In order to loosen up the policy on creating groups we need some better tools. Let's brainstorm the problems and potential solutions.
How about:
1. Allow easier curation of topics into/out of groups
- the Og_actions module could help us here if we had a tab on a a node to initiate the "add to my group/remove from my group" action.
2. Make it obvious which groups are "ghosts" and also which are hot
- http://drupal.org/project/radioactivity could help identifying each of these
- Then we need some blocks/theming for "ghost" groups that points people to a list of related groups that are hot
- Flag/Flag Note could be use to allow community members to flag groups as ghosts
3. Promote uniqueness in group submission
- http://drupal.org/project/uniqueness ?
- http://drupal.org/project/similargroups could help after the fact
4. Make the approval process more transparent and distributed
4A. Include voting as part of the approval process
- When a person proposes a group, it is
open for review for X days.approved right away - Auto-approve a group after it reaches a critical mass of members (StackExchange-style).
- Voting on a group using fivestar+comments would be tied to commenting, so people could comment on the group as they are rating/voting. This meta group discussion could be moved to a "Talk" page to hide it from most visitors to the group.
At the end of the voting period, the group would be approved- A new "flag as inappropriate" with the Flag module and a corresponding view that works on nodes, comments, and groups to help limit "scams and NSFW"
5. Make it easier to merge groups
- This is already handled by OG core since November of 2009! It can merge users and posts from a deleted group into another group.