I wonder what is the maximum number of the 700 or so groups that a member here belongs to?

I find the groups features puzzling. In the old days of news groups, a Usenet group had a very specific focus e.g. The Simpsons [TV series], Basketball [sport], Shed Building [hobby] but drew from a very broadly-based audience.

Chess.com is a very narrowly focussed target audience. The distinctions between groups can often come down to a nuance e.g. various move-speed groups: fast movers, slow movers, medium movers, the one-a-day group (those people who want to make exactly one move every day).

There is nothing for such a single-issue group to discuss; the name of the group says it all. Any discussions that do take place are quarantined from the rest of chess.com. Such groups are generally so small compared with the membership of chess.com that they are not (in my view) viable.

By contrast, there are other groups that have hundreds of members but whose focus is much as the same as chess.com itself: e.g. people who want to improve at chess, or who want to play chess.

It seems to me that groups are a slightly unwieldy form of tags or badges. Badges would be visible to all (unlike group membership) and would leave all chess.com members in the common pool.

You may disagree.

In my Groups, we do the same as we do every other night, try to take over the World.

I figure the more Groups you're a member of the more chance you have of succeeding, a bit like the lottery really!

You've apparently been thinking about this far too long, and need to start a group for people that think groups on chess.com are completely pointless.  Good post, though.  I would join your group! :)

Yo artfizz,I'm in 9 groups at the moment and at times have problems keeping track of what's going on in all the team forums,I guess that nine groups is to many at the moment!

Groups can play team matches, vote chess, share news/forums/ideas without having to plough through the mulitude of posting on this site, have a look at the Amateur chess group, anyone can look at it without joining first,

we currently have a team match pending

there is also a nice bit of banter brewing with the *cough* "Dream Team" whose snobbish ways amuse me immensely

You already have.

See post #46 here (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/another-group-to-destroy-chesscom-with?page=3)

Snobbish?  Puhleeze...

If you're not snobbish, then why dont you accept new members, even though you pride yourself on being the most popular group on the site,

and calling yourselves the Dream Team, lol............

bunch of merchant bankers if you ask me

The TDT,accepts all that want to join and I ain't no merchant banker,lol!

"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member. "
Groucho Marx

It may be not without significance that there is neither a MERGE Groups facility nor a DESTROY Groups facility.

 How would you work out the Fair Value for the transfer of the assets from one Group to another or into the newly created Group and in particular the intangibles?

For the value in chess terms, I would start with the average rating and the number of members. Both are fairly transient. Without a lock-in clause, members could depart in droves if the new combined regime did not suit.

Intangentially, I would consider the average member points.

Finally, I would look at the 'profile' of say three key members of each group.

Much would depend on the goal for the merged supergroup. Producing a chess-playing levianthan would obviously lead to different requirements from say a fun-loving, stories-by-the-fireside, feel-good 'family'.

 artfizz,I'm sure you love stirring for you love to set up these type of provoke forums,fair play to ya,lol!

what discount rate would you use to calculate the present value of all future rating point increases of a post-merger team?

 Maybe I'll just stick to playing chess - and leave the whole business of group mergers to a more business-savvy person like Erik!

It would help if groups could be nested (to an arbitrary depth). You could then create a new group: thegab03's groups - and have that treated as a single entity, in much the same way as merged table cells in a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet (i.e. keeping track of the original boundaries).

 Yo,now I'm down to 7,to many Dictators in certain groups,so I do not think that I'll be needing Word nor Excel for the moment only if it's to keep you in the boundries,lol!

follow-on questions:  

2.  Would a post-merger group's stock have greater value than either or both of the pre-merged group's stock?

3.  Would the ratings tend to increase following a merging of two or more teams?

4.  Are there any restrictions on merging groups?  for instance, if all groups were to decide to merge into one group, could it then be known as "CHESS.COM"  ? and,

5. if that happened (4 above), how long before the members' natural desire to "individuate"  would result in them deciding to start forming splinter groups and end up where we are today, with hundreds of groups within the community known loosely as 'chess.com members' ???

more coffee please.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything)