Not sure this has been shared in this community.
Originally shared by Stephan Beal
Perhaps of interest to those evaluating MeWe as a possible new home in a post-G+ world...
MeWe, it turns out, cannot possibly function as anyone's central public online presence platform (i.e., a place where one can point arbitrary people to and say "that's my online home"). A post by Mewe earlier today (which i can't link to because mewe doesn't support inbound links to posts) clarified that their pending addition of "public" pages means "public within mewe", as opposed to "public within the internet".
What follows is copy/pasted from a comment i made in a mewe-side discussion on that topic this evening (Central Euro Time), explaining why mewe cannot possibly change to become the platform i was hoping to find (specifically, a replacement for my One True Online Presence, which is currently G+)... (again, i'd link directly to the discussion if mewe supported such a thing... but if it did, this discussing would even be happening.)
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Think of it this way: here on mewe we can all create posts saying "take a look at this cool post on Twitter, FB, G+, Narnia, whatever", but we can't do the reverse on any of those networks, saying "look at this cool post on mewe".
Mewe can't "fix" (change) that without breaking their privacy-by-design policy. Imagine for a moment that they suddenly offer the ability for me to mark my posts or forums world-visible. Now the comments of every other user in those posts or that forum become visible to the rest of the world, and that's not what they agreed to when they signed up for mewe. There's no way to consolidate that with mewe's wall-ed design and keep privacy-conscious users happy. Simply by making a post world-visible, if i type @Mark Hunt in such a post, that leaks, to the whole world, information which reveals that Mark Hunt uses mewe. Not every user is okay with that, and many certainly signed up with mewe because that doesn't/can't happen.
So... i'll continue to use mewe for the forums (i love the forum features, especially file/image sharing, except that you can't re-use an already-uploaded image in multiple independent posts/comments). i can't, however, use it as my central online presence, because mewe literally can't do that.
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Originally shared by Stephan Beal
Perhaps of interest to those evaluating MeWe as a possible new home in a post-G+ world...
MeWe, it turns out, cannot possibly function as anyone's central public online presence platform (i.e., a place where one can point arbitrary people to and say "that's my online home"). A post by Mewe earlier today (which i can't link to because mewe doesn't support inbound links to posts) clarified that their pending addition of "public" pages means "public within mewe", as opposed to "public within the internet".
What follows is copy/pasted from a comment i made in a mewe-side discussion on that topic this evening (Central Euro Time), explaining why mewe cannot possibly change to become the platform i was hoping to find (specifically, a replacement for my One True Online Presence, which is currently G+)... (again, i'd link directly to the discussion if mewe supported such a thing... but if it did, this discussing would even be happening.)
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Think of it this way: here on mewe we can all create posts saying "take a look at this cool post on Twitter, FB, G+, Narnia, whatever", but we can't do the reverse on any of those networks, saying "look at this cool post on mewe".
Mewe can't "fix" (change) that without breaking their privacy-by-design policy. Imagine for a moment that they suddenly offer the ability for me to mark my posts or forums world-visible. Now the comments of every other user in those posts or that forum become visible to the rest of the world, and that's not what they agreed to when they signed up for mewe. There's no way to consolidate that with mewe's wall-ed design and keep privacy-conscious users happy. Simply by making a post world-visible, if i type @Mark Hunt in such a post, that leaks, to the whole world, information which reveals that Mark Hunt uses mewe. Not every user is okay with that, and many certainly signed up with mewe because that doesn't/can't happen.
So... i'll continue to use mewe for the forums (i love the forum features, especially file/image sharing, except that you can't re-use an already-uploaded image in multiple independent posts/comments). i can't, however, use it as my central online presence, because mewe literally can't do that.
I consider that a positive.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a turn off. I'll still use it though but like you said, it's not gonna be my "online home" in the same way G+ does.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is positive for most use cases. Mine is a minority case: i'm looking for a replacement for the loss of my central public social media presence.
ReplyDeleteBut it also has side-effects which most groups haven't yet stumbled over: search engines can't index mewe groups, and if someone fails to put a hashtag on a given post then that post will eventually disappear into nothingness and will be essentially impossible to find again in mewe. Mewe provides no mechanism for linking to individual posts. e.g. it's impossible to add a link to a post in a comment (something any platform which uses normal URLs can do). That will lead to a "loss" of posts as time passes and those posts slide out of the stream.
That would seem to seriously limit the potential effectiveness of posts on MeWe.
