[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

[Leinonen Teemu]

Hi,

I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service rather than a social network service.

Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?

In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we consider discussions and information shared on social network services to be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.

We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social would be:

(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
maybe:
(5) Events

I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services (Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)

[Peter Southwood]

Why would we want to? How would it further the aims of the movement? How much would it cost? Who would run it?
Cheers,
Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-***@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Leinonen Teemu
Sent: 09 April 2018 09:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

Hi,

I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service rather than a social network service.

Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?

In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we consider discussions and information shared on social network services to be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.

We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social would be:

(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
maybe:
(5) Events

I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services (Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
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[Leinonen Teemu]

On 9 Apr 2018, at 11.28, Peter Southwood <***@telkomsa.net<mailto:***@telkomsa.net>> wrote:

Why would we want to?

Because we want to "become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”.

How would it further the aims of the movement?

Knowledge is dynamic. Today social media services are the most influential knowledge and belief creation services online. When Wikipedia was started, websites use to hold this position. With Wikimedia social media service, that would rely on the four last of the five pillars[1], I think we could really further the aims of the movement.

How much would it cost?

Hard to say.

Who would run it?

Us.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-***@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Leinonen Teemu
Sent: 09 April 2018 09:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

Hi,

I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service rather than a social network service.

Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?

In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we consider discussions and information shared on social network services to be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.

We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social would be:

(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
maybe:
(5) Events

I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services (Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
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[Peter Southwood]

How would this proposed social media service avoid the problems of existing social media in that they are generally not 'knowledge dissemination services', but spreaders of opinion, disinformation, and often complete rubbish, with a random sprinkling of knowledge scattered among the garbage?

-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-***@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Leinonen Teemu
Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 9:25 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

On 9 Apr 2018, at 11.28, Peter Southwood <***@telkomsa.net<mailto:***@telkomsa.net>> wrote:

Why would we want to?

Because we want to "become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”.

How would it further the aims of the movement?

Knowledge is dynamic. Today social media services are the most influential knowledge and belief creation services online. When Wikipedia was started, websites use to hold this position. With Wikimedia social media service, that would rely on the four last of the five pillars[1], I think we could really further the aims of the movement.

How much would it cost?

Hard to say.

Who would run it?

Us.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-***@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Leinonen Teemu
Sent: 09 April 2018 09:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?

Hi,

I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service rather than a social network service.

Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?

In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we consider discussions and information shared on social network services to be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.

We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social would be:

(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
maybe:
(5) Events

I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services (Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.

- Teemu

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
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[Edward Saperia]

My kneejerk response was to reject this idea, but it's at least worth
considering;

Working on wikimedia feels productive because permanent artefacts are
produced - articles etc - but these are a direct product of the community
around them. Better community tools will produce better outputs and happier
contributors. You could even bind it tightly to the editing process, e.g.
each article could have a canonical hashtag, and tagged activity could be
viewed from a page similar to a talk page.

Also, reading articles is just one way of consuming knowledge; asking
questions and receiving answers is another common one. A community of
answerers that use wikimedia as their knowledge base could be a powerful
way to provide knowledge-as-a-service, and potentially a very healthy
counterpart to the existing editor community in terms of reader insights.

Publish/subscribe networks are quite malleable things - look at Quora as a
social network with very different community norms - no reason why one
couldn't be mission driven.

At the very least, a mastodon instance that could be linked to your
wikimedia account might be a positive and realistic step towards this.

*Edward Saperia*
Dean of Newspeak House <http://www.nwspk.com>
newsletter <http://www.tinyletter.com/edsaperia> • facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/edsaperia> • twitter
<http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia> • 07796955572
133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG

Post by Peter Southwood
Why would we want to?
Because we want to "become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
of free knowledge”.
How would it further the aims of the movement?
Knowledge is dynamic. Today social media services are the most influential
knowledge and belief creation services online. When Wikipedia was started,
websites use to hold this position. With Wikimedia social media service,
that would rely on the four last of the five pillars[1], I think we could
really further the aims of the movement.
How much would it cost?
Hard to say.
Who would run it?
Us.
- Teemu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars
-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Leinonen Teemu
Sent: 09 April 2018 09:46
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Social: non-profit social networking service ?
Hi,
I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not
abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting
anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora*
Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a
microblogging service rather than a social network service.
Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network service?
In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become
the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we
consider discussions and information shared on social network services to
be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.
We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of
being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social
(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes
(4)Groups
(5) Events
I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services
(Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.
- Teemu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)
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[Erik Moeller]

Post by Leinonen Teemu
I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not abusing
personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting anonymity,
free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora* Project[1] is not
moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a microblogging service
rather than a social network service.

