Dear Google+: We're inviting you to comment to the G+MM community on what if any plans, commitments, capabilities,...

Dear Google+: We're inviting you to comment to the G+MM community on what if any plans, commitments, capabilities, migration support, etc., Google are planning.

My view has been that if Google don't provide some clarification within the first month of the announced shutdown, there's likely to be little if any support. There are three days left in that first month. The Google+ profile has not posted in three weeks, and its recent posts are locked against comments.

I've reached out previously to Google directly through its press contact, with follow-up requests, specifically for Ben Smith, VP Engineering, or someone within his group to speak to G+MM. That request stands and is renewed here.

As one of the moderators of this 3,000+ member community (all joined since 8 October 2018), we're very much hoping to hear from you, and soon. Normally our format is an Ask me Anything, but at the very least, and even if you don't have solid plans or schedules, we'd like to know what's in the cards, especially the following:


Information on any features or capabilities of G+ to be disabled in advance of the final shut-down date. Presumably new-account formation will be among these, possibly new Community formation. The former is fairly understandable, the latter might be useful even at a late date in the migration for on-platform planning.

Post-sunset availability of the G+ website itself. Will profiles and content still be Web-accessible? There's a substantial and long-lived set of content here, and a complete shutdown would be highly disruptive.

Post-sunset access to users' Google+ data via Data Takeout. It's quite likely that not all users will have attempted, or succeeded, in creating and offloading their Google+ content. If it will still be able to create archives past the sunset date, this would be exceptionally useful information to have.

Tools for migrating Google+ data to new platform(s). Numerous present G+ users would like to be able to migrate their personal posts, comments, photos, and other content to new platforms, likely to include other major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, SmugMug/Flickr, etc.), blogs (Wordpress, Dreamwidth, Blogger, Medium, etc.), and the emerging universe of open and federated platforms. These archives will almost certainly contain non-public data which could be at best embarrassing, and potentially personally catastrophic or worse, if made public. Tools for safely and responsibly handling large data archives are lacking, and the present instructions and data structures within the Google+ elements of Google Data Takeout fail to adequately support this process. We are aware of third-party efforts to create migration tools, including from G+MM members, and Tim Berners-Lee of Solid who has begun work on a G+ Data Takeout migration tool. What specific steps, tools, instructions, and data format changes are Google planning to ensure that this process is effective, efficient, responsible, and respectful of privacy? Further, are Google now taking steps to work with both proprietary and Free Software projects to provide for import tools?

Present G+ users will need to store their G+ data takeouts prior to migration elsewhere as well as for some time afterward to ensure full restoration. One of the available storage options is Google Drive, and at the very least, holding G+ data on Google Drive should not change the security risks appreciably over their initial Google-based storage. The size of some archives will push many users over the free service tier of Google Drive capacity. Will Google commit to providing indefinite free storage of Google+ Data Takeout archives on Google Drive without registering the data storage against other user limits?

Use of Google Drive also presents an opportunity for Google to provide on-system access and management of G+ Data Takeout archives. Given this, will Google commit to providing native tools for viewing, searching, filtering, extracting, and exporting Google+ archives from within Google Drive, including at least post, comment, image, video, collection, and contact data, as well as for distinguishing public from non-public content, and providing for export to leading endpoints including Facebook, Diaspora, Friendica, Markdown, and a standard minimally complex HTML format, with batch-process (rather than individual item) capabilities?

(There are likely other elements I'm omitting from this list and I invite G+MM members to suggest other needs, say, HOA, chat, events, or other G+ features which may be of interest in preserving.)

G+ specialised in image presentation and was immensely popular amonst photographers. Classification of photographs, and in particular, sorting through photographic archives is a challenging task, particularly at volume. Google have considerable experience in image processing and recognition. Will Google commit to providing descriptive search capabilities to photo and image collections, as well as other descriptive characteristics such as date, size, format, and EXIF metadata, for searching, organising, selecting, and exporting image collections? Naturally, the sensitive information which may result from such analysis should be limited in access to the archive's owner only and not be provided or made available to any other parties.

Google Communities were a major feature of Google+ and range in size to millions of members, with over 5 million communities created. There is presently no mechanism for exporting G+ communities as a whole in any format. This might be of value to either community owners in reconstituting the community elsewhere, or to members wishing to retain access to years worth of contributions. Will Google commit to providing tools for Community owners and members to export G+ Community posts and texts in a useful format?

Thank you.