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci indeed. Even within mewe it's not possible to link to a post, so it can't be bookmarked for later (neither using a URL nor some mewe-internal ID). That said: the search options seem to be pretty good, so chances are good that you can find what you're looking for if you remember some of the text and/or hashtags. But you can't simply link to it for later reference. Currently only groups and profiles are directly linkable. Presumably "public pages" will be, too, but that feature hasn't been released yet.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, that kind of sounds like a platform-killer. The majority of the world doesn't use MeWe, and that's not going to change anytime soon - if ever. If you can't send a link to a specific post (or comment) to non-MeWe friends, new people will be less likely to join and content from MeWe will be handicapped compared to content from other platforms.
ReplyDeleteHave the owners of MeWe discussed this at all?
Truth Monger. Have a look at this post.
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci I also remember circling people when I saw their posts came up in Google search or quoted in other websites. If that is impossible with MeWe then it being a replacement for G+ is not going to happen.
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci public URLs (i.e. public links) are antithetical to mewe's privacy-by-design policy. i am of the opinion that the two concepts cannot be consolidated into a single platform.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear: i'm not knocking mewe. i like it for what it is (especially forums - it has some nice forum features). However, it isn't suitable as a G+ replacement for that minority of us who need a new central public online home (something we can point arbitrary people to with public URL). (And in case it's gone unnoticed: the post forwarded above was originally posted by me.)
ReplyDeleteHalfey Halphstein circling in mewe is a two-way process. Both parties must agree to it or it doesn't happen. It is, in effect, a "mutual contact request". If one side refuses, neither can see what the other is up to on mewe. Their upcoming "public pages" will apparently provide a way for people (typically celebrities/high-traffic personages) to be "followed" without the "followee" having to follow each of their followers in return (similar to G+'s "Follow" feature).
ReplyDeleteStephan Beal which I, somewhat ironically, also shared inside MeWe.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Brown LOL. The main body of that post originally came from a mewe discussion which i then posted to G+, but it was a comment, and there's no way to forward/link to a comment in mewe (nor in G+, actually... i think BoardGameGeek is the only platform i use which supports direct links to individual responses).
ReplyDeleteStephan Beal Yes I'm aware of that. What I'm trying to say is if MeWe walled everything within their network there's no way for an outsider to discover the people inside. I could live with that but I'm not done searching yet. Still got 10 months left anyway, not in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteso, Friendica allows public posts. See social.isurf.ca - iSurf Social (community)
ReplyDeleteI don't think pluspora allows public posts.
Stephan Beal with the current feature set, you can “follow” someone, in a way similar to (single) circle settings. On a follow request you are presented with two options: “show posts from on your timeline” and “allow them to see your posts”.
ReplyDeleteSimilar to here, you can “accept” a contact, while not really accepting it at all.
Li Gardner Friendica (well, Nerdica) is on my list of places being evaluated. Its major minus point right now is the hoops one must jump through to create forums (see the comments in this "evaluation" post):
ReplyDeletenerdica.net - Evaluating nerdica
Edit: pluspora is a non-starter because it's impossible to edit posts or comments. That's fine for microblogging, but little else.
For years i've been lacking an inspiration to overhaul my own aging and butt-ugly website, and G+'s demise may well be that inspiration. i'd lose the social networking aspects, but i'd have a central home again (which used to be that site before G+ came along and dragged me into social networking).
Edgar Brown that sounds like kind a "reverse follow": offering your timeline to them without requiring them to accept you. You can't see their timeline unless they choose to explicitly allow it.
ReplyDeleteStephan Beal you can do both. It is one of the four possibilities. You can also follow their timeline while not letting them see yours.
ReplyDeleteI have done all four possibilities with G+ circles for different purposes.
Edit: of course, they would have to allow it. And both sides could be “blind” without even realizing it. I guess it is really 16 possibilities that map down to four.
Halfey Halphstein That's exactly the problem! If your posts on MeWe can't be shared, getting new readers and adding new people to your social circle is going to be a far slower and more difficult process. That effectively cripples MeWe compared to social media networks that allow sharing and linking.
ReplyDeletePeter Maranci from what i understand (possibly incorrectly), mewe was initially envisioned to target small groups, e.g. corporate customers, where "growing one's audience" isn't a concern. Even so, in such an environment with 20-100 employees, it would be a huge pain in the butt to have to "friend" every new employee. i can imagine that it works rather well for providing walled-in areas within a larger organization, where teams don't interfere with each other and can't pry on what other teams are doing. It has major limitations as a public social platform, though.
