The first bigger update about what's actually going on at openbook... :)
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/openbook-it-s-time-for-a-better-social-network#/updates/all
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/openbook-it-s-time-for-a-better-social-network#/updates/all
Sounds interesting!
ReplyDeleteTheir focus on mobile is a refreshing differentiator.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis The release of the web version is planned at the same time:
ReplyDeletehttps://openbook.canny.io/
openbook.canny.io - Openbook Feedback
Cyrill Kunze I know. It's just that existing solutions seem to add on mobile support after doing the websites. Nice to see it considered as part the early design phase.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis Oh, I missunderstood your first comment. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely following this one.
ReplyDeletes
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know about ongoing funding for this.
ReplyDeleteJulie Wills That's where their TIPS cryptocurrency comes in. They anticipate users will buy and sell things, and make donations on Openbook using TIPS, and will take a cut of the money people spend buying TIPS.
ReplyDeleteJulie Wills
ReplyDeletehttps://www.openbook.social/en/manifesto
https://medium.com/openbook-org/so-how-will-openbook-make-money-daf99589643d
Thanks for that
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats and Cyrill Kunze
Does import from other social networks include G+, I wonder 🙂?
John Skeats I am reminded of the Silicon Valley episodes (Series 5, I think) that I just watched on the flight to and from ... er, Silicon Valley last week
ReplyDeleteJulie Wills They know about the fact G+ will be shutting down, so I think: Yes.
ReplyDeleteJulie Wills There is next to no information available yet about specific features in their public information. It is therefore impossible to tell whether Openbook just looks somewhat Google+-like or will actually be a viable home for Google+ users in the future.
ReplyDeleteI have my issues with sites like MeWe as I don't see their model as being scaled up long term.
ReplyDeleteWith just the most general and short read on the two links provided by Cyrill Kunze I can see the big picture with Openbook.
It may be a long road for them, but if well funded and managed, their idea makes sense to me.
Maybe this information and links should be more spread that other people understand what's the plan.
ReplyDeleteI totally think the same about MeWe for example.
Cyrill Kunze Good share. I've haven't been impressed with options so far.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, this may not even be at the beta stage yet, but It really makes sense to me.
/sub
ReplyDeleteChris Phenomenal Good question. Just ask the dudes behind Openbook. They listening and respond.
ReplyDeleteThe guys are so funny:
ReplyDeletehttps://openbook.canny.io/feature-requests/p/easy-selection-of-audience
https://openbook.canny.io/feature-requests/p/possibility-to-filter-posts-by-category
Chris Phenomenal Scrolling down the page there's a bright orange link for ideas/features you'd like to see included.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats I was referring to the cryptocurrency 😉
ReplyDeleteBut you're right. It seems impossible to tell yet whether it would have the necessary features
What is really like to see (in any social network) is consideration up front for how they plan to counter trolls and spammers.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to see how that's possible with an opensource offering, as any spammers only have to look at the source code to see how best to game it.
Julie Wills Quite a few years ago, the US Government was looking at implementing instituting a rule requiring all systems to use open interfaces. Microsoft submitted a white paper challenging the idea on grounds that open-source systems (e.g., Linux) presented a much greater risk because everyone could see the vulnerabilities, thereby making it much easier to exploit them. One of the departments (I believe it was the Department of Defense) conducted a survey to investigate Microsoft's claim. What they found was that they experienced far fewer and much less serious vulnerabilities with open-source systems than Microsoft software.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember the following reasons were given for that:
-- With open-source, hackers and the like get their jollies from finding, reporting vulnerabilities -- sometimes with fixes -- rather than from exploiting the vulnerabilities.
-- There are more eyes looking at open-source code, so vulnerabilities are more likely to be found and fixed before being exploited.
-- When an exploiter is found in the wild, more eyes are looking at the source of the problem (the vulnerability itself) and working to close it rapidly.
John Skeats and that is why Linux based operating systems and other open source software are so secure. 👍
ReplyDeleteDon McCollough Exactly!
ReplyDeletei have suggested them to adopt g+ data and am waiting for an answer.
ReplyDeletethe features of g+ are quite basic, so probably any other social platform might replace.
but a mass migration will preserve the people, the posts, and the omnidirectional relations between all these.
conversely, each of us may download her personal data with Google tools and load it at another place loosing the connections with other people and their data.
Alex Bodnaru I'm not sure that Circles, Private AND Public posting, Private and Public Collections (each with their own audience), Private (hidden or searchable) and Public Communities, each with the potential for Ask to Join our Hold for Review ... and all the other features of G+ that I've forgotten to mention counts as basic
ReplyDeleteThat's why it's so difficult to find another platform that does all the things that G+ does.
