Clearly, there are two front-runners where people are migrating to, and for different reasons. MeWe and Diaspora have both lobbied hard in this community (and elsewhere) to help migration so it's no surprise to see them with the largest share of users. What I found very surprising was the number of people who were on both. Since this was wasn't an exclusive, pick one selection only type poll, people were free to put anything up they wanted.
Facebook has a larger showing than I expected. There's a lot of reasons to be there, including an existing network of users, but I always felt Google+ was the alternative to Facebook and that people here didn't want to be there. So just coming in third was, again, a surprise to me.
I'll clump the next five because they were nearly the same in the number of results (although they are radically different in features); Reddit, Blogger, Custom CMS, , Mastodon and Openbook. I had expected Mastodon to rank higher, but I guess people either aren't into the features or they are bothered by the large communities of what westerners view as "adult materials". The custom CMS route and Blogger are probably driven, in part, by the ability to migrate from Google+ to them with fairly simply third-party applications.
The number of custom responses was entertaining, almost always an add-on to something else, although a few were single entries. That list is much longer than shown but my screen capture tool couldn't get them all.
CA M I'm in the same camp, for sure. Too many options; no clear movement from the community, no support from Google, and what appear to be dangerous problems with all choices (ranging from proprietary closed system to the existence of fringe groups I don't want to support.)
I swear, if Usenet was still easy to get to and not full of garbage, and I had any hint that many of my old friends were still there, I'd consider it. I loved Usenet, back in the days when it was the only "social" game in town.
I suspect if you redid the poll in a couple of months, you'd see more migration to Flickr; it's picking up steam with the photographer communities here because it's one of the few social spaces that displays photos as well as the Plus does. But it's not a general social medium.
Samuel Smith > There's > always that one person still > using irc... LOL
... and, apparently, that one person still using USENET. Frankly, I was astonished that nobody else seemed to think of that alternative. Prior to coming to Google+, I had used cough Facebook, and prior to that, I had used USENET newsgroups. Recently, for lack of a better alternative, I resumed participating on comp.lang.scheme (the USENET newsgroup for the Scheme programming language); at least the discussions there tend to be detailed and informative (if occasionally condescending and infuriating).
Benjamin Russell I could look, but the person use IRC might be the same person using USENET. (okay, I looked it wasn't.... but in both cases it was an augmentation of a few other things... it wasn't the only thing they used.)
In any case I found that about ~19% of responses listed both Diaspora and MeWe. That's pretty staggering when you consider it matches the next highest result (Facebook).
John Lewis > Can I ask the > person who selected ' Usenet' > to identify themselves, ideally > providing some rationale? :)
That was I.
My rationale, to which I hinted in my above comment, was that the discussions on USENET newsgroups (especially those on my favorite newsgroup, comp.lang.scheme (the newsgroup for the Scheme programming language)) tend to be more detailed and informative than on most other social network services, even if they are occasionally extremely condescending to be point of generating an intense urge to throw the keyboard, full force, directly at the monitor (fortunately, I have managed to suppress this urge so far) (since most newsgroups are not moderated, allowing users to write whatever they want).
Essentially, USENET is a wild, wild West version of the Internet where total chaos reigns. Users are free to shoot whatever they want at whomever they want, but so is everyone else. I usually try to walk softly (i.e., write in an academic manner) and carry a big stick (i.e., use many detailed official references to back up everything that I claim). (Occasionally, a mad-scientist-type mathematician/poet/programmer will suddenly appear out of nowhere and do everything possible to make one look like a complete idiot who desperately needs to go back to nursery school.)
(In my most recent post on comp.lang.scheme, for example, I wound up writing a 413-line post in response to another self-proclaimed "poet" who essentially attempted to use various lengthy arguments to imply that poetry that was precise in meter was often inferior in quality. I used references to the numerical precision of the epic poetry of Dante Alighieri, a sample of my own verse, and a description of the MIT/Stanford approach to design and implementation to derail his implication toward my verse.)
(Although it is possible to read and respond on newsgroups using Google Groups, it is usually more efficient to use a newsreader, such as Forté Agent or GNUS (a GNU Emacs-based newsreader) to filter out spam, since most newsgroups are not moderated. Currently, I myself use Forté Agent, although I eventually plan to use GNUS in Spacemacs (after I figure out how to configure it in my "~/emacs/.spacemacs" file).)
Samuel Smith I actually forgot to respond to the poll, or else there would be 2 people on that IRC option. ;) Though it's not a matter of switching to IRC, but rather continuing to use IRC. It's also far from an actual G+ alternative, since it's more of a Hangouts alternative imho, as it's more aimed at direct communication than broadcasting longform posts.
Still, IRC is a great protocol, and I don't think I'll ever fully stop using it.
A nice assessment. I would not have labelled blogger as an alternative though - it's not a social network. More of a platform for content than discovering people. Something you write longer pieces on and post links to on social media, but not social media itself.
Filip H.F. Slagter > Still, IRC is a > great protocol, and I don't > think I'll ever fully stop using > it.
Back in circa 2005, I once participated on the #scheme channel on IRC network freenode; however, unfortunately, my elderly mother (whom I was taking care of at the time because she was unable to take care of herself completely) interrupted my session at the time in order to take care of the laundry.
This led to an argument, during which she stamped on the floor immediately next to my Apple Airport Extreme router, causing it to fall to the floor and its chassis to get damaged. I became disgruntled and decided not to participate on that channel again until I replaced that router. Eleven years then passed. Then, in circa 2016, it eventually broke and needed to be replaced. I wasn't able to afford another Airport or Airport Extreme router, and was forced to replace it with an inferior third-party model.
Now that Apple no longer manufactures that type of router, that option no longer is available from Apple, so I might start using #scheme again (although I do plan to acquire a new, factory-sealed Airport Extreme router from some third-party merchant eventually).
Loved seeing the results and thank you very much for your efforts! I laughed at IRC but admit I briefly remembered how I enjoyed it and (gasp) ICQ. And so many bb forums! My first in-depth social media was abuzz, run by the NYTimes. There was a fairly close family created there with people who would travel to meet up. Back in 2001 14 of us rented a beach house in Bar Harbor, Maine, for a ten day slumber party. Not kidding! 4 even traveled from outside the US to get there. Parts of us would come and go and sight see during this time.
Oh how we mourned the loss of it when NYTimes closed it after 3 years. Failure to monetize was the downfall. Hundreds went to a user-run forum called A2K for Able to Know. It may still be running. Between 2000-2001 there were great private communities on WebMD. Until they ruined everything by installing a company “moderator” in each group. Must have been lawyers that pushed that through. Killed it for us using it as social media.
Having learned the ins and outs of swimming in social media, I tried other sites and the disastrous FB. I became an early user of G+ and never looked back. Now I am not content to be in a walled-off site. Contact with newcomers and people from all over the world is precious to me. I have very eclectic interests and seek a variety of people and conversations. I am also a big fan of allowing all sorts of people and content. But turns out I’m in the minority who believe “scroll on by” is customary and fine practice. And I’ve been fortunate to choose well those who are contacts and become friends.
After all these years it’s only been the last 3 years that Delete/Report/Block became an important tool. I’m on both MeWe and pluspora but only happy at the latter. I’m also in the minority because I intend to settle on about five sites with no problem. I bet it’s only extroverts who are isolated from IRL friends who will do that. Such a damn shame to now feel I’ll need to start over with five sites just to continue the best of social media positive experiences.
I didn't vote but I was hoping Flickr would draw photographers from here. It is a much better platform compared to IG. I guess it's back to the wilderness of little to no social media interaction.
Darren Huski as a photographer who has Adminned many groups on Flickr since 2005, I promise you there already are a lot of “us” photographers there and more will come in January. It’s just unlikely to be good on the social media elements.
cobalt please > But turns out > I’m in the minority who > believe “scroll on by” is > customary and fine practice.
