The deadwood in the groups

What can we do about the deadwood in our groups who don't seem to log, or do just enough to not get booted, but never contribute comments or thoughts? I have a couple of great groups one where no one says anything at all. What is the point? Should we just leave those groups? What do you do?

Wed. Dec 28, 7:05am

I am frustrated by this too. I try to get the person involved by specifically directing questions or comments to the non-active person. Truthfully, it doesn't usually work. I have left groups because of this reason.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 8:04 AM

If you haven't tried commenting to someone directly, give it a try. Or make a general comment. Maybe its a case of not wanting to be the first person to post.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 9:06 AM

You can always start your own group (public or private) with your favorite group members. This way you know the people joining the group are serious posters. It's been very helpful to me. I have found that looking for a new group can be just as frustrating.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 9:32 AM

Create a group and advertise it here. Or join one that is advertised here that has frequent posters. Don't use this as an excuse to not log and lose weight. I belong to 5 groups and I expected people to be gone on vacation.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 2:08 PM

Maybe they are lurkers and are just quiet...

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 3:11 PM

New group

Hey I have the same problem. Pretty quiet in my 4 different groups.
Created a new one 'Active Buddies'. Join in all who actively post and comment on each others logs.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 9:50 PM

From the OP. I'm not using anything as an excuse. Sure, I expect it to be somewhat quiet during the holidays, I just want to know what your strategies are. When I tried to start a group no one joined, so I left it. I'm in four groups and two are pretty active, so that's good. Anyways thanks everyone for your ideas!

Thursday, December 29, 2005, 5:37 AM

East coast/West Coast?

Aw come on! I am in India and we are 11.5-13.5 hours ahead of the US in time!

Still I have a lot of activity in my groups. The trick is to join a few groups and then leave the ones that you dont find active enough. You can even invite your favorites to a whole new group and ....!!!!!

Thursday, December 29, 2005, 10:45 AM

I was tired of this as well. So I started my own group and was very specific about what I wanted out of it. It filled up in about an hour and then 3 days later 2 people stopped logging and commenting, after about 6 days I asked them about it got no response and then asked them again. Still nothing, finally I posted to them privately and asked them to join in that it isn't going to be a support group if we don't hear from each other and if they couldn't do this then maybe think about what they wanted and give someone else a chance to be part of an active group. They were gone the next day.

Friday, December 30, 2005, 2:14 AM

Peertrainer: Idea to vote them off

I was just thinking how there is a person who is wasting space in my group by not logging in, and we will have to wait 2 more days to get them booted. My idea is to vote them off and get them booted eariler to make room for members that post. 1 person can initiate the vote off for 1 member, and the 2 other members must both agree, and the deadweight gets booted. What do you think?

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 1:53 PM

oops, i think i meant deadwood

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 1:54 PM

That sounds a wee bit harsh. I have people like that too, I just created my own group with my fave peeps. It could work, I guess- voting off- but who would deliver it and what if they didnt want to leave?

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 2:00 PM

I have to add I understand the frustration, but I think voting people out of groups does not foster the supportive environment that people are looking for. I see voting people out as rather passive-agressive and I would not care to belong to a community that has to resort to those tactics.

I do have some days that are crazy and I don't have time to do more than log my food, and other days I can be quite active. Also, I don't need to make comments all the time or have someone make comments to me. Just logging my food and checking in on other memeber's logs is enough to keep me accountable. I only comment when I think I have something I really want to say and sometimes that's every day or sometimes that's once a week.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 4:31 PM

Rating system?

On my potential wishlist for PT...

An automated (or, perhaps user-controlled?) system for rating members based on activity. You would be rated on how often you log in, how often you complete your log, and post in your group.

This might self-motivate people to post more...

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 9:11 PM

LOL. This is a great idea.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 9:14 PM

It depends why they aren't logging.

I don't log when my life is FUBAR.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 2:00 AM

Hey, if you don't log when your life is FUBAR, tell your group that! I'm sure no one minds if you need a few days, they just want to know where you're at so they don't feel high and dry. Takes 5 minutes of your time. You could even put yourself "on vaction". Consider it a personal vacation.

I don't feel like the ratings system is a good idea. I feel like it will turn into a popularity contest rather than a activitity rating. We should be free to say as we please and give postivie criticism without fear of getting a negative rating by someone who may be overly sensitive but needs to hear what we have to say. Part of PT is about positive criticism. If it wasn't, the peer pressure aspect wouldn't work as well.

As for deadwood, why don't you comment to the people who are not commenting? There's no better way to spark conversation in an inactive group than to do it yourself! If people aren't logging in, wait it out, they'll get booted. Now that the vacation time system is working well, maybe it needs to be made more prominant and we should shorten the time it takes for people to get booted from 2 weeks to 1 week. If you're really "on vacation", put yourself there!

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 9:55 AM

I don't think ratings will work well here. This isn't an eBay type of thing where eveyone has pretty much the same idea of what's good and bad. If it does anything, it will foster bad feelings. The kind or quantity of comments that one person hopes to get will have someone else wanting to crawl into a hole ane die. Better to just form your own opinion as you go.
The suggestion of posting a one liner if you are FUBAR and need quiet time is good though. And in general if you say what feedback you want or don't want, you might have a better chance of getting it. No guarantees of course, but at least people will know your wishes.

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 11:14 AM

I guess I'm out of the loop... What is FUBAR?

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 11:22 AM

ratings

I posted the ratings idea above. Just to pursue the thought...

...what if were automated ratings, rather than user ratings? A score just based on your frequency of posting and commenting that's automatic and not based on what other people think? That wouldn't be a popularity contest.

Also FUBAR = Fouled Up Beyond All Repair. Usually another word is subsituted for "Fouled", though!

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 8:31 PM

I think the ratings idea is interesting. I think a few things would happen but I do think if it was only based on frequency, that would be a great thing. I would love to join a group where I know others are active.

Thursday, January 5, 2006, 9:38 AM

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