Julie Wills
ReplyDeletethe biggest issue would be to keep the privacy of the users and their credentials. also, google might want to get payed for the data.
the present functionality is big and good, but is quite basic in terms of social networking.
as an emerging project, openbook would have the opportunity to populate their database from the start.
but hosting the amount of data in g+ might turn expensive, hence maybe the accounts per user might get limited etc.
Alex Bodnaru I can't see a feasible way to move things intact. The identities exist only within Google+. Exporting a list of names would be meaningless unless the names happened to be completely unique. That's extraordinarily unlikely even for very rare names. Besides, bringing the identities over would imply automatically making a person who commented on a post a user of the receiving service if the person had not previously enrolled -- which would be an extremely serious privacy issue
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats the displayed names are not the keys.
ReplyDeleteunder these names are keys that are unique names/numbers.
these keys are also to be exported and used/converted in the mass migration process.
Alex Bodnaru That assumes that Google would provide the linkages to the real identities and still leaves the problem of needing to automatically enroll people and include their content without their permission.
ReplyDeleteCyrill Kunze > openbook.canny.io - Easy selection of Audience | Features & Ideas | Openbook
ReplyDeleteTheir concept of concentric circles of audiences doesn't take into account the need for public circles of audiences that potentially conflict with one another. A user may wish to gather new followers from two circles of audiences that treat each others' posts as noise.
For example, theoretical computer scientists and digital entertainment otaku usually treat each others' posts as noise to be avoided; however, a user may wish to gather new followers from both groups at the same time. This situation is not handled by concentric circles of audiences; it can only be handled by communities whose posts can be set not to appear outside of the circle in which the posts are posted.
Therefore, it would be useful additionally to have the option to set the visibility level of posts to communities so that the posts do not appear outside of the community in which they are posted; in particular, the option should allow those posts not to appear in the user's own circle; otherwise, potential followers from the community that treats those posts as noise may choose not to follow that user, even if that user also submits posts to the other community.
For example, if a user submits posts to both a community on theoretical computer science and to a community on interactive digital entertainment, and someone from the former community sees one of the latter community's posts in that user's main circle, that person may choose not to follow that user, even if that user also submits posts to the former community as well. This situation should be avoidable.
Benjamin Russell So: AND and OR.
ReplyDeletePossibly NOT and XOR.
Maybe you have confused the concept of circles and the concept of collections from G+. Openbook will integrate both concepts.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats every g+ user may receive a link to the migration path, and given upon the first login in openbook the opportunity to perform inter-server transfer.
ReplyDeletewhile listing a group of users, you'll see only the migrated ones, not the keys without an user.
Edward Morbius In logical terms, let "TCS" stand for "Theoretical Computer Science," "IDE" stand for "Interactive Digital Entertainment," and "MC" stand for "Main Circle."
ReplyDeleteThen, what is desired is:
MC = NOT (TCS OR IDE)
(Here, "OR" stands for "inclusive OR"; i.e., the set "TCS OR IDE" includes everything in TCS and everything in IDE. Hence, NOT (TCS OR IDE) excludes both everything in TCS and everything in IDE. Hence, MC will not include anything in either TCS or IDE.)
MC will include mostly posts on astronomy or poetry, which are usually acceptable by both computer scientists and interactive digital entertainment otaku.
if a company would undertake this huge amount of data and active users, they would take care of every aspect of database design and migration path.
ReplyDeleteCyrill Kunze > Maybe you have confused the concept of circles
ReplyDelete> and the concept of collections from G+. Openbook will integrate
> both concepts.
Not collections, but communities; collections do not serve to hide posts on one topic from potential followers of the other topic, which is necessary to avoid losing certain potential followers. Collections only organize posts; they do not render them invisible in the poster's main circle.
For example, if a potential follower from a community on theoretical computer science likes a post on that subject, then visits the poster of that subject and finds another, unrelated post on interactive digital entertainment that that poster treats as noise, he/she might then think that the poster must not really be a scholar and decide not to follow that person, even if that poster is a hybrid scholar/otaku.
What is needed is a feature allowing the poster to make posts on interactive digital entertainment invisible in that poster's main circle. This feature requires both communities and the ability to make posts to a given community invisible in the poster's main circle, not just collections.
Alex Bodnaru The breakage point is that comments on posts would have to remain unattributed or be excluded entirely unless and until the creator of the comments approved. That would cause havoc on the migration and presentation of posts. It would require an extremely complex migration mechanism, an even more complex database design -- with all of the complexities being completely unnecessary except for the migration case, and probably some intense real-time processing to determine what should be shown and how it should be shown each time a post was displayed. The additional processing would be very costly to the providers and could cause serious delays presenting content to users.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats Creation/designation of a legacy or archive collection might help.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats it could be defined a default policy of such migration.