Well, feel free to count me in that minority, too. :-)
> I have very eclectic interests > and seek a variety of people > and conversations.
Ah, yes; I can understand that perspective. I myself have very arcane interests and seek extremely unusual and geeky people and interests. (Personally, I consider myself to be more of a geek than a nerd.)
> I’m also in the minority > because I intend to settle on > about five sites with no > problem. I bet it’s only > extroverts who are isolated > from IRL friends who will do > that.
Well, not necessarily; I currently use (aside from Google+) USENET, Dreamwidth, Mastodon, and (although only in Japanese to avoid being banned by a certain type of extremely eccentric Japanese user who bans anyone who uses English) Twitter. That's also five sites in total. However, I am not an extravert, but a Myers-Briggs INFP ("Poet/Idealist") introvert.
> Such a damn shame to now > feel I’ll need to start over....
cobalt please I am looking forward to seeing what Smugmug does with Flickr under it's wing. I think a little tweaking could be the place for photographers.
Staying on G+. Still getting new followers every day. Go figure. I see no viable alternative to G+. Strangely, yesterday I completed a survey for Google that had many questions about G+.
What was the total number of respondents? Did everyone realize it was pick as many as you want, not just one? It looks like about 150 people responded, is that right? About 5% of this community? The poll was shared, how many votes from non-members?
I would have liked to see the list more evenly or systematically presented. (blogger, wordpress, and other blog sites should have shown in parallel, and so on.)
I was surprised to see twitter so low. I don't think it was on the list. It should have been next to mastodon. I was surprised to see reddit so popular, about even with facebook.
I don't know if I participated in this poll or not, but I would like to add one comment: the support for photographs in hubzilla is surprisingly good -- in some ways better than anything else I have tried. Hubzilla has a learning curve, but it's not that bad -- here's a link to an album I put together (I'm not sure if I have the permissions right -- let me know if not...) : nymclub.net - Kent Crispin -
Rhys Taylor many bloggers see and use blogs as social. It is a YMMD depending on how you choose to blog. Unless you are sending out a news feed? About FB - I have less than a dozen Friends. And many groups - like the Water Shedding one for Cape Town's drought. I wonder how many lean towards digital detox, too much social media, not actually looking to fill the gap that G+ leaves with fresh noise.
As a researcher (social scientist) I'm interested in both the findings and interpretation/implications. First, like the comment before I thought "they don't add up" but realized (as explained) the numbers reflect percentage of respondents, with overlap (some using several). I think... (Not a grand total)
Immediate truism #2 - if you aggregate/lump together all the versions of Diaspora and Federation relatives, it becomes a much larger mammoth, of MeWe proportion.
Lastly - and this is extrapolated from observation and personal experience, not statistical analysis - on the surprise Facebook showing. Personally I've maintained FB (x2, personal and biz) so as to retain easy access via text/photos etc. among real friends (and colleagues), all of whom I've met F2F, many from far corners of the planet. It's reliable for that. AND yes, I strongly dislike many things about FB (mostly the ethos and anti-privacy credo), but it's about the only thing not about to change for my daily online life, of which Google+ was the most central and important. So yes, overlap, with reluctant but useful FB account, still recognizable and alive.
Also, Blogger, Wordpress, etc., IMM are sort of different animals, means rather than ends.
"Whatever gets you there". I could go on about preferences and online styles, or get into the importance of context (location, culture, web access, purpose, for starts). But I won't (or I'll get yelled at!) ;) That's my first reaction to the poll. Thanks for doing it!!
Does IRC still exist? That would indeed be going back to my roots. I was trolling around IRC in the mid 90's. As it sits, it's Diaspora or Mastodon for me. My Tumblr has been sanitized - perhaps just disengaging from SM the best answer.
John Holmes plenty of IRC networks, small and large, are still active. Perhaps not as actively used anymore for social chatting, and rather for topic-oriented discussions or support, but alive nevertheless.
Thank you; I have just added you to a circle of followers entitled "IRC Users." If you could write more about your experiences with it (as well as with ICQ, for comparison), that might be interesting as a basis of comparison with other social network services.
(Incidentally, I just remembered the name of the IRC client that I had used back in circa 2005: Snak - IRC for Mac, by Snak Software. (Back then, I used a 17-inch MacBook Pro equipped with a PowerPC processor that ran only MacOS X.) Back then, IIRC, I made the payment by international postal money order via shareware payments processor Kagi (which, apparently, unfortunately shut down as of July 31, 2016 (see https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/ )). (I distinctly remember having been asked by someone at Snak software why I did not pay by credit card instead of money order, and responding that, at the time, I had just recently moved from Manhattan to Tokyo without an awaiting job, and therefore lacked a credit card in my own name in good credit standing; Snak Software, unlike many other merchants, unfortunately did not accept payments using the credit card of a family member of a different first name.)) macrumors.com - Longtime Shareware Payments Processor Kagi Shuts Down - MacRumors
John Lewis: Did you limit users to a single submission on this? That's a "require email" or similar setting. Mind, not providing a single site, but avoiding ballot-stuffing. It's a Google Forms option.
Putting on my "I'm not a real statistician but I've had coffee with some, and they might admit it" hat:
Consider this a very rough measure. Self-selected survey responses have crazy bad sampling skew.
The most interesting part is probably to see what options are mentioned, regardless of votes.
Otherwise, this is mostly a measurement of awareness and motivation, though the top few responses don't surprise me much based on activity and mentions on G+MM.
For Facebook's standing: my suspicion is that people who are inclined to pick FB are already there and have already committed to it. They're not (generally) looking at alternatives. The true FB interest is almost certainly hugely underrepresented, as a measure of overall G+ users.
Of the rest of the results, I'm surprised that Medium did as poorly as it shows here.
Putting on my "I'm not a real graphic artist" hat, with some modest data rearranging, we could get a Golden Gate Bridge logo out of this.
Diana Studer I don't see how one would go about using Blogger specifically (don't know about other blog platforms) in a social way. YouTube provides at least some basic tools for discovering channels and reasonable ways for commenting and liking/disliking content. Blogger really doesn't do that. You can publish there, but content has to be shared elsewhere (unless of course I've been doing something very wrong and that's why I only have 32 followers :P).
Rhys Taylor The idea that blog posts need to be advertised elsewhere is almost a given today.
There are strong parallels to how publishers have operated for much of the past 200 years, if not longer. Books would frequently be published with "Advertisment" sections describing other works from the same publisher. A large role of literary magazines -- McCall's, Scribners, etc., was that these were catalog advertisements for the publishers. They were also useful vehicles for generating works, most especially serial publications (most notably Dickens, though many others), in which interest could be gauged, storylines adapted, etc., depending on reader feedback. Once completed, the works could be bundled and bound as a single (or multiple) volumes.
The stories of early encyclopaedists is similar, often being based on subscription financing.
The equivalents today are various, but Twitter (and other microblogging platforms -- see Mastodon) serve largely to increase the surface area of complex works. They're one of a slew of marketing tools -- author lectures, interviews, television shows, feature articles in newspapers, etc. (for whatever these work), and the like.
Complex long-form content is hard to get a grasp on. And that's not a problem of texts alone, it applies to any informational content. The more identifiable, attractive, portable, and transmissible you can make an idea or other information, the faster it will spread.
And that's not a pure positive. Crap content has a tendency to spread quickly. It's not subject to the same constraints as truth, and far more forms can be constructed.
TL;DR: Treat your blog as a long-form content that needs short bits and blurbs to help spread, consider microblogging, Twitter, social, etc., as part of that strategy.
Edward Morbius ... which IMM is the beauty of Google + - it's plus Google indexing throughout the ecosystem. If you post to G+ (be it blog or photo) if you post as a user (as opposed to re-sharing something), to YouTube, Google+, or the wider Internet which gets Google indexed, you're likely in great shape. Google was "one stop everything"until it started shooting itself across its product lines. :(
Edward Morbius My point exactly. Blogger is a content-hosting platform, not a social sharing mechanism in itself. I don't see that it's a comparable alternative to G+ in the way FB or Twitter or the others are.
