Hello everyone! 🖐️ We'd like to quickly clarify the purpose of the recent changes many of you may have noticed.
The recent announcement regarding today's changes to Similar Worlds: https://similarworlds.com/100-Admin-Announcements/3431898-Updates-to-Groups-Posts-Hello-Similar-Worlds-The
Directly relates to this old announcement of "SW Group & Category Re-Structuring", which we have also referred to numerous times as "Group Consolidation": https://similarworlds.com/100-Admin-Announcements/2149687-SW-Group-Category-Re-Structuring-Feedback
Where we discussed proposed improvements to Similar Worlds, with regards to the Groups and Categories that have existed* on SW since its launch.
The goal is to move Away from: • The disorganized collections of "Groups" that were originally imported from EP.
• Having Questions exist in separate "Categories", completely unrelated to other posts.
and instead, move Towards a more organized, Topic-based structure.
Instead of having to create Stories in oddly named groups like: • I Love Animals Also People That Loves Animal
Users will soon be able to post in better categorized topic areas; for example:
Animals & Nature » Pets » Dogs
• Isn't my new Puppy cute!? 🐶
• I have a funny story to share about my dog today! 😆
• What type of pet dog do you recommend for me?
Here we can see, that both Stories and Questions sit side by side, in a very natural, relevant format, under the same Sub-Topic / Group, called "Dogs (Pets)"
This way, Relevance on SW will be Greatly Improved, as users will be able to find topics they are interested in, much better grouped together than they currently are.
The same will benefit users who would like to Block certain Topics as well.
The recent changes we have made to Similar Worlds, was done in preparation for the full restructuring of Groups, which is something most users have been requesting for a long time.
To facilitate a smoother transition into the newer coming groups structure, we figured it would be best to release the changes in stages.
You should expect to see further improvements to Similar Worlds over the coming weeks, leading towards a full change, into the new, organized, topic-based format we have been discussing with members for a long time.
While I like the fact that you merged questions and stories into simple “posts,” I’m not a huge fan of moving away from the groups. The “questions” were virtually pointless, since half of these so-called “questions” weren’t even questions at all. However, I like the structure of groups. It’s a way to connect with others with the same experience. If I want to meet others who love to sing, I can go to the “I love to sing” group and see all the posts from others in that group.
I do understand the need to move away from the disorganized and grammatically incorrect group names, but it seems like you could just monitor that yourselves. For example, if there’s one group called “I love to sing” and another called “I love singing,” you could just merge those two into a single group.
@Virgo79 or complain a little too hard. I was a bit miffed that I couldn't find a certain post because the featured post symbol was too small. I thought the featured post was a regular post. Latest post on top.
@Virgo79 I am not a petitioner either. In fact I am highly against it for whatever reasons large or small.
What I did was more of a personal rant with someone that few actually saw. The post was long out of the new post que. So I was surprised that the outline happened a couple of weeks later.
It seems counter productive to put long stories into the main feed which was short questions and takes away the ability to distinguish between the two..I think the end result will be even less stories
Sorry if I am repeating anything already answered. Just don't have the time to go through all the replies from the links you have listed.
Wow a lot of changes all at once!
Q: how will this effect our old group followings if at all?
I had over 6 thousand group followings and almost all the question categories. Just wondering how these will be merged together on the awards.
Q: Would you consider a feed of everything posted?
Sort of an "All" or "Everything" feed or perhaps make that a group by itself. Just make it something that you have to select purposely not as a default.
This would make it so much easier for any new person that hasn't gone through over 6000 groups as I have. It took me years to go through all that.
Q: would you consider a custom feed option like on Reddit? With multiple feeds you can select?
Where similar group posts as a single feed? This I am certain would be liked by many, perhaps everyone. And just might make these changes more tolerable.
Q: Would consider making changes to the edit box?
I really would like to add clickable links. It might alleviate all some of the YouTube only video problems some new people are having.
Wish we had more warning on all this. Like a couple of weeks at least. 🤷🏻♂️
Yet thanks for trying. At least you folks are trying to change. 😁
Great work Andrew & Team. Always good to see that SW is one of the few sites with active and passionate mods that are still invested in user satisfaction.
@ShaneMckay yes, but that's not being introduced by this update. SW always had rules against things that are illegal in many countries.
And that's not unique to SW or even social media either. Stores and restaurants have house rules too.
Most people even have rules for visitors. When your neighbor asks you to take off your shoes at the door or not to take a dump on the coffee table, do you draw the comparison with censorship in Bejing there too?
Just a question for people like me that use Friends & Groups filter on their feed.
Will that migrate to Friends & Topics in the fullness of time?
I like that feature as it means I avoid topics I've no interest in and avoid being upset the way I see some users get seeing what they feel are posts they'd rather not.
I'd just like to put I a plug for retaining that kind of feature as you move sw forward. Thanks for all the hard work of the team.
@SW-User Yup - that feature is to stay. Whether it's called "Groups" or "Topics", we'll definitely keep this filter for people who only want to see contents from Groups/Topics they follow. Have a great day.
It's got a hierarchical structure that makes sense. I recall at EP people would haphazardly create group names that now make little natural sense as imported here. I like its logical nature and can see it growing in many directions soon.
I LIKE the CURRENT groups, ON EP we USE to be able to make NEW GROUPS. I LIKE the Quirky groups and the different groups for the same thing. i.e. I may only LIKE a musical artist, or LOVE another, therefore I am given many options about a topic. I am asking you please do not delete all the GROUPS, it's going make SW boring. IF Sooo will SWEEPS be able to make GROUPS again?
@ShaneMckay No more than blocking/muting people or filtering your homepage down to only groups and categories you follow, which has been available for years.