ReplyDeletea mention of an unmigrated user may not have a link.
if the visibility of posts and comments should remain the same, since the profile keys and relations should be migrated.
we may all download the openbook code and be sure how it works
ReplyDeleteAlex Bodnaru Then whoever moved first would be screwed because their content would have no links on the comments. People who had commented but joined later would arguably be screwed to a lesser degree because they wouldn't be able to access their comments. It would create an ugly mess.
ReplyDeletewhy? g+ will provide you a migration link, that would reveal your g+ id in the relationships database. openbook will provide a place to input that link, to trigger download of the g+ data to ob server, and connect the db key from g+ key to your authenticated ob account.
ReplyDeletebtw the whole db might get not cloned to the new key space, not just loaded as is, needing a massive key translation.
don't fear, it's possible and feasible.
Alex Bodnaru It is theoretically possible -- but only with the problems I mentioned in my first response.
ReplyDeleteanyway, maybe google will insist on maintaining the whole db, so this data won't move.
ReplyDeletealso, an organization may adopt the g+ users in an "enterprise", with a gsuite account. this may be the cheapest way.
what you're describing as problems are design challenges. you'll be able to see whatever you've seen before, and your new input will need to bear the same policies.
Alex Bodnaru Consumer Google accounts cannot be converted to accounts in a G Suite domain, there is no way to transfer a Google+ profile from one Google account to another regardless of whether they are consumer or G Suite accounts, and there is no way to transfer everything associated with a Google+ profile (circles, followers, community memberships, posts, etc.) from one Google+ profile to another.
ReplyDeleteThere's another issue with G Suite accounts: They aren't free. If a G Suite domain were to "adopt" Google+ users as you suggested, there would be a monthly fee for each user charged to the domain itself. That would be a massive fee for all Google+ users, and there would be no way of automatically charging it to the individual account owners.
John Skeats here is no way to transfer a Google+ profile from one Google account to another
ReplyDeleteSource?
That might be something to request of Google.
Edward Morbius What kind of source are you looking for? That's a statement of fact today. One can certainly ask for the ability to transfer a profile and all its trappings from a consumer account to a G Suite account, but I would bet against it happening for a few reasons:
ReplyDelete* G Suite accounts and consumer accounts are in different infrastructures and actually have different capabilities. It is there unlikely that everything could be simply moved -- especially since people have asked for the capability to move profiles from one consumer account to another consumer account for years and even that simpler case has never been provided.
* Indications are that when consumer Google+ is shut down, the G Suite Google+ will be exclusively for communications within the same domain. That would mean that communities would be broken (because they would be restricted individual domains) and the sharing of all posts would be broken because Public as we know it would not exist, and any other sharing would be broken if all of the people involved were not in the domain the profile owner was to hypothetically move to.
John Skeats Anything you've got. If you don't have anything, that's OK, but more substantiation beats less ;-)
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius There is no substantiation beyond the complete lack of such an existing function anywhere in Google+ and the word of one of the people Google dubbed a Product Expert in Google+ (yours truly) confirming that no such function exists. Nobody in the tech industry publishes comprehensive lists of functions that don't exist because any such list would essentially be infinitely long.
ReplyDeleteJohn Skeats You should see my Book of Books Not Written!
ReplyDelete(Thanks again, and again: I'm just looking for as much substantiation of useful/significant data as possible. The fact that General Public => Enterprise G+ transition is not supported may throw yet more cold water onto an already frozen lake.)
John Skeats when you say "there is no way to do X", we should read "we the users have no access to a facility that does X", whether if it's not implemented or just not accessible.
ReplyDeletegoogle can do EVERYTHING you mentioned within their databases, including building and operating a tool to do X, and a serious mass migration effort would do that, subject to the collaboration between google and the migration target. hard decisions may need to be made, where the target may not support something, and that data would need to be dropped/ignored.
about the enterprise g+, should i understand that has less connectivity within the same domain, so that one domain would not suffice to keep all the current g+ activity within that domain?
it's all about consent and credentials, and here is an idea to cleanly migrate all the google+ data:
ReplyDeletegoogle would publish/sell the relations database, while initially keeping the posts and the profiles themselves, under the same credentials.the keys in the relations database are anonymous, and access to anything would be subject to providing credentials. remember that google sells storage.
every g+ user will receive a link to allow her to migrate to another platform, that has imported the relations. the migration will match the user with her key in the database.
the relations database is the one to provide listings of users, entities and posts. so the migrated user will authenticate at google as today and browse the listings on the new platform.
the posts themselves will initially load from g+ storage, and new posts may load from the new platform.
the user may decide when to move all her posts to one platform (thus closing the way to additional platforms), or otherwise close her g+ account. that may actually happen after a legal timeout due to account inactivity.
thus, several platforms may even concure, while not disclosing sensible data.
