciding to delete it, I can't find them. But I think it was even more than 90% inactive (when you include groups where only the owner was a member / posted as inactive)

    There are some other problems though. It was actually a really buggy system. The forums were overhauled like 7 years ago or something, and the groups system still uses css from before this. It makes all the buttons glitch out, you had to use a userscript to fix the css.
    There were problems registering, for years we had a bug where when you submitted a group application, you could never cancel it, causing you to be stuck with it forever.
    Over the years there were a few XSS vulnerabilities discovered in the forums. I'm unsure if these are fixed in the groups system or not, it's a security issue to maintain two entirely separate forum systems.

    Basically, in addition to the huge issues with registering and keeping groups active that you mentioned, there are a ton of issues that I have trying to maintain the groups system and make sure it works. Right now, it definitely doesn't work, it's fallen behind on years of maintenance. I'd rather just delete it than support it.

    I think groups should be done through TPT saves, this has worked out well enough before.