Edward Morbius No comment (hah), except that my focus is on the end user / participant experience, not ROI, influence metrics, or payment models across social media.
I believe:
1) there is also a third way besides "turning that around", considering many factors; it's not binary, and not "net un-neutral" necessarily. I paid nothing to Google except content, and it got indexed immediately.
2) Ditto "not necessary a Good thing" - also not very declarative. :)
I firmly believe (and preach a lot!) that people have individual wants and needs, comfort zones and horror scenarios, tech or social skills, interests, and favorite distractions.
And I stand by my belief that Google + was brilliantly conceived, designed, and implemented, especially when Google's founders followed the law of "dog-fooding" and apparently used and loved the product themselves.
Rhys Taylor Think of it this way. Content creators host their material where ever it is convenient, blogger and wordpress for example, or long posts on a general soc net platform. But those same people are consumers and engagers of these general social networks like fb, mewe, diaspora, etc. So, depending on your interest, creator, consumer or engager, you might be interested. See that chart i posted and you'll see there is a whole spectrum of social-like services even including chat stuff. So what you may not be tuned into is the fantastical mind boggling diversity of social interests out there, which is now becoming more aware to the mainstream public.
Michael Fenichel I largely concur with details placed for later ♦ my reflex-response is faster than accepted norms & I notice that my viewers went 100-x what it was when I tried my own domain-name stuff & related ♦ most of what bothers me is running client-side with 100 drill-down to get key-codes posted in text ~ erotica does not bother me except for some contentious issues which I have encountered via my personal experience but is «they have the lead» and most of my concerns do not pull traffic; I do have a Blogger started and the one site i tried yesterday just will not do what I need
Heavily contentious issues in News & Politics either gets hard-case like AJ and his recent failure or are limited to a core-audience that is interested ♦ complete normal's whom are Business Associates have gone to using YT as sole-source and is valid competitive issue though news-gathering is expensive and risk-intensive with few rewards so they sell the product to the advertisernot the consumer
10 Millisecond batch=times for 10,000 concurrent requests can be found but the product faces the same difficulties as the news-feed that has to get all of your traffic === 1-issue or their bias
Bernard Vatant I noticed it missing from wikipedia too, a while back when i was doing research, and I double checked with a list of other sites. Mewe was the only soc net platform not listed, it made me wonder if that was on purpose, especially since the owners are promoting the site.
There were 157 responses, I was not one of them. It was multiple choice, as has been surmised by anyone doing basic math, although as I pointed out about 19% of respondents choose both MeWe and Diaspora (notwithstanding other choices made.)
I didn't show the long tail of the poll because people could enter their own inputs... anything they wanted. One person entered "none of your darn business" as their only response.
I promoted getting participants by adding this to the Google+ Mass Migration community and to my own stream. In both cases, I left sharing on and it was shared.
I did not turn on the single voting option because I wanted to keep the barrier of entry low and some people won't vote if they think the survey is capturing their email address. I did, however, monitor the votes on a nearly hourly basis while awake and reviewed the final vote timestamps at the end. I found not obvious voter tampering.
One thing I've noticed is how radically different various people use Google+. To some it was a place to easily share their art (photography, writing), it was a social platform for dialogue, it was a soapbox for crafting articles for mass consumption and it was a place for the type of asynchronous communication of the BBS era. It was capable of near real-time chat, sharing of links and discussion of those links (either articles or sites.)
These segments match Flickr, Medium, Facebook, MeWe/Diaspora, Blogger, Twitter, Instagram, IRC, AIM, and many other mediums...
In short, I think the reason no one is able to find what they had here from just one source is that there was very strong segmentation in the way Google+ was used.
Edward Morbius > Freenode > and ... whatever Debian's > primary server/network are, > are up. Effnet too, AFAIK.
Earlier today, I downloaded and installed an IRC client, IceChat 9.21 (I deliberately did not choose mIRC because I found its interface to be rather cluttered in comparison to that of IceChat), registered my IRC nickname, DekuDekuplex, and participated on the #scheme channel on irc.freenode.net.
Personally, I might wish to avoid EFnet; according to the related Wikipedia article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFnet), "In July 1996, disagreement on policy caused EFnet to break in two: the slightly larger European half (including Australia and Japan) formed IRCnet, while the American servers continued as EFnet. This was known as The Great Split."
Since I live in Japan, given a choice, I am likely to opt for IRCnet over EFnet. en.wikipedia.org - EFnet
John Lewis Here I think you really captured it, sampling or other tech issues (of surveys) nothwithstanding:
".... Google+. To some it was a place to easily share their art (photography, writing), it was a social platform for dialogue, it was a soapbox for crafting articles for mass consumption and it was a place for the type of asynchronous communication of the BBS era. It was capable of near real-time chat, sharing of links and discussion of those links (either articles or sites.) "
That could be me saying that. I think that's it. "All of the above" = G+
Great poll John Lewis ! It certainly makes me happy, for obvious reasons. Just as an FYI, more than 8,000 GPlus refugees have joined Pluspora to date. We expect more users and more activity as the countdown nears. We also have an xmpp chat function like hangouts as well.
Is there a how-to guide for Diaspora/Pluspora? I have the Diaspora Native WebApp installed on an Android device and always get "connection refused" errors.
Tom29 There are help pages and a wiki that has FAQs: wiki.diasporafoundation.org - diaspora* project wiki https://diasporafoundation.org/tutorials They don't say a lot about the WebApp though. I got it to run on my Android tablet though - it could not retrieve the pod list when I started it, but I just entered the pod name directly and that worked. However I don't see much of a benefit in using the web app vs using the browser - I am mostly using the browser version myself now.
Tom29 hi! Use the browser and in the right hand menu hit "toggle mobile". It acts just like an app. That's what I do now. When you get in, make a #newhere post and include the tag #GPlus refugee. Tags work great in D* . Search the tag #tip. We set up a bunch of posts with tips for new users with that hashtags . You can also make a post and ask a question and #help and people will answer you and help you. I'll come find you and say hi later!! :)
Rhys Taylor mm okay 1. Content is king , engagement is queen. Many serious bloggers spend much more time on carefully planned promotion across as many sites as works for them (mine is various FB, and minimal G+) Or by joining a meme that fits.
2. Commenting on a blog needs to be simple, for the commenter! Many bloggers expect their readers to jump thru hoops, login for My Site, battle a Captcha. Not going to happen. Some are still using G+ comments - which will presumably die a sudden death. Bye bye comments. I accept anonymous comments, but, I moderate first.
3. Finding new blogs. Mostly via following interesting comments (as I do, or did, on G+) and otherwise search by topic. Or the memes. Many of my readers come via search by image.
No such thing as a free lunch. Blog traffic requires work, promotion, and keeping up with changes.
Diana Studer NB: channel is king, and Sumner Redstone bloody well knows it. Or should.
(He said it, long before Gates did. And runs a channel company: Viacom.)
A bad road is a good filter. Joseph Wood Krutch.
Sometimes increasing costs is the route to higher quality and experience.
But yes: discovery, fostering community, finding interested (and interesting) voices, and differentially smoothing or roughing up the path for those you do and don't want to contribute is key.
Edward Morbius "A bad road is a good filter. Joseph Wood Krutch."
"A horrible road is a blockade." Me
Most people expect a very minimal barrier to entry, they can be tricked into doing more, but they very often are too easily discourage online. I think this is what Diana Studer is referring to. You can have great content, but if I don't feel involved or connected then I'm not going to followup.