Edward Morbius Many years ago, G+ wasn't available at all for GSuite accounts. At that time, I had a GSuite account, but was still had to use my old consumer account for G+.
ReplyDeleteThen they enabled the use of G+ on GSuite accounts, and at the time there was a way to partially transfer SOME information about an account from one account to another, but even then, it wasn't much (I forget the details), but because my old account hadn't been very active it was enough. (I imagine that it probably used Circle sharing, which is no longer available, to let me duplicate my circles from one account to the other.) Anybody following my old account still had to follow my new account instead. I don't think I was a member of any communities at the time (if they existed then), but I almost certainly would have had to rejoin those too. So looking back, probably the only thing I did transfer was my circles.
That many years ago, the tools were only partial, and they relied on features that no longer exist. So it's safe to say that unless some import tools become available to import JSON exports to a GSuite account (which can only work from YOUR point of view, and not from the point of view of your followers), there is no transfer method.
And of course, taking with you the information about all of your circles and communities would be largely meaningless anyway, as they themselves will cease to exist because the majority of them are based on consumer accounts.
Alex Bodnaru It is possible (and I'm speculating) that Google have intentionally made it very difficult to migrate data from Account A to Account B, say, on the grounds that that might be abused, or that it might be prone to error (incomplete migration, wrong source or target).
ReplyDeleteOr, as you say, just that they've Not Bothered With This.
The fact that there's no public way to import data into G+ argues against the transfer.
Edward Morbius migrating accounts is something in the domain of the operator. hard or easy are relative terms. if someone breaks in the db that's not in order to nicely clone an account, but for the data as it is.
ReplyDeletepersonal data is simple and they promised to allow users to take it.
there is an open standard to import/export social data, but it's probably about personal data only. maybe g+ don't offer import since they are closing.
the connections data is the special one to be migrated, it may be complex to extract, it's probably kept in different formats on different platforms, and this is the value we should not go without.
Alex Bodnaru The difficulty with migrating any social account is that most of the value is in connections to other accounts, which will also be going away. Migrating an account within an ecosystem where the existing connections you have will not be changing is feasible. But not when everything your connecting to won't be there either.
ReplyDeleteThe owners of those accounts are entitled to make their own decisions about their data, and whether they want to transfer their data elsewhere is not your decision (or Google's decision) to make.
It's not a matter of technical possibility. It's a matter of data protection laws.
you are right Julie Wills .
ReplyDeletei'm treating this subject in the following post: plus.google.com - DO NOT FEAR first, some organization may decide to buy google+ as it is, and...
it's about migrating without endangering private data, while allowing true competition between platforms, and users allowed to preview their present data on new platforms before decision. that's not utopy.
The chance of any third party buying G+ intact is infinitesimally small because G+ accounts rely heavily on other data which is part of your Google account, not your G+ account.
ReplyDeleteAnd we've already seen the pitfalls of inadvertently allowing 3rd parties to extract information they shouldn't have access to.
don't worry, if it's worth it, it will be bought.
ReplyDeleteAlex Bodnaru I have to admire your optimism, however unrealistic it is 😉
ReplyDeleteGoogle are not against us, they will strive for a good solution.
ReplyDeleteDO NOT FEAR.
John Skeats > There is no substantiation beyond the
ReplyDelete> complete lack of such an existing function anywhere in
> Google+ and the word of one of the people Google
> dubbed a Product Expert in Google+ (yours truly)
> confirming that no such function exists.
If I might inquire, who was this "Product Expert in Google+" reportedly dubbed by Google, and what exactly did this person say/write?
Benjamin Russell "yours truly", as per John's comment that you quoted. i.e. John Skeats himself.
ReplyDeleteBenjamin Russell To clarify what I and Julie Wills said, Google has a program called Google Product Expert Program (formerly called the Top Contributor Program). Julie and I (and a number of others) have worked directly with the Google+ team for years as part of the Product Expert Program.
ReplyDeleteJulie Wills > yours truly", as per John's comment that you quoted.
ReplyDeleteA counterpart to this expression, to my knowledge, does not occur in Japanese, and this expression cannot be easily translated into Japanese. I earn a living by translating Japanese into English; I wonder how this particular expression translates into Japanese. (I usually refrain from using English expressions that do not easily translate into Japanese in my writing because many Japanese people read my posts and comments, and if they encounter an expression that they do not understand, they may ask me to translate it into Japanese.)
Benjamin Russell I'm not surprised it isn't easy to translate.
ReplyDelete"Yours truly" is a slightly self-deprecating way of saying "me"