http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yahoo_group_of_groups

A short review of our history may help make understanding who we are and how we function a little easier and offers some insight into the rules currently in place in Yahoo! Group of Groups. Yes, we have rules, two of them which will be explained in this article. We hope you will understand and appreciate their significance and find them appropriate.

On June 27, 1999, ArrylT and AngelPie_Mouse began an experiment in the Yahoo! community system, then known as "clubs" with the creation of Club Founders' Club. The concept was simple. It would be a help club, a club for advice in using and negotiating the Yahoo! community system and dealing with the problems of group dynamics and online interpersonal relations. It would provide an opportunity for founders to discuss problems and solutions, to complain and seek answers for common frustrations, to help each other. To be sure, there were other clubs providing a similar service. What made CFC just a little bit different and, we hoped, a little bit better were three ideas:

1. No question should ever go unanswered.

We had noticed that in many of the clubs already existent, questions were often left unanswered, unaddressed, ignored. Questions that might be frequently asked were particularly vulnerable to being overlooked by the founders of these clubs and their members. Yes, you could read through thousands of back posts. And, if someone bothered to point you to a subject line, a date of post, or a post number among the thousands of off-topic posts that might help too. However, very often, the question might not receive any response at all or, worse, the inquirer was ridiculed. That was just plain not filling the service for which such clubs ought to exist in our estimation.

And, in a second instance of being less than forthcoming, if the founders and members of these clubs didn't know the answer, they didn't tell the inquirer. Indeed, they didn't even seem to make an effort to find an answer. They might just ignore the whole issue. We felt this was rude and discourteous. Simply saying: "I don't know, but I'll try to find out" to be followed by a sincere effort to locate the information was and is always to be preferred. And, yes, it also offers the opportunity for the inquirer to have more input. Should they find the answer themselves, they know they have some place to share the information where it will be appreciated even if it is too late to be of help with the problem that prompted inquiry.

2. All members should be persons of administrative status.

In many of these founder clubs, no effort at all was made to differentiate between casual inquiry and functional need or, to put it more succinctly, between the average user and a club administrator. There are almost no tools and no decision making requirements necessary for the average user other than join a club, continue with a club, invite a friend to join a club, or leave a club. Too, it should be the responsibility of the founder to guide their individual members with problems such as how to use the various club features: message boards, photo albums, chat, news, links, members lists, and calendars. Any advice we might offer the average user would be serving only to second guess what their club founder might desire as policy. The more pressing need, as we saw it, was and is to make sure the founders know these features as well as the several tools exclusive to their use as founders. And, finally, it is the founder who must arbitrate disputes between members. Thus, we should be about helping to equip these decision makers.

This notion became Rule #1. All members must have administrative status in a club or group with the stipulation that those joining to develop the skills necessary to be effective community administrators before creating their own community may do so for a period of ninety (90) days. As proof of administrative status, we asked for the name of at least one club or group in which the member held such status, and we backed up that request by visiting the club and verifying the status. The rule assured that people not serious about doing the best job possible would not remain with us long. It ensured a certain quality of inquiry. It, also, kept our membership down to a respectable number so that we could be more effective and genuinely network to seek solutions.

3. No more than one (1) "Join My Club/Group" message per member.

In many founder clubs, we found the message boards literally choked with new founders or long time founders with new clubs offering up addresses and invitations to join or subscribe. Yes, their members wanted to promote their club or group, to get the word out, to seek out new members, to grow. Spamming others to do so, however, did not seem to be much of a help, example: "join my... Next Message [click]. As is apparent, constant messages about "my great new community" are more of a turn off than a turn on. They clutter up a message board, making more serious inquiry and response difficult. Indeed, they detract from content and negate the point one is trying to make, especially if the message also included a more serious inquiry such as: "did I put my club in the right category."

Good club administrators don't need to resort to SPAM tactics. They rely on their personality and intelligence to suggest an overall tone and quality of community. We've noticed that a solid club concept and a persistence and consistency of energy input into the community doesn't require any additional member recruitment policies. Members interested will find you. If they don't, the problem isn't in repeating the message "join/subscribe" wherever and as often as possible. So, let's look at the other issues involved.

On the other hand, there may be a good reason for telling others that there is a new club or group and what it is about, at least once. Sometimes, it is to make an inquiry about a glitch, a category choice, a problem with developing a focus and a message. Sometimes, the message is to inform us that your earlier club/group is no more because of hackers or members squabbles that could not be resolved any other way except to start over. And, sometimes, is is just because we gotta crow. Thus, we made this our Rule #2: No more than one (1) "Join My Club/Group" message per member. Telling folks about your club or group is good; telling them too often isn't.

These three ideas, then, form the core of what made and continues to make Club Founders' Club a little different. Although there are many aspects to our club including newsletters, software and technical reviews, club/group featuring, graphics by request, a desire to network and learn from other clubs, webpage assistance, and a top notch webpage of our own (if we do say so ourselves) that have been copied and offered by others as original, as far as we know, we are the only founder club with such rules imposed on ourselves. Other founders clubs have come and gone over these past two years while we watched. We do not congratulate ourselves in their imitation or their demise. However, we continue and we do so with a certain knowledge that our rules require of us a certain vigilence and dedication others may not wish to invest.

On August 5, 2000, Yahoo! announced the intention to merge with eGroups to become Yahoo! Groups. The contracts for the merge of the two companies were signed on September 5, 2000. In the beginning, it was a matter of inquiry alone. What did users of the existent Yahoo! community system want? We presume eGroups were asking their users the same questions. We will not go into observations concerning the result of these discussions. It is sufficient that out of the inquiry came the decision to blend the two very different community systems into one which would incorporate the best of both. This blending is going to mean a lot of new features for users--particularly founders and owners/moderators--on both sides to become familiar with and quickly. Now, more than ever, the networking of community administrators becomes imperative. Very simply, then, that's what Yahoo! Group of Groups is about.

Note: If you are interested in joining Yahoo! Club Founders' Club, please go to http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/clubfoundersclub or click here.

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