Why are there so many repeat types of groups with only one or two people in them? Granted, I can understand a group being made for the purpose of a group of friends or an invite only club in game. But when its a general concept, like a "Market Chat" for people to gather and discuss, or buy items in game without the auction house - there are 8 groups?
Is it an issue with the kind of items they deal with, is it an issue of how the group is managed - especially with conflict between group admins and moderators vs various members? Are these splinter groups from people that left the old group and reformed new groups? I am curious, since a lot of talk of "Someone should totally make a market group so everyone that wants to trade can go there" seems to gloss over the fact that there are several groups - with a few hundred members in some and only a handful in others. Just, either no one is in the group chat, or the market groups only have a few members. Not nearly as many as Global tends to draw.
It seems odd, because there ARE market groups, just as I don't doubt there are other groups doing similar activities (like the two dozen cubimal groups) . Then you get into the Global groups, like 2.0, 2.1, and so on. Clearly there is an issue with global if people are leaving, but does that really set the proper tone? Are the fractures in the global chat because of conflicting interest or people not wanting to actually be in a global chat and only want to really be in a 'quasi-closed group with a few people they really get along with and want the ability to expunge those they deem annoying'?
Just seems like a lot of wasted opportunities in some ways. But I would like to hear someone that actually has more experience with these groups to weigh in on it. Don't let me get things wrong if I am indeed reading the signs improperly.
Edit: Also, is it an issue of people not bothering to use the search function? O.o
Edit 2: Ok, so the multiple Global chats were more an issue of the chat possibly vanishing. And while my prior statement of 'expunging those they deem annoying' might have been a bit strong - if not downright insulting for which I apologize to those I might have offended. But that was an assumption made upon an over-read conversation I witnessed in global and have unjustly applied to the chat in whole. There are only a few people that act that way towards others, and not everyone in global is bad. I guess I made the old adage of "don't assume" quite true in this sense.