I was encouraged by George Vorillas to post this here (thank you George)...
I'm in the process of building a social network called "Atheist Cosmos" which I hope to have ready for early access sometime in 2019. If you're interested in early access, please send an eMail to: info@atheistcosmos.com
The design will have some similarities to Google+ communities (which I really like), and also some differences that add useful functionality for users and moderators alike.
I've already received feedback from various people (including George) about what features are important (e.g., public and private communities, which will be supported -- "public" means that anonymous/not-logged-in users can view content, and also easily link to posts with a reasonably short link that never changes).
While our desire is to serve the atheism community, religious groups will be free to set up communities on our systems as well. One of the problems people have complained about from time-to-time with some social networks is that their accounts get disabled/deleted "because they're atheists." This won't be a factor should an account need to be disabled or deleted (also, our laws here in Canada protect "freedom of association").
We will have to comply with Canadian law since we're in Canada, and so that means that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies (which protect freedom of expression, freedom of association, etc., and forbid discrimination based on race, sex, etc.), and also our Privacy Act applies (which means that we can't share personal information without first obtaining explicit permission to do so; similar to the GDPR which I'm beginning to learn about and expect will have no difficulty complying with as well).
Just in case anyone's interested, I uploaded the logo with this message, which, for the most part, is finalized.
Thank you for reading, and also if you find this interesting I'd love to know. I also welcome suggestions.
Thanks for your response and posting.
ReplyDeleteI for one am delaying making the final "jump" until around December at the earliest, but I would like to know how your plans are progressing.
I am encouraged by your posting above to hold off making a final decision;
In the meantime I have created an account on Pluspora in case G+ folds before their announced date of closure.
I don't envision Pluspora being the optimal solution for one reason, the lack of any facility to edit a comment or posting.
As someone who mis-keys and frequently strikes adjacent keys while typing, this is a critical omission for me.
I understand the reluctance of Diaspora devs to add this feature, as they approach the issue from the perspective of programmers who are loath to create systems where changes to "code" break functionality in later code which depends on it.
I see social media as very different.
It is also virtually essential apart from the ability to fix typos, in some instances to be able to add additional information to a posting as it becomes available.
Please also consider (if you can) an option to import G+ saved data.
(I am told that the JSON archive format includes details of community/collection location of postings, and this would greatly encourage people who wish to restore their online work).
I don't personally consider the lack of this import option to be critical in the short term, but I imagine many current G+ users would love to have an assurance that it may be available within the first 6 months or year of operation.
There's always the alternate option for G+ users to save their work in html format and copy/paste the text and images into new postings while browsing their archive, but I'm sure they'd rather not have to go to the effort if other options are available or imminent.
If personal collections are not going to be replicated, there would be a relatively simple alternative (I think) for users to create a second/third account bearing the collection name for the restoration of data -
The obvious (least complicated) answer in my mind would be to concatenate/hyphenate the user name with the collection name, and give users the option of creating these extra accounts for the restoration of their collections, and the equivalent of a (settings managed) pinned post in their main account with the URLs to those secondary accounts..
I hope this long reply doesn't discourage you, as I really would like to see something resembling G+ emerge to take its place.
One last question regarding comments to postings.
Do you envision a large but fixed maximum number of responses like G+ (currently 500), or a much smaller number?
I'd personally like to see some substantial number, as occasionally the threads develop into interesting discussions, and too small a number of comments would stifle this.
George Vorillas Thank you. I didn't know that Google+ had an export option, but I'll definitely look into it because the preservation of information is a valuable concept to me.
ReplyDeleteThe limit of 500 comments in Google+ is something that I dislike, especially the way that Google+ implements it without making it clear what happened. I see no technical reason for doing that, and if people want to engage in longer discussions then I think that a social network should really facilitate that given the "social" emphasis. (I also have an idea on how to improve how comments are presented.)
One thing I like about Twitter is that responses can be re-shared ("Re-Tweeted" as they call it). Google+ does not support this, and I wish it did.
but...but...
ReplyDeleteR E L I G I O U S P E O P L E
Awesome idea, count me in!
ReplyDeleteSir Spamsalot We have no intention of discriminating against religious people. We do intend to serve the atheism communities as best we can in a rational manner.
ReplyDeleteAnton A Thank you. It seems that there is quite a bit of interest in this, and once I get through these tax/administrative deadlines (over the next ~30 days) I will be stepping up my attention to this project.
ReplyDeleteI know you really want to do this, but there's already another project going on. "Project Atmosphere". There is currently a Discord server for it. Note that the server itself won't be the "replacement" but rather a discussion server with channels for planning, suggestions and such. Maybe you would like to join that project instead?
ReplyDeleteIf you would in fact like to join or just have a look, here's the invite: discordapp.com - Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers
Sir Spamsalot I'll take a look at it. Thanks for sharing the link.
ReplyDeleteSir Spamsalot Discord is a horrible attempt to copy IRC, and I didn't see any links for Project Atmosphere by following that link (even though I accepted the Invite).
ReplyDeleteSo, I tried to find Project Atmosphere in Google, and it appears to be a science teaching program. I guess I found the wrong project? If so, do you have a link to the right web site for the project?