Thank you so much for doing this, John Lewis ... much appreciated! On an off topic note: you mentioned Blogger and "migrate from Google+ to them with fairly simply third-party applications." I'm at a loss to find out exactly how to do that. Going through the threads in this community, I end up getting confused as I can't seem to find an aggregate of what to use and exactly how to do the migration. (Something about exporting G+ as json files, but then I don't know what to do from there.) If you have a link to the thread where there are instructions, what third-party apps, etc. ... OR, point me towards the right search term to use to find what I need ('cuz I don't want to take up your time more than reading this ... ;oD), I'd be grateful ... :o)
Robin Griggs Wood It's a third party app and full use is $20, demo use is 3000 posts (which is less than it sounds.) I can't fully endorse this product yet, but the new version promises to have an easier blogger uploader. Use at your own risk (or if you only have ~3000 posts.) gplus-exporter.friendsplus.me - Google+ Exporter
John Lewis I hear you, but there's a possibility of reducing obstacles too much. It's a balance.
One alternative is to have a slightly-resistant outer barrier but an easier inside experience. And keep in mind that the issue here is not platform adoption as a whole, but commenting on individual posts.
For the record, I think most blogs get the balance wrong, and in bad ways. That doesn't obviate the underlying principle.
Edward Morbius the outer barrier is finding the blog. Once found, the inner barrier depends on the blogger. Whose time is more important, the writer, or the reader?
One of my first blog lessons was - if you stand on your soapbox and shout, the people will stay away in droves. Social requires writers to give, as well take expectantly.
I still wonder what people expect if they migrate (dead) G+ posts to a shiny new blog. How will readers find that blog? And why will they read a pile of old G+ posts?? I'm also underwhelmed by a photo collection, with no captions or context, and no possibility to engage (without signing up to yet another account)
Diana Studer But they don't bubble up very well in searches... I have a strong suspicion that as Blogger posts they will have a lot more weight behind them, from an SEO perspective.
Raw Google Exporter to Blogger results I just dropped the xml output of Google Exporter into a new Blogger Blog as an experiment. I found out the Exporter exports images in their original size, so I dropped them down to "extra large." Deliberately, I have not cleaned up the file so that you get some idea of the amount of "polishing" you'll have to do to make things appear as you wish using a "simple" Blogger template. (I'm no Blogger expert, I just use it a lot.) google.arnoldtradecards.com - Google transplants from Victorian Landscapes
Diana Studer SMOP: A simple matter of programming.
Output is basicaly Markdown. Blogger wants HTML.
Something to catch the tag notation and convert it similarly.
Because both the archive format and major endpoints such as Blogger, Wordpress, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, and static site generators such as Jekyll, Pelican, and Hugo, etc., are standardised, standard tools can be written to do this.
Even nonstandard ports can be done.
War story.
Some years back, in another forum shutdown, I looked at the question of porting content from the old system to various new homes. It turned out to be fairly simple to grab the old content, except that the CMS (content management system) feeding it was buggy, leading to some very broken output. And I had nearly a quarter million posts to deal with.
My tools were a crufty old laptop and Linux shell tools.
It took me about 24 hours. I'd run an HTML validator over the archive, which would report the various errors with the posts, sort the reported problems by frequency, take the biggest one off the top, see if I could script a simple sed or awk expression to fix it, and then go through the next one.
(I'd backed up the entire archive first, and worked off of the set of posts matching the bug being fixed, so there was no risk of losing content.)
A few other issues involved apparent write-loops in which a single post got many others appended to them. Those were identifiable (by size or repeated patterns that I could find), and I either manually fixed those with a text editor or had another script to fix that flaw.
It was a matter of walking down the list of bugs and iterating on (almost entirely) automated solutions, each hitting a few tens, hundreds, thousands, or more, of posts.
I wrote ... I don't know how many repair scripts -- probably dozens, maybe a hundred or more. Most only a line or two. But it was a mix of manual and automation that's exceedingly powerful.
Beyond the scope of many people, I know, but if you want access to an archive it's doable. And the problems here are far smaller and more standard.
The main point is that automating conversion processes scales exceedingly well.
Edward Morbius Regarding the mix of automation and manual effort: you are the only person besides myself to cop to using this technique, though of course it must be common. In the early days of ICANN I frequently had to deal with large volumes of adhoc data -- summarizing email responses to a global survey under extreme time pressure, for example -- and it is amazing what you can accomplish with a few short scripts and regular expressions...
Edward Morbius Diana Studer Since I am too simple to understand matters of programming, ;-) I have contacted Alois Bělaška via Exporter help for assistance. I don't understand why Exporter output is in a format that Blogger bungles and I don't know to what extent the responsibility to put things right is mine.
On Blogger you can choose (at least when writing a post, or my copypasta from a Word document) to use Compose mode ... or HTML. I only use that HTML option to tweak glitches. But perhaps that could make it simpler to debug? Peggy K or David Kutcher would know.
Benjamin Russell I have to admit, I liked Usenet when, as someone else noted, it was easier to reach. (The original AOL software included a direct link, but that's long gone. If you don't want to pay for a "newsreader," you have to go through Google, which doesn't allow access to the more - er - questionable groups.) I may just shell out for the newsreader this time, though.
Bernard Vatant I agree. Unlike many other members of this community, I have no interested in preserving my older posts. I don't post or collect photos, and my day-to-day notes on books I've read, reviews I've posted, and such are not worth the trouble. (They were practically meant to be ephemeral!)
Just for the record: I've been leaning towards a combination of a personal blog (yes!), Goodreads (for my book posts), and possibly IG, as well as the LinkedIn account I already have.
A previous commenter accurately noted that many G+ participants simply don't want to be on F******k, though perhaps for different reasons. (My own is simply that I distrust and avoid anything that generates an incipient air of mass hysteria, as F******k did when it was opened to the public.)
I also agree with the commenter who noted that, if you keep a blog, you pretty much have to advertise the posts elsewhere. The RSS feed no longer seems popular.
John Lewis Diana Studer Yes, I used Alois Bělaška's free demo version of Google+ Exporter. I selected Blogger export. Then I opened a new Blog on Blogger and copied the code produced by Google+ Exporter into the html side of Blogger as the first post.
I do not understand if the pretty good but not perfect results of Google+ Exporter are the result of user ignorance, unreasonable expectations on the user's behalf or software that could use a tweak here and there.
Has anyone here gotten better results with Google+ Exporter's Blogger output option? If so, how did you process Google+ Exporter's product to get those results in Blogger?
Since that list includes, in my opinion, some newsreaders that may be very difficult to install and/or use, here are two other related lists, one of which lists only free newsreaders, and the other of which lists both free and fee-based ones:
Another alternative, if you already use GNU Emacs (an editor with special keystrokes that takes time to master) is to install GNUS, a free newsreader, in Emacs. Although it took me approximately a month, after reading various online documentation from multiple sources, to install GNUS in Emacs, once installed, it usually works without a problem (it does occasionally hiccup when connecting), and actually has certain features that Agent lacks (such as the ability to create an embedded customized icon that appears in USENET posts).
(If you somehow manage to set up and use GNUS, you will earn the bonus of being admitted into the unofficial genius-club of programmers who use newsreaders. This is both a boon and a bane: There are some programmers who actually check which newsreader that you use to post, and if you use GNUS, they will then expect you to be gifted at coding. This caused one such programmer, who was then the administrator of the Racket users mailing list, to tell me in e-mail after I submitted multiple bug reports that he did not like, "There cannot be two types of members in this community: those who contribute code, and those who don't." Apparently, he was astonished later when I told him that I was actually a poet, and not a programmer. I didn't want to spend many hours in coding in Racket when I preferred Scheme, so I eventually left the Racket community entirely.)
