Connect How Tos: Group-starting etiquette

The first post in an ongoing series explaining how to make the most of this online community...

I just received a question from a member asking about when members should start new groups as opposed to joining existing ones. As many people come from an interdisciplinary background, their interests might span a variety of taxonomic areas and thus groups, while no one single group will speak to all of their interests. Of course you should join as many groups as are relevant to your research. But when should you start a new group?

My answer was this: Far be it from me as a web designer to dictate to taxonomists regarding how they should group things. But that being said, I can share with you my understanding of how these things often work as an online community matures:

First, many groups initially get started as people decide to carve them out, regardless of any top-down hierarchy. This is completely healthy. All we ask is that people browse the existing groups before starting new ones to reduce clear redundancies. From there it is all about who joins your group and how useful everyone finds it. Many groups will not prosper because their manager is not actively supporting the group and the members have no need to us it.

I suggest thinking of a group that you start in the community as your own research team. Without your leadership, your group will likely prove of limited use to all. But, on the other hand, if you invite an active, motivated array of colleagues to join your group, you utilize the discussion board and the "send a message to group" features to support communications within your group, then it's totally acceptable to have an entire group dedicated to - say - a single species.

It really depends on you and your colleagues' research interests, and the needs that you have that can be supported through an online group. Just as there are groups like iBOL who are barcoding everything, and there are researchers out there working within a very specific research area, groups have a great variety of potential uses. So ask yourself the following questions:

Do I have a frequent need to communicate with (email) a group of colleagues about shared interests?
Does my group of colleagues need its own place to ask questions, discuss topics and share ideas?
Will people outside my group benefit from knowing more about who is doing what in relation to our shared research or interests?

If the answers to the above questions are "yes" then it probably makes sense to start a new group. If the answers are "maybe" or "no", it might be better to hold off, join other groups and/or simply conduct these activities within the context of the greater community for now.

What I am interested in knowing is what the members of this community consider the best use of groups? Please share your thoughts by commenting below.