On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 11:19 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:06 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 9:13 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Is it too much to say we need our own Facebook? If only Ning was open source.
I've done some a little research on this issue, and this appears to be the most promising option:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgg_(software)
It's open source, relatively popular, and is used in academic communities.
I think that it should be solved differently. Wikia already has some kind of extended profile which includes some basic social networking abilities.
It is expensive (in the sense of contributors' attention) to run two different models. Even keeping blogs at Planet Wikimedia (officially) and at Open Wiki Blog Planet (unofficially), as well as at some other places (unofficially in different languages; I know, at least, for French version) -- is expensive.
At the other hand, MediaWiki is able to be extended in that direction (which Wikia used extension shows). Also, contributors would be able to ask for new features more dynamically, as well as it would be a significant development path for MediaWiki itself.
In other words, I would like to see a very rudimentary extension (like Wikia's) with solved inter-project issues for the beginning. When we have that, we would be able to think about improvements.
Personally, I'd like to see more social interaction/networking tools built into Mediawiki. However, after seeing the incredible pushback on enwiki surrounding things like Esperanza [1] and to a lesser degree Userboxes [2], I am somewhat skeptical about whether the community would actually embrace social networking tools.
There are many who seem to feel that using Wikipedia for socializing and fun is contrary to our mission, especially if it attracts people who aren't contributors to the encyclopedia. Personally, I think that's nonsense, and the community benefits from increased cohesion when there is fun and socializing to be had, but I realize that many people don't see it that way.
We should keep in mind that there is a much broader community out there beyond Wikimedians, who are interested in cooperative efforts in promoting priojects.
Personally, we've had great success working with the 2 Students For Free Culture chapters in New York City, who have supported Wikimedia projects as ardently as any Wikimedians.
On a level of real-life organization, there should be no sharp line between people with Wikimedia user accounts and those without. The basic skills in organizing real-life events and projects are orthogonal to particular technical skills or specializations.
What we really need is a social networking site for the whole Free Culture/Open Source community, so that we can build a thousand coalitions in a thousand different cities.
In researching this idea, I happened upon this proposal last year from the Free Software Foundation for a "Planet Libre":
http://www.libervis.com/article/july_2007_letter_to_free_software_foundation...
That particular initiative appears to have foundered over recent months. I suggest we should revive it, and in cooperation with Free Software Foundation, develop a "Planet Libre" social networking site based on Elgg.
Thanks, Pharos
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