(If you attempt to use a free newsreader that supposedly works on multiple platforms, you might run the risk of finding several that initially seem easy to install, but which may only be easy to set up/use on Linux/UNIX, but might be extremely confusing to set up on Windows. I myself spent several hours in trying out several before giving up and eventually settling on Forte Agent (see http://www.forteinc.com/agent/), which does charge a one-time fee, but which is guaranteed to work flawlessly, look relatively clean, have many useful features, run extremely quickly (startup takes approximately 2 seconds on my computer), and be easy to use (many useful features have a dedicated button). (Apparently, it was written by someone who also happened to graduate from my alma mater, and who is capable of writing an excellent application. This person apparently worked very hard on this application, and charges a fee because he/she believes that the product is worth the fee.))
(A possible compromise might be to stick with Windows-only options. (Another alternative might be just to skip lunch on a weekend day and simply purchase Agent.))
(One caveat: Although not listed in the first article, Mozilla Thunderbird can also be used as a newsreader; however, I would avoid using it because it might be buggy. Thunderbird is based on the same technology as Seamonkey, which I have used extensively as a browser, but which was not very useful for reading e-mail; when I configured Seamonkey for multiple e-mail servers, it lost track of which messages had been read, causing me to lose much time. Mozilla technology seems to be excellent for browsers, but relatively poor for reading e-mail messages, and possibly also for reading USENET messages (which rely on very similar technology).)
Steve Vasta > A previous > commenter accurately noted > that many G+ participants > simply don't want to be on > F******k, though perhaps for > different reasons.
Indeed. Previously, I had used that social network service; however, I left shortly after a friend who was a fellow graduate of my alma mater stopped using it. (Generally speaking, he had seemed to enjoy the fine art of satire; apparently, that strategy did not fare well there. After he left, I searched in vain for a replacement who shared his trait, drew a blank, lost interest in the service, and left.)
"For years the site has had back-end algorithms to weed out fake spam accounts and monitor kid-adult interactions. Lotharios, beware: 'If you’re sending friend requests that trend to 80% female, that’s a red flag [emphasis is my own], or if you change your birth date a lot—under and above the 18 threshold,' says Sullivan. 'Our site integrity team has built engines to feed in characteristics, and they start hunting people down. When you have single concrete rules, it’s easy for people to figure them out, but with machine learning, it’s evolving all the time.'"
While, in practice, I don't usually send friend requests that "trend to 80% female," that statement immediately raised a red flag for me for 2 reasons:
1) Back in college, gender-based discrimination was unheard-of; the academic environment there essentially expected and demanded that students and faculty not be discriminated against on the basis of gender; and
2) I don't enjoy being subject to Orwellian surveillance: Being forced continually to calculate the ratio of friend requests sent to those of the opposite gender versus those of the same gender is extremely distracting, and also highly annoying.
Basically, if I followed Sullivan's logic, the only way to be certain of not raising a red flag with their security team would have been to send all my friend requests to those of the same gender, or worse, simply not to send any friend requests at all.
Neither of those solutions made any sense to me; therefore, I deactivated my account with them, and eventually deleted it altogether.
Alois Bělaška I followed Blogger's directions and the Google+ Exporter results displayed with each post reproduced as a single Blogger post and not as part of a Collection. I had expected (for no particular reason) that I would be downloading the Collection as a whole in a single Blogger post.
I don't recall if I asked that comments be downloaded, too. I should have, as evidently I do not get a second chance without buying the software.
Thanks again for your help! Below is an example of the exported post. The only thing corrected was the size of the image displayed, which I changed from "original" as Google+ Exporter downloaded it to "extra large."
Alois Bělaška John Lewis The Help for Google+ Exporter is outstanding. Other software and social media, take notice! I think this bodes well for the further development of the product. As demonstrated here, respectful dialog with users is encouraged.
Jeff Diver Alois Bělaška I was apprehensive at first, but Alois has won me over. He is very responsive and understanding of the problems we, as users, face. If he delivers on my current request soon, I might feel the need to actually suggest it even though I'm supposed to be impartial. ;-)
It (mostly) worked! I have a huge blogger now.... which oddly got crawled by some weird Linux bot. But whatever, I can now easily search my own posts and browse by date... things that were much harder before. I did end up breaking down the file import size to 1000 posts, but I have limited upload speeds. Others will have better luck with larger chunks.
Kerem Go This poll can't answer that question, although it might imply it.
The problem is that sample of people who answered the poll were both "self selected" (they decided to answer the poll so they were motivated, perhaps to promote their favorite place) and "limited" (I only posted the poll in two places, this community which leans heavily toward both MeWe and Diaspora, and my own personal stream.)
In short, maybe? but you can't say from these results or this method. It certainly seems like either Diaspora or MeWe are frontrunners... but the why is radically different for each.
I tried MeWe and the platform seems ok, albeit fledgling. But I just can’t get comfortable with the amount of extremism and conspiracy theorists there.
Paul Egan YES! Someone here in G+ that its a great opportunity to make social media usage lesser and focus more to real life. I've been already deleted so many accounts of mine from social media sites. Twitter / Instagram / Google Plus combo was left and after G+ is gone, I don't think I've ever replace it with any other social media channel and just let it go.
And I've also tried MeWe... Posted a few of my photography work, didn't get any interaction at all and then deleted my account. Either I, or the world of social media is ready for a new social media.
Amelia Hoskins FreeZoxee . com appears to have a political agenda (specifically, a politically right-leaning preference.)
Would you say that's been your experience there?
To be clear, I don't care if it promotes a political viewpoint, but it is important that people are aware if one exists before joining.
Quoting from the about page:
Freezoxee is the new american patriot network. Meet new people and share your ideas far away from the mainstream media bias and censorship.
Freezoxee™ is a new beacon of freedom where you can exchange opinions, views and ideas far away from the ugly censorship and political correctness increasingly being imposed on those who dare criticize lunatic views on society and will not bow down to "progressive" gender or race dividing Agendas.
John Lewis I've not had enough experience of the site, although am joined there, from recommendations by users I support elsewhere. Its American patriot and I am Brit, so I don't know how I shall use it yet.
I'm perfectly comfortable with 'right', certainly rather than censoring 'left' agenda; as your extract shows. "..far away from the ugly censorship and political correctness increasingly being imposed on those who dare criticize lunatic views on society and will not bow down to "progressive" gender or race dividing Agendas"
I guess it will be 'horses for courses'. Everyone will choose.
Greg S I'm well aware of his association with Gab. There must be many criminals world wide using mainstream social media sites, so this one time event would not put me off. People can mute and block those they don't want.
I've listened to the founder of Gab explaining they offer free speech, but will have guidelines. They are fast growing, despite loosing payment systems, being demonised.
I'm currently using Gab and finding it works well, and finding some topic areas that fit with a few of my 'news' Collections.
Its likely different platforms may be useful for the varied Collections of G+ users. I shall use Pinterest, Instagram for visuals as well as creating new blogs, and Minds.
G+ users are obviously going to be happier with longer text facility, and choose their platforms accordingly. Blogging may also be an additional way to go.
Greg S Additional comment: Google might have slammed Gab, but I came across pedophilia on G+ recently, so they are not 'holier than thou', nor as vigilante as they might profess. For various reasons, many users would be veering away from Google platform anyway.
Amelia Hoskins Did you try reporting it? I suspect that trying to report white supremacists on Gab would be a wasted effort - but even in these closing days G+ will wipe that garbage with a quickness.
Greg S & Amelia Hoskins I find that what I look for in social media is not the number of offensive remarks, but rather the ease with which they can be eliminated from my feed and reported as violating the host's terms of service.
For instance, I have never come across pedophilia on G+, but if I ever did, rather than complaining to fellow users, I have tools to deal with it. That's what the G+ option "delete, report & block" is all about. Social media are only as vigilant as users are.
How do the social media outside of G+ compare with G+ in this regard? Facebook and MeWe users, what's your experience?
Amelia Hoskins Except it's more like moving to another room in a restaurant because you stumbled across a room full of people yelling "Sieg Heil" - if the restaurant is willing to host them, they're not going to get to host me.
