[Wikimedia-l] Editor retention implies social features

[Jan Kučera]

Hi guys,

I understand your objections. Surely privacy is a key here. We should
make "social" our way, taking in account various aspects of privacy
and commerce...

The goal definitely is rising the the number of editors... we should
do this through all possible ways... as someone wrote here the only
question is _how many resources_ (money etc.) is WMF wanting to invest
into editor retention...

Kozuch

2012/4/17 Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>:
> Tom, you're assuming that adding "social features" to Wikimedia projects
> must mean integrating with commercial social networks. I don't think that's
> a given at all. If we accept that social interaction, and more
> opportunities for positive social interaction, are beneficial for
> collaborative projects like the English Wikipedia (which I think we
> should), then it's perfectly possible and quite common to internally add
> certain social features.
>
> There are many different ways to achieve a better social atmosphere;
> whether its better discussion systems, better notifications, better tools
> for exchanging ideas and interests, internal communications (like e-mail
> style messages to individuals internally, or to groups), or any one of a
> thousand other options. Boiling it down without reason to a decision over
> Facebook "like" buttons is a disservice to honest discourse.
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Tom Morris <tom at tommorris.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Only with community approval. On English Wikipedia, we have discussed
>> social media/social network integration repeatedly. Share This buttons
>> and so on. And editors don't want it.
>>
>> See
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PEREN#Share_pages_on_Facebook.2C_Twitter_etc
>> .
>>
>> English Wikinews already has some, but there's a much smaller
>> community there who can decide which services we wish to integrate
>> with.
>>
>> If we're going to have social "features" (and I use that word with
>> deliberate scare quotes around it) mandated by the Foundation, I do
>> hope we are going to worry about privacy. A former co-worker of mine
>> discovered that NHS Direct, the health information website provided
>> the UK's National Health Service, had Facebook share this links that
>> were transmitting every page you went to on NHS Direct to Facebook,
>> which could be matched to your Facebook profile if you are logged in.
>> Which is kind of shocking given that people use NHS Direct to look up
>> information on health conditions they think they might have, as well
>> as all sorts of other personal issues (sexual health, gender identity,
>> advice on fixing lifestyle health issues like smoking and drinking). I
>> wouldn't want the clickstream of people visiting Wikipedia articles
>> shared on Facebook without them pretty explicitly choosing to share
>> that information. We've already seen one kid in Britain who has
>> allegedly been thrown out of his house by fundamentalist parents after
>> Facebook algorithmically outed him as gay. [1]
>>
>> I do also hope we'd decide on what basis we'd choose these social
>> services. Okay, yes, Facebook is pretty popular in the West. And
>> Twitter. And maybe G+. But what about in China: do we want to support
>> sharing to sites that are being censored by the Chinese government?
>> Does the Foundation have the expertise to know what the popular social
>> networking sites are in every country and language in the world? And
>> we'd then become a commercial player: if we had done this years ago
>> and had added MySpace integration, the moment MySpace stops being so
>> popular and Wikipedia (whether that's the community or the Foundation)
>> de-emphasizes the MySpace sharing/social functionality, there'd be a
>> big stack of headlines about how Wikipedia is pulling out of MySpace.
>> We really ought to be neutral in this market, and there's only one way
>> to be neutral: try as hard as possible not to participate.
>>
>> You know, there might be an easier solution here: people who are into
>> the whole social networking thing, their browsers ought to improve
>> sharing with their social networks. Social plugins for browsers like
>> Firefox and Chrome are opt-in for the user, and can give a better
>> experience than Wikipedia pages being turned into NASCAR-esque branded
>> adverts for dozens of social sites. I know Mozilla people have been
>> discussing coming up with better ways of doing social sharing at the
>> browser level.
>>
>> [1]
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/11/facebook-targeted-advertising-gay-teen_n_1200404.html
>>
>> --
>> Tom Morris
>> <http://tommorris.org/>
>>
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