Consolidated AIM Buddy Lists - Was it a good idea?

[VvWolverinevV]

After reading TigerBlade's post about the increased maximum number of allowed buddies on an AIM buddy list, I rushed home to move all of my buddies from linked screen names (created over the years to work around the buddy cap) to my main screen name. (I used this AIM plugin.)

But now as I look at my dramatically longer buddy list, I'm not sure this is really an improvement. The linked screen names gave me a way to organize my buddies at the top-level (i.e. states where I met the contacts). I think scrolling through a long list of contacts actually takes me longer.

How do other people deal with unwieldy contact lists?

[Jeff]

Personally, I've got groups defined and I collapse/expand the groups as needed. In my case, they are organized by the type of contact: work, BigBlueBall, friends, family, etc.

The problem isn't really unique to AIM. I have more contacts on WLM, and there what I typically do is group by online/offline to streamline things.

[VvWolverinevV]

Yeah, collapsed groups may be the best way to do it. If you do that, however, some of the spontaneity of IM is removed I think. If you only expand a group when you specifically think about talking to someone, you won't be as likely to just IM someone because they happen to be online and available when you glance at your buddy list.

I admit that a lot of the spontaneous element of IM is lost after graduation from undergrad anyway though...