Greg S If City Hall allows people to host rallies and the Nazis have one, you don't leave the city. I suppose you can say that a social network is more like a restaurant, but it's more like a huge chain of restaurants that offer catering. If the Alabama restaurant makes a fruit plate for the Klan rally, to you stop going to the local restaurant?
Jeff Diver Google also do make some effort to either eliminate or dissuade various types of behaviour.
As I've been prowling through Google+ Communities, I'm finding that there are a lot of pr0n-related ones. But few of those have much by way of activity, even where there are many members. Others lack either. I suspect a fair bit of cleansing going on.
The scale of all this stuff is pretty mind-numbing. Even small networks can have a tremendous amount of toxic activity.
Jeff Diver on FB you can report. Depending on FB it may be cleared or they may say no we are fine with this. The HUGE advantage is instead of G+ politely writing Muted but leaving the post in your feed, you can 'Hide this post' which does what it says on the box.
John Lewis that App looks interesting: a mass moving of, say, any specific G+ Collection to somewhere public; to sort out later on. Google's Blogger is staying then? I'm on Wordpress for other things, but would start a Blogger for news posts, if it is to stay. One thing I am not liking now on G+ is how a follow up comment does not stay attached to the specific post.
John Lewis I can see from various comments after I mentioned Gab, there seems to be some fear of free speech: platforms ought naturally reflect all opinions around the world. Those wanting one political leaning will find their comrades - within a platform, or to use your analogy the right restaurant room.
Reading Diana Studer its a good idea to think more about blogging properly now, rather than the social media postings. Especially with that G+ exporter App to sweep up previous G+ posts. I don't want to go through and see what I would repost to somewhere, if, like news, its out of date. Those post can exist in a blog G+archive. Whereas non-news can be used afresh, 'as if' new.
Amelia Hoskins "Free speech" has effectively become a dog whistle for racism, national supremacy, populism, fascism, neo-nazi or outright nazi groups, and more.
The user populations and commnties represented on numerous of the so-called "free speech" platforms not only include such groups, but are so overwhelmingly slanted toward them as to make the policy seem completely deliberate. What I've seen of several such sites -- Voat, Gab, 4chan, and MeWe all come to mind -- and of founder or key members' statements, removes virtually all doubt that this is in any way accidental.
There's a long (53m) interview of Mark Weinstein on "Whiskey Politics" (YouTube) where both subjects dance around this issue in ways that, for those who are aware of what the site actually contains, makes the behaviour obviously deceptive.
Now, if those are the ideologies you uphold, associate with, and prefer to be identified with, go right ahead. But some may have issues with that.
The history of free speech is also vastly more nuanced than is generally portrayed, and in particular the present sine qa non of debate that it represents "the marketplace of ideas" is an extraordinarily modern casting, dating only the the 1950s.
Even J.S. Mill notes that truth will rarely prevail under such conditions, and that the most compelling defence of free speech is that it allows the least privileged voices consideration. Not the most. Modern support of free speech conveniently forgets this.
Edward Morbius People are often confused about the distinction between "most reviled" and "least privileged", thinking that holders of widely despised positions are by definition lacking in privilege....
Edward Morbius We've reached a stage in US and EU countries where some of the "_least privileged_ voices" you mention have been elevated when not always common sense. (Being UK, I am not aware of the extent of any unacceptable free speech in America) though do follow US goings on and note that people acting aggressively, and calling other people nasty names, are often describing their own behaviour.
1 hour or so in, it seems #pluspora has the facilities to add or not, people to engage with.
Amelia Hoskins you would like threaded comments? Yonatan once promised that for G+. But we DO have threaded comments on Blogger. And https is free (unless you have a paid domain)
Amelia Hoskins hi. Add me on pluspora and if you have any questions about the platform, don't hesitate to reach out. David Thiery and I are GPlussers who started the diaspora pod as a place for plussers to go after this pace shuts down. I think what John Lewis means is did you make a "new here post" with a #GPlusrefugee hashtag. That is how everyone has been finding each other. The hashtags work really well on diaspora.
John Lewis What I meant was that people start 'sharing' with us; but we have the option to mute them if their subject matter is not of interest. One problem with announcing #newhere is the marketeers may pounce. I've deleted my original intro post with that, and not sure if I will continue with Public, if I'm there to tie up with previous G+ users from my Circles, whom I can search for intermittently.
Diana Studer Yes! I would prefer threaded comments, (have gotten used to it on Twitter), another reason why I may not use #pluspora much: also their photos look blurry, so thats a right-off for me.
Yes, I could start Blogger, but won't it shut along with G+ ? If not, then I would consider making a blog to contain all my G+ posts (or most) temporarily, as there is not enough time to go through take-out to choose different platforms for each Collection.
I have several Wordpress blogs half attended to and may try another one for G+ Collections. I hadn't really thought of loading them up to a blog site! Why not, I suppose! :) Will attempt to do some on Minds too.
I will be attempting to integrate the photo Collections into a new website. Having varied subjects means finding different platforms, websites or blogs - suitable for each. For instance my fashion page stuff can go straight to Pinterest. I think my recycled fashion Community might be best integrated on my fashion website; using blogger maybe.
Di Cleverly Yes, the hashtags are working well. I get your point, we are found by #newhere OKAY. I simply don't want streams of frequently posted stuff from other new people I don't know, chocking up the stream - havn't we had enough of that .
Good idea it was to start a place there. I see it as a meeting place, rather than for subject posting, while GPlussers are considering their options. It may well be after closure, that many turn up there.
With G+, having many followers is no indication of having engagers on posts of more than half a dozen. I will specifically invite people with similar interests to #pluspora and other platforms.
David Thiery Thanks for thoughts. A meeting and catch up after G+ closure is great idea.
For text only, I like it, and good working hashtags. But for photos it looks awful. Poor resolution (to me) and just no style to make it worth doing well. So it will be elsewhere for photo collections.
Re my Environment collection with 90,000 followers (god knows, they are just from signing up to android I would reckon!) when it was featured; I may post to several places concurrently until deciding which to focus on. ...some work ahead.
Amelia Hoskins that was the original idea. Just a place where everyone could find each other. Something more "Plus" like may come along, and then we may all migrate yet again!,
Amelia Hoskins hmm...all the photos I've seen looked good. Do you have any examples you've seen that look bad you can show me? Maybe they're from a different pod that's setup differently or using an older version of diaspora.
I've pretty much decided: a Wordpress blog, plus Instagram as a way of publicizing it. I've already joined Goodreads.
No large photo collections here, so no need to "migrate" such. Neither did the Communities in which I've participated here ever generate the sort of relationships that others have described and want to keep intact, so those aren't considerations for me.
As noted earlier, I will continue to post here until the site closes down, and, once settled in my new sort-of-homes, I'll put the information into a pinned post on my page.
For now I'm going with minds.com. #1 is the site ease of article writ8ng and variety of tools. #2 is the Voluntaryist philosophy of the owner. #3 is the crypto integration. Bye g+. It was fun!
Scott Swain I'm starting Minds: I liked Bill Ottman's thoughts also after listening to him. I would love to know if text formatting is possible? Really miss embolding and italicising
Amelia Hoskins 1. Go to your own personal stream. 2. Make a new, public, post with your SignalFlare, giving a link to your new account(s). 3. Post. 4. Click on the three buttons on the upper right, and select "Pin this post" (or words to that effect.) 5. Copy the whole thing and put it in your profile.
New comments on this blog are moderated. If you do not have a Google identity, you are welcome to post anonymously. Your comments will appear here after they have been reviewed. Comments with vulgarity will be rejected.
Clearly, there are two front-runners where people are migrating to, and for different reasons. MeWe and Diaspora have both lobbied hard in this community (and elsewhere) to help migration so it's no surprise to see them with the largest share of users. What I found very surprising was the number of people who were on both. Since this was wasn't an exclusive, pick one selection only type poll, people were free to put anything up they wanted.
ReplyDeleteFacebook has a larger showing than I expected. There's a lot of reasons to be there, including an existing network of users, but I always felt Google+ was the alternative to Facebook and that people here didn't want to be there. So just coming in third was, again, a surprise to me.
I'll clump the next five because they were nearly the same in the number of results (although they are radically different in features); Reddit, Blogger, Custom CMS, , Mastodon and Openbook. I had expected Mastodon to rank higher, but I guess people either aren't into the features or they are bothered by the large communities of what westerners view as "adult materials". The custom CMS route and Blogger are probably driven, in part, by the ability to migrate from Google+ to them with fairly simply third-party applications.
The number of custom responses was entertaining, almost always an add-on to something else, although a few were single entries. That list is much longer than shown but my screen capture tool couldn't get them all.
I'm curious what you peeps think of the results.
John -
[edited a typo]
Still no idea.... processing info indecisive at this time - 1
ReplyDeleteCA M I'm in the same camp, for sure. Too many options; no clear movement from the community, no support from Google, and what appear to be dangerous problems with all choices (ranging from proprietary closed system to the existence of fringe groups I don't want to support.)
ReplyDeleteThis isn't an easy choice.
Not too many surprises in the data. There's always that one person still using irc... LOL
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis It was a "pick one only poll"? I must not have read the directions. I remember selecting several. I wonder how der Googs parsed that.
ReplyDeleteDrew McCarthy fix'd
ReplyDeleteWhy Disapora includes Pluspora but Livejournal does not include DreamWidth?
ReplyDeleteArioch The
ReplyDeletePluspora is just a specific use of Diaspora (it's a Diaspora pod.)
Livejournal and DreamWidth are completely separate companies.
Can I ask the person who selected 'Usenet' to identify themselves, ideally providing some rationale? :)
ReplyDeleteJakub Turski There were stranger responses below that...
ReplyDeleteI swear, if Usenet was still easy to get to and not full of garbage, and I had any hint that many of my old friends were still there, I'd consider it. I loved Usenet, back in the days when it was the only "social" game in town.
ReplyDeleteI suspect if you redid the poll in a couple of months, you'd see more migration to Flickr; it's picking up steam with the photographer communities here because it's one of the few social spaces that displays photos as well as the Plus does. But it's not a general social medium.
Samuel Smith > There's
ReplyDelete> always that one person still
> using irc... LOL
... and, apparently, that one person still using USENET. Frankly, I was astonished that nobody else seemed to think of that alternative. Prior to coming to Google+, I had used cough Facebook, and prior to that, I had used USENET newsgroups. Recently, for lack of a better alternative, I resumed participating on comp.lang.scheme (the USENET newsgroup for the Scheme programming language); at least the discussions there tend to be detailed and informative (if occasionally condescending and infuriating).
Benjamin Russell I could look, but the person use IRC might be the same person using USENET. (okay, I looked it wasn't.... but in both cases it was an augmentation of a few other things... it wasn't the only thing they used.)
ReplyDeleteIn any case I found that about ~19% of responses listed both Diaspora and MeWe. That's pretty staggering when you consider it matches the next highest result (Facebook).
John Lewis > Can I ask the
ReplyDelete> person who selected ' Usenet'
> to identify themselves, ideally
> providing some rationale? :)
That was I.
My rationale, to which I hinted in my above comment, was that the discussions on USENET newsgroups (especially those on my favorite newsgroup, comp.lang.scheme (the newsgroup for the Scheme programming language)) tend to be more detailed and informative than on most other social network services, even if they are occasionally extremely condescending to be point of generating an intense urge to throw the keyboard, full force, directly at the monitor (fortunately, I have managed to suppress this urge so far) (since most newsgroups are not moderated, allowing users to write whatever they want).
Essentially, USENET is a wild, wild West version of the Internet where total chaos reigns. Users are free to shoot whatever they want at whomever they want, but so is everyone else. I usually try to walk softly (i.e., write in an academic manner) and carry a big stick (i.e., use many detailed official references to back up everything that I claim). (Occasionally, a mad-scientist-type mathematician/poet/programmer will suddenly appear out of nowhere and do everything possible to make one look like a complete idiot who desperately needs to go back to nursery school.)
(In my most recent post on comp.lang.scheme, for example, I wound up writing a 413-line post in response to another self-proclaimed "poet" who essentially attempted to use various lengthy arguments to imply that poetry that was precise in meter was often inferior in quality. I used references to the numerical precision of the epic poetry of Dante Alighieri, a sample of my own verse, and a description of the MIT/Stanford approach to design and implementation to derail his implication toward my verse.)
(Although it is possible to read and respond on newsgroups using Google Groups, it is usually more efficient to use a newsreader, such as Forté Agent or GNUS (a GNU Emacs-based newsreader) to filter out spam, since most newsgroups are not moderated. Currently, I myself use Forté Agent, although I eventually plan to use GNUS in Spacemacs (after I figure out how to configure it in my "~/emacs/.spacemacs" file).)
John Lewis > I could look, but
ReplyDelete> the person use IRC might be
> the same person using
> USENET.
No; I listed "USENET," but not "IRC," in the poll.
Samuel Smith I actually forgot to respond to the poll, or else there would be 2 people on that IRC option. ;)
ReplyDeleteThough it's not a matter of switching to IRC, but rather continuing to use IRC. It's also far from an actual G+ alternative, since it's more of a Hangouts alternative imho, as it's more aimed at direct communication than broadcasting longform posts.
Still, IRC is a great protocol, and I don't think I'll ever fully stop using it.
will try youtube, google news doesn't come close to G+ unless they make changes to their news to include groups.
ReplyDeleteA nice assessment. I would not have labelled blogger as an alternative though - it's not a social network. More of a platform for content than discovering people. Something you write longer pieces on and post links to on social media, but not social media itself.
ReplyDeleteFilip H.F. Slagter > Still, IRC is a
ReplyDelete> great protocol, and I don't
> think I'll ever fully stop using
> it.
Back in circa 2005, I once participated on the #scheme channel on IRC network freenode; however, unfortunately, my elderly mother (whom I was taking care of at the time because she was unable to take care of herself completely) interrupted my session at the time in order to take care of the laundry.
This led to an argument, during which she stamped on the floor immediately next to my Apple Airport Extreme router, causing it to fall to the floor and its chassis to get damaged. I became disgruntled and decided not to participate on that channel again until I replaced that router. Eleven years then passed. Then, in circa 2016, it eventually broke and needed to be replaced. I wasn't able to afford another Airport or Airport Extreme router, and was forced to replace it with an inferior third-party model.
Now that Apple no longer manufactures that type of router, that option no longer is available from Apple, so I might start using #scheme again (although I do plan to acquire a new, factory-sealed Airport Extreme router from some third-party merchant eventually).
Loved seeing the results and thank you very much for your efforts! I laughed at IRC but admit I briefly remembered how I enjoyed it and (gasp) ICQ. And so many bb forums! My first in-depth social media was abuzz, run by the NYTimes. There was a fairly close family created there with people who would travel to meet up. Back in 2001 14 of us rented a beach house in Bar Harbor, Maine, for a ten day slumber party. Not kidding! 4 even traveled from outside the US to get there. Parts of us would come and go and sight see during this time.
ReplyDeleteOh how we mourned the loss of it when NYTimes closed it after 3 years. Failure to monetize was the downfall. Hundreds went to a user-run forum called A2K for Able to Know. It may still be running. Between 2000-2001 there were great private communities on WebMD. Until they ruined everything by installing a company “moderator” in each group. Must have been lawyers that pushed that through. Killed it for us using it as social media.
Having learned the ins and outs of swimming in social media, I tried other sites and the disastrous FB. I became an early user of G+ and never looked back. Now I am not content to be in a walled-off site. Contact with newcomers and people from all over the world is precious to me. I have very eclectic interests and seek a variety of people and conversations. I am also a big fan of allowing all sorts of people and content. But turns out I’m in the minority who believe “scroll on by” is customary and fine practice. And I’ve been fortunate to choose well those who are contacts and become friends.
After all these years it’s only been the last 3 years that Delete/Report/Block became an important tool. I’m on both MeWe and pluspora but only happy at the latter. I’m also in the minority because I intend to settle on about five sites with no problem. I bet it’s only extroverts who are isolated from IRL friends who will do that. Such a damn shame to now feel I’ll need to start over with five sites just to continue the best of social media positive experiences.
I didn't vote but I was hoping Flickr would draw photographers from here. It is a much better platform compared to IG. I guess it's back to the wilderness of little to no social media interaction.
ReplyDeleteDarren Huski as a photographer who has Adminned many groups on Flickr since 2005, I promise you there already are a lot of “us” photographers there and more will come in January. It’s just unlikely to be good on the social media elements.
ReplyDeletecobalt please > But turns out
ReplyDelete> I’m in the minority who
> believe “scroll on by” is
> customary and fine practice.
Well, feel free to count me in that minority, too. :-)
> I have very eclectic interests
> and seek a variety of people
> and conversations.
Ah, yes; I can understand that perspective. I myself have very arcane interests and seek extremely unusual and geeky people and interests. (Personally, I consider myself to be more of a geek than a nerd.)
> I’m also in the minority
> because I intend to settle on
> about five sites with no
> problem. I bet it’s only
> extroverts who are isolated
> from IRL friends who will do
> that.
Well, not necessarily; I currently use (aside from Google+) USENET, Dreamwidth, Mastodon, and (although only in Japanese to avoid being banned by a certain type of extremely eccentric Japanese user who bans anyone who uses English) Twitter. That's also five sites in total. However, I am not an extravert, but a Myers-Briggs INFP ("Poet/Idealist") introvert.
> Such a damn shame to now
> feel I’ll need to start over....
Same here; indeed!
Benjamin Russell followed you!
ReplyDeletecobalt please I am looking forward to seeing what Smugmug does with Flickr under it's wing. I think a little tweaking could be the place for photographers.
ReplyDeleteStaying on G+. Still getting new followers every day. Go figure. I see no viable alternative to G+. Strangely, yesterday I completed a survey for Google that had many questions about G+.
ReplyDeletePeter Vogel I will post here til the end too. Nothing else comes close to G+. Will need three plus networks to even attempt to replace it.
ReplyDeleteBenjamin Russell Your Usenet comments would make a nice post.
ReplyDeleteNB: I've pinned this.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the total number of respondents? Did everyone realize it was pick as many as you want, not just one? It looks like about 150 people responded, is that right? About 5% of this community? The poll was shared, how many votes from non-members?
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to see the list more evenly or systematically presented. (blogger, wordpress, and other blog sites should have shown in parallel, and so on.)
I was surprised to see twitter so low. I don't think it was on the list. It should have been next to mastodon. I was surprised to see reddit so popular, about even with facebook.
I don't know if I participated in this poll or not, but I would like to add one comment: the support for photographs in hubzilla is surprisingly good -- in some ways better than anything else I have tried. Hubzilla has a learning curve, but it's not that bad -- here's a link to an album I put together (I'm not sure if I have the permissions right -- let me know if not...) : nymclub.net - Kent Crispin -
ReplyDeleteI'm looo...ooovin' "MeWe"! Switching all my social content aggregation there!!!
ReplyDeleteWithout G+ I'll get more work done. Russian trollbots have taken over too much of the bandwidth here anyway...
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor many bloggers see and use blogs as social. It is a YMMD depending on how you choose to blog. Unless you are sending out a news feed?
ReplyDeleteAbout FB - I have less than a dozen Friends. And many groups - like the Water Shedding one for Cape Town's drought.
I wonder how many lean towards digital detox, too much social media, not actually looking to fill the gap that G+ leaves with fresh noise.
Those percentages dont add up
ReplyDeleteExtra Medium multiple choices allowed
ReplyDeleteAs a researcher (social scientist) I'm interested in both the findings and interpretation/implications. First, like the comment before I thought "they don't add up" but realized (as explained) the numbers reflect percentage of respondents, with overlap (some using several). I think... (Not a grand total)
ReplyDeleteImmediate truism #2 - if you aggregate/lump together all the versions of Diaspora and Federation relatives, it becomes a much larger mammoth, of MeWe proportion.
Lastly - and this is extrapolated from observation and personal experience, not statistical analysis - on the surprise Facebook showing. Personally I've maintained FB (x2, personal and biz) so as to retain easy access via text/photos etc. among real friends (and colleagues), all of whom I've met F2F, many from far corners of the planet. It's reliable for that. AND yes, I strongly dislike many things about FB (mostly the ethos and anti-privacy credo), but it's about the only thing not about to change for my daily online life, of which Google+ was the most central and important. So yes, overlap, with reluctant but useful FB account, still recognizable and alive.
Also, Blogger, Wordpress, etc., IMM are sort of different animals, means rather than ends.
"Whatever gets you there". I could go on about preferences and online styles, or get into the importance of context (location, culture, web access, purpose, for starts). But I won't (or I'll get yelled at!) ;) That's my first reaction to the poll. Thanks for doing it!!
Michael Fenichel if you write it and leave a link, I will read it.
ReplyDeleteDoes IRC still exist? That would indeed be going back to my roots. I was trolling around IRC in the mid 90's.
ReplyDeleteAs it sits, it's Diaspora or Mastodon for me.
My Tumblr has been sanitized - perhaps just disengaging from SM the best answer.
John Holmes plenty of IRC networks, small and large, are still active. Perhaps not as actively used anymore for social chatting, and rather for topic-oriented discussions or support, but alive nevertheless.
ReplyDeletecobalt please > followed you!
ReplyDeleteThank you; I have just added you to a circle of followers entitled "IRC Users." If you could write more about your experiences with it (as well as with ICQ, for comparison), that might be interesting as a basis of comparison with other social network services.
(Incidentally, I just remembered the name of the IRC client that I had used back in circa 2005: Snak - IRC for Mac, by Snak Software. (Back then, I used a 17-inch MacBook Pro equipped with a PowerPC processor that ran only MacOS X.) Back then, IIRC, I made the payment by international postal money order via shareware payments processor Kagi (which, apparently, unfortunately shut down as of July 31, 2016 (see https://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/01/kagi-shuts-down/ )). (I distinctly remember having been asked by someone at Snak software why I did not pay by credit card instead of money order, and responding that, at the time, I had just recently moved from Manhattan to Tokyo without an awaiting job, and therefore lacked a credit card in my own name in good credit standing; Snak Software, unlike many other merchants, unfortunately did not accept payments using the credit card of a family member of a different first name.))
macrumors.com - Longtime Shareware Payments Processor Kagi Shuts Down - MacRumors
Edward Morbius > > Your
ReplyDelete> Usenet comments would
> make a nice post.
Thank you; would the following post suffice?
plus.google.com - Here are the poll results regarding where people are planning to go. The poll...
John Holmes > Does IRC still
ReplyDelete> exist?
Apparently, yes; for example, according to "Scheme Webchat - scheme freenode - Scheme, Programming" (see http://en.irc2go.com/webchat/?net=freenode&room=scheme), chat room #scheme on IRC network freenode had 203 users as of 129 minutes ago (relative to 5:10 AM JST on Wednesday, December 19, 2018).
en.irc2go.com - Scheme Webchat - scheme freenode - Scheme, Programming
Seems legit based on the conversations I've had with folks.
ReplyDeleteBenjamin Russell Freenode and ... whatever Debian's primary server/network are, are up. Effnet too, AFAIK.
ReplyDeleteEFnet, Rizon, Esper, even Undernet and IRCnet are still going fairