Keeping a Group on Topic When Nobody Understands the Topic

Being a Facebook moderator should not be as impossible as it is.  Sometimes I just want to scream into the void.  The experience is that frustrating and infuriating.  

I have already written about my great problems with the group Collecting Vintage Children's Series Books.

Running a Large Facebook Group Is Stressful and Not Fun

Facebook's Problematic Approach to Groups

As the creator of multiple groups, I want to have pretty photos in place to represent each group.  Those photos have been my downfall.  I have known it for years, but I didn't feel like removing the photos and turning them into informational banners. 

This was the very first cover photo for the Collecting group.

It was created and put in place by one of the founding members of the Collecting group on the very first day that the group existed on August 5, 2013.  Sometime in 2014, I changed the group photo to the one seen below.

That was the beginning of the downfall of the group.  The original cover photo really emphasized the Hardy Boys series, and I should have created an image that overly emphasized Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  The membership began to increase rapidly.  We began to have more and more problems as general children's book enthusiasts joined the group by the hundreds.

In 2017, I changed the group photo again, in part because Facebook kept changing the parameters for the group photo.  Also, I had this misguided belief that placing more series in the photo would somehow help.  I was so wrong.

The above photo stayed in place until last month.  I have known for several years that the image was the problem, but I didn't feel like changing it.  Finally, I did it.

I created it quickly, and I could make it better.  The point is that we finally have a group image in place that tells the general public that the group is for Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and similar series.  The group is not for all children's books that exist, and it is not for all series that exist.  

Beginning the evening that I changed the group photo, the membership requests have just about stalled.  Suddenly, the general public is not trying to join the group.  This is a fabulous development.  

We typically have had 20 or more new members per week.  Sometimes over 100 people joined per week.  Only three people have joined in the last week.  I hope this trend continues.

I also put in place two membership questions.

1.  Why do you want to join this group?

2.  This group focuses on Stratemeyer Syndicate properties (like Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys) and similar rival series (like Judy Bolton and Three Investigators). Which Stratemeyer and non-Stratemeyer series do you like?

It's interesting how many of the spammers cannot be bothered to fake an answer.  Some of them put a period as the answer to try to trick their way into the group.  Facebook has a setting where moderators can have Facebook approve all requests where the questions have been answered.  That's why some people answer the questions with a period.  I don't use that setting, so the trick doesn't work.

I have another group, Vintage Teen Books, which worried me from before I ever even created it, just because I knew what could, or rather would, happen if I didn't make all of the right decisions.  I did not want the Vintage Teen Books group to follow the same trajectory as the Collecting group.  Some of the same problems were inevitable, but I hoped that I could more aggressively prevent from having the group turn into one big problem.

The Vintage Teen Books group was badly needed, since unfortunately the existing Facebook groups lumped all children's books in with the middle-grade books and the teen books.  I wanted a discussion group for only the teen books.  I didn't want to see the other books.

I struggled with the group's name, since words like "teen" and "adult" (which is part of the category name "young adult") are search terms used by spammers to find groups where they can post links to adult content.  I really, really struggled with the name.  I decided to avoid the word "adult" and went with "teen," even though it would attract some of the same people.

Everything was fine at first, but Baby-Sitters Club has been the bane of my existence.  That series is incredibly popular, but it is a middle-grade or tween series.  The books are not teen books.  

Teen books as defined for the group I created are books that feature characters who are in their late teens.  The characters are of high school or college age.  The books also must have been marketed to teens, featuring dating and social issues.  They are not children's books.

Anyway, from early in the group's existence, members kept wanting to post about Baby-Sitters Club.  I allowed some of it at first, but eventually I had to disallow all mention of that series.  Members also kept posting about books published under Scholastic's Apple imprint.  Those are middle-grade books, not teen.

I have continued to get more insistent about how those books are not within the group's focus.  It's been a tough battle to fight.  The battle was mostly lost before it began because of the reference book and existing Facebook groups that consider children's books, middle-grade books, and teen books to be all in the same genre.  Oh my gosh, people!

I also think that people don't know that the word "tween" means something different than the word "teen."  Tween books are middle-grade, and teen books are young adult.

Many years ago, I did not know what was meant by the classification "tween."  I saw it in libraries.  I knew it was something with children's books, but I didn't understand it.  I'm sure that many people don't know what it means, which is why I use middle-grade hoping that people think of middle school or late elementary school years.

I knew that the Vintage Teen group photo was not helping the situation just like what happened with the Collecting group. 

Prospective members were missing the message conveyed by the selection of books featured in the photo.

I wasn't ready to change the group photo.  I put a membership question in place.

1.  MUST ANSWER: This group focuses on pre-2000 vintage teen books that feature characters in their late teens (SVH, Fear Street, Christopher Pike, etc.). What are your favorites?

I then found that a frighteningly high percentage of prospective members were answering with "Baby-Sitters Club."  Oh, no!  No, no, no!  BSC are not teen books!

Dear me.  I then changed the group photo.

After I changed the group photo, I felt like membership requests slowed down slightly.  However, too many people were continuing to answer the question with Baby-Sitters Club.  What to do?!

I created a second membership question.

2.  MUST ANSWER: Indicate your awareness that this group does not allow discussion of Baby-Sitters Club, middle-grade books, and children's books. None of these books should be listed in your answer to the first question.

Ha.  If this doesn't work, then nothing will.  Membership requests have now fallen off noticeably more than they had.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  The second question should scare off the people who think the group is about the Baby-Sitters Club.

Today, I read an answer to the second question that made me very happy.  The prospective member wrote, "I am totally aware and grateful."  YES!  This is someone like me who understands that children's and middle-grade books are not teen books.  Just let us have a place to discuss our books.