Wikimedia projects are social networks, but they are purpose-driven
social networks [1] where participants are more strongly connected
through their overlapping interests than through pre-existing social
connections. To the extent that Wikimedia should develop better social
networking tools, they should IMO be along the lines of the ideas
being prototyped by WikiProject X [2][3]. Improving other social tools
routinely used in connection with Wikimedia work, such as IRC and
mailing lists, likely would also have near term benefit.

I don't think that you can make a compelling argument that building
general purpose social networking software (as in, share cat+baby
pictures with friends) is in scope of Wikimedia's mission. But
Wikimedia organizations do use general purpose social networks like
Twitter and Facebook for outreach. I do think, given the Wikimedia's
strong orientation towards open source and open standards,
that_participating_ in open, decentralized communities like Mastodon
would be an appropriate way to extend that presence on existing
platforms. I personally think Diaspora can be safely ignored at this
point, and am hoping a better open FB alternative will emerge.

Erik

[1] https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_purpose-driven_social_network:_Supporting_WikiProjects_with_technology
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_X
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CollaborationKit

[Leinonen Teemu]

Post by Erik Moeller
Wikimedia projects are social networks, but they are purpose-driven
social networks [1] where participants are more strongly connected
through their overlapping interests than through pre-existing social
connections.

I agree. I however, see that if the movement is interested in to be _the_ ecosystem of free knowledge, a social media where the overlapping interest is actually the free knowledge itself and not some area of knowledge is not a bad idea.

Post by Erik Moeller
To the extent that Wikimedia should develop better social
networking tools, they should IMO be along the lines of the ideas
being prototyped by WikiProject X [2][3]. Improving other social tools
routinely used in connection with Wikimedia work, such as IRC and
mailing lists, likely would also have near term benefit.

Thanks for the links. Better social tools to the Wikipedia / for the movement are definitely needed.

I guess I am not the only one who is worried that we may loose the interest of the general public on the movement, because we are not able to provide various kind of opportunities for people to contribute to the free knowledge movement (except to donate).

I see that Wikipedia is just one — although extremely important — offering of the movement aiming to advance the idea of free knowledge.

Post by Erik Moeller
I don't think that you can make a compelling argument that building
general purpose social networking software (as in, share cat+baby
pictures with friends) is in scope of Wikimedia's mission.

Yes. The mode of operation should be aligned with the Wikipedia’s mission.

But it we want to address the challenge of “free knowledge” globally, a social media, that is not run by financial interest, but by the interest of the public, is badly needed. I think Wikimedia movement could play a role in here, too.

- Teemu

[Michael Snow]

Post by Leinonen Teemu

Post by Erik Moeller
Wikimedia projects are social networks, but they are purpose-driven
social networks [1] where participants are more strongly connected
through their overlapping interests than through pre-existing social
connections.

I agree. I however, see that if the movement is interested in to be _the_ ecosystem of free knowledge, a social media where the overlapping interest is actually the free knowledge itself and not some area of knowledge is not a bad idea.

I am wary of the idea that we would have interest in being _the_
ecosystem of free knowledge, certainly if as this implies, that's
ecosystem of free knowledge in the singular. I believe we want to be a
part of such an ecosystem, but hopefully a very diverse ecosystem, as is
necessary to its success. We should be cautious not to monopolize it,
intentionally or inadvertently. The undesirable byproducts of
corporate-driven social media illustrate many of the perils all too well.

--Michael Snow

[Leinonen Teemu]

Post by Leinonen Teemu

Post by Erik Moeller
Wikimedia projects are social networks, but they are purpose-driven
social networks [1] where participants are more strongly connected
through their overlapping interests than through pre-existing social
connections.

I agree. I however, see that if the movement is interested in to be _the_ ecosystem of free knowledge, a social media where the overlapping interest is actually the free knowledge itself and not some area of knowledge is not a bad idea.

I am wary of the idea that we would have interest in being _the_ ecosystem of free knowledge, certainly if as this implies, that's ecosystem of free knowledge in the singular. I believe we want to be a part of such an ecosystem, but hopefully a very diverse ecosystem, as is necessary to its success.