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it, the more that this issue troubles me. It would seem that all content on MeWe is (metaphorically) leaves floating downstream; as they sweep into the past, they are effectively lost forever. Unless someone deliberately goes on an archaeological dig in MeWe, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteNo permalinks, and invisible to search engines. That's fundamentally different from most social media. Say I write something great (it could happen, right? :D). If it's posted on a site with links, I can share it. Other people who like it can share it with their friends on other social networks, or via email, text, whatever. And still other new readers can discover it in the future via search engines.
None of that will ever happen with a post on MeWe. Not unless the owners change the system (if they can). That makes MeWe a very transitory platform - and I, for one, am not looking for transitory. I've had too much transitory already, here on Google Plus!
Peter Maranci indeed, indeed! It is conceivably/technically possible that mewe will enable some sort of unique-per-post ID which could be used to link it within mewe without providing a public URL for it. That would retain their privacy layer without unduly leaking things to the world. So far, however, no such thing exists. e.g. in BoardGameGeek each post and response gets a unique ID (a simple incrementing number) which can be used to reference that thread/response later on. In mewe it would likely be something more akin to a UUID or hash code, as incremental IDs don't work well in distributed systems (for long, boring reasons), but the effect is the same: with that ID you could later reference the post using a hypothetical mewe-specific feature. mewe already has those IDs - they have to, because they're a technical prerequisite for any system like the one they have. It would surprise me greatly if mewe hasn't implemented some mewe-internal system of bookmarks/linking within the next six months, as large forums start to recognize the problem of "leaves floating downstream" (as you so well put it).
ReplyDeleteI crossed MeWe off my own list of potential G+ "replacements,", because while the founders may have noble intentions about free speech, etc., I've seen some very troubling reports about just what kind of groups of people hang out there. I am not interested in being associated with a community that attracts the alt-right/libertarian/4chan crowd.
ReplyDeletePat Kight I figure that if a lot of people go there from G+, they'll soon be the majority and set a new tone.
ReplyDeleteIt's the transitory nature of MeWe posts that rules it out for me as a primary social network. I put effort into my posts, sometimes; I don't like the idea that they'll disappear forever after a few days!
Peter Maranci Yeah, that really wouldn't work for a lot of my own G+ uses, which include group photo projects that can go on for months.
ReplyDeleteEric Bright it might be worth adding a few more questions to your FAQ regarding what “public” will really mean and how will that balance with privacy in the MeWe architecture)
ReplyDeleteEdgar Brown where did Mark answered those? Would you please kindly refer me to it? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteEric Bright I’m not aware that he has. I’m just pointing out that these should be asked. I am not sure of how you are collating this information.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Brown he has been answering questions by public under one of his posts, on and off.
ReplyDeleteEric Bright here in G+ or in MeWe? Could you post a link to that post?
ReplyDeleteIt’s in the G+ Mass Migration Community. I’ll send you the link once I found it again (I look it up only when new comments are made under his OP and I get a notification. That’s why I don’t know the direct URL). But, you can find it in that community regardless.
ReplyDeleteMmmmph.... there is no way in the G+ app to search for that post in the community and he did not add his community posts to his profile. The only way is to scroll down the stream to find it.
ReplyDeleteI have to say. This specific problem case is better implemented in MeWe. You can just click on a member and all of their community-specific posts are in a single stream.
I’m having problem finding his post too. :(
ReplyDeleteIn my phone, the relevant notifications are pushed down to oblivion, so I couldn’t find it that way.
Just got a notification under that post, hence rediscovered the URL:
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/104058007020511921292/posts/XRcBiALnWbo
plus.google.com - Hey everyone, my name is Mark Weinstein. I am the founder of MeWe. Sir Tim Be...
Edgar Brown it's true that G+ has the same fundamental searchability problem, but any internet user (G+ member or not) can bookmark (using a public URL) any G+ post they want to, so they've got a permanent link to it (provided it's not deleted). In mewe that's impossible - if you don't manage to find it via searching (literally every time you want to find it!), then it's effectively lost. That's not a problem yet because there's not enough content to make searching all that problematic (mewe's search function is quite good, in my limited experience). Give it a year or so and we'll have forums with thousands of posts, many of them effectively, though not literally, lost.
ReplyDeleteIt's basically like Google plus users that make all their posts not public. You can't link to their posts either.
ReplyDeleteCarl Draper anyone who has access to non-public G+ posts can bookmark them for later reference. "Private" doesn't mean "just for that user" (because who creates posts just for themselves?). However, only those with access to the post can actually use the link. For anyone else G+ would say the post couldn't be found or access is denied.
ReplyDelete