Hear hear. I was also surprised about the expression "the ecosystem" in the WMF strategic direction. On the other hand, I am worried that there are not that many species in the “free knowledge” ecosystem, in addition to the projects, products and chapters of the Wikimedia. So, as relatively large (and powerful) movement (we cold do better, too), we could take a leadership in here and cherish these other species of the ecosystem. For this purpose a free knowledge social media service could be a smart move. :-)


- Teemu

[David Cuenca Tudela]

Unlike Erik, I don't think an open alternative to Facebook will emerge, the
inertia at this point is too big and you would need a huge critical mass of
people (and organizations) to make it useful. Hard to attain. The only
contender on the long run to FB could be reddit, because they seem to be
moving in that direction with the new profiles and so on. They have almost
all the features that make a (general purpose) social network attractive,
the amount of users, and the content.

Regarding the question if the WMF should build a social network for the
masses, I don't think it should. A general purpose social network is mainly
used for sharing personal events, viral stories, cat pictures, and so on.
It does not offer long-term cultural value. A more interesting approach
could be a niche social network, like a *social **learning network*. It is
related to open knowledge, it offers some cultural value and it doesn't
attract the same kind of idiocy that general networks attract.
A social learning network could be oriented to life-long self-learning
where users would share stories about what are they discovering each day,
groups, creation of materials, etc. It could be said that users are already
discovering new knowledge in our sites, but they have to go to other
websites to talk about it... (for instance /r/wikipedia)

Another possible kind of network, could be one geared towards *governance
and public oversight*. This is perhaps more interesting for governments,
institutions and organizations, but still in the realm of the Wikimedia
movement, because we also need some kind of social governance to build
understanding and consensus both ways bottom-up, and top-down, and
inter-organization. Not that we don't do it already, but perhaps with
specific tools it would be easier.


Regards,
Micru

[Gnangarra]

what i see is that developing a full FB type network is outside the current
scope and capacity of the movement and will probably remain there. There
is always room for further development of tools for user and talk pages the
will enhance collaborative activities.

I also think that at some stage in the process of collating and sharing the
sum of all knowledge we need to consider a project for the collection of
the intangible knowledge, from the oral traditional knowledge of Indigenous
communities to some limited firsthand experiences. Its these that bring
life and understanding to the information adding a new complimentary
dimension to the very masculine rigid structures we currently focus on.

Post by David Cuenca Tudela
Unlike Erik, I don't think an open alternative to Facebook will emerge, the
inertia at this point is too big and you would need a huge critical mass of
people (and organizations) to make it useful. Hard to attain. The only
contender on the long run to FB could be reddit, because they seem to be
moving in that direction with the new profiles and so on. They have almost
all the features that make a (general purpose) social network attractive,
the amount of users, and the content.
Regarding the question if the WMF should build a social network for the
masses, I don't think it should. A general purpose social network is mainly
used for sharing personal events, viral stories, cat pictures, and so on.
It does not offer long-term cultural value. A more interesting approach
could be a niche social network, like a *social **learning network*. It is
related to open knowledge, it offers some cultural value and it doesn't
attract the same kind of idiocy that general networks attract.
A social learning network could be oriented to life-long self-learning
where users would share stories about what are they discovering each day,
groups, creation of materials, etc. It could be said that users are already
discovering new knowledge in our sites, but they have to go to other
websites to talk about it... (for instance /r/wikipedia)
Another possible kind of network, could be one geared towards *governance
and public oversight*. This is perhaps more interesting for governments,
institutions and organizations, but still in the realm of the Wikimedia
movement, because we also need some kind of social governance to build
understanding and consensus both ways bottom-up, and top-down, and
inter-organization. Not that we don't do it already, but perhaps with
specific tools it would be easier.
Regards,
Micru
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--
GN.
Noongarpedia: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/nys/Main_Page
WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com
Out now: A.Gaynor, P. Newman and P. Jennings (eds.), *Never Again:
Reflections on Environmental Responsibility after Roe 8*, UWAP, 2017. Order
here
<https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/never-again-reflections-on-environmental-responsibility-after-roe-8>
.

[mathieu stumpf guntz]

Post by David Cuenca Tudela
Regarding the question if the WMF should build a social network for the
masses, I don't think it should. A general purpose social network is mainly
used for sharing personal events, viral stories, cat pictures, and so on.
It does not offer long-term cultural value.

While I think I understand your concern, however it seems to me that it
doesn't take into account the value of this kind of "silly data", in
serious research in fields like anthropology, sociology or linguistic,
just to name a few.

If Wikimedia want to become an essential infrastructure of the ecosystem
of free knowledge, and let anyone who shares our vision able to join us,
then we certainly must do something about the social networking topic.
Integrating matching features in a dedicated platform would allow to
promote path to other kind of contributions.

If the goal of this announced infrastructure is to enable to collect and
use different forms of free, trusted knowledge, then starting with
collecting data, and encouraging curation through gamification of
services might be a path. All data which are not published under a free
license right from the start will be harder to make relicensed under a
free license latter, and all people which are feeding input into
non-free platforms are basically sending them to oblivion as far as free
knowledge is concerned, which won't help the "sum of all knowledge"
goal. That is, rather than losing completely potential contributors
because their habits do include silly inputs, especially when they are
new comers, you can build them a landing space for silly stuffs and
design paths toward more virtuous/prestigious contributions.

Cheers

[Yury Bulka]

If we want to improve the situation, I think one of the simplest things
to do would be to increase the presence of WMF and Wikipedia on the
Federation and Fediverse networks-of-networks. For a start, we could
just be cross-posting from the WMF blog officially.

And I don't think we need a non-Zuckerberg clone of Facebook, owned by WMF
of whoever.

I really support the idea of decentralization, open source code and
gradual improvement. If the existing open-source decentralized solutions
don't seem good enough, the best thing to do is to work on improving
them instead of reinventing the wheel.

Best,
User:Yury Bulka
https://diasp.eu/u/yurb

[Quim Gil]

(These are personal opinions based on my own personal interest in free and
volunteer-driven social networks, not an opinion as a WMF member.)

Post by Leinonen Teemu
Hi,
I have been looking for social networking service that would be fair: not
abusing personal data, funded by community, respecting privacy, accepting
anonymity, free/libre/ open source etc. Haven’t found many. The Diaspora*
Project[1] is not moving forward very fast and the Mastodon[2] is more a
microblogging service rather than a social network service.

Can it be that the difference between "microblogging service" and "social
network" might be too subtle and subjective to be noticed by the majority
of their users? And for the problem you are presenting here?


Would it make sense for Wikimedia movement to build its own social network

Post by Leinonen Teemu
service?

Depends on what you mean by "build". If you mean create the software for a
new social network service, I don't think it makes sense. Providing support
and development of multilingual wiki projects
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects> to collect and develop
educational content to empower and engage people around the world is
already a daunting task in terms of software development, and there is so
much to do.

If you mean to run the software developed by someone else, sure, why not
experimenting. Thanks to free software licenses anyone can try, and thanks
to Wikimedia trademarks licenses I am sure a decent solution could be found
by whoever wants to run this experiment.


In the "2017 Movement strategy” we state: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become

Post by Leinonen Teemu
the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge”. If we
consider discussions and information shared on social network services to
be “knowledge”, I think we should have a role in here too.

With some caveats and observations, I agree on the principle, just not on
the implication that this means we need to create a free social network for
us from scratch, starting with a first line of code. If we consider social
networks useful, and free social networks the right and consistent thing to
use in an ecosystem of free knowledge, then the first step can be as simple
as opening a Mastodon instance. Dozens (hundreds) of volunteers (including
amateur sysadmins) are doing just that without much discussion, just
scratching their own itch, or for fun, or to learn, or to experiment...


We have 33 million registered users and fulfil all the requirements of

Post by Leinonen Teemu
being a “fair service”. A minimum list of features to make Wikimedia Social
(1) Status updates
(2) Comments
(3) Likes

This is provided by Mastodon, GNUSocial, etc today. They look like minimum
features for a social network indeed.

Post by Leinonen Teemu
(4)Groups

Mmm can you specify your use cases here? There is a chance, that the need
for "groups" actually belongs to different use cases, and we don't need one
"social network" tool to resolve everything.

One use case could be instant communication. We have seen Wikimedia groups
in Telegram flourishing around events and perhaps more. Again, someone
scratched their itches, they just did it, others followed.

Another use case could be more structured and specialized communication,
which puts us closer to mailing lists, forums, and our very own Talk pages.
For what is worth, some of us are experimenting around this use case with
Discourse. Again, scratching own itches and experimenting. More at
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T180853

Post by Leinonen Teemu
(5) Events

Well, this is quite a beast on its own, and I believe not a simple one. A
few days ago I unassigned https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T1035 to myself
because I could not find enough time & focus to push this problem in some
productive direction.

Post by Leinonen Teemu
I am pretty sure that by integrating this to other Wikimedia services
(Commons etc.) we could achieve something awesome.

I agree that there is potential in this area, but I would look more at
using and supporting tools developed by others on their own mission, and
then think of single-sign-ons and APIs to bridge.

Post by Leinonen Teemu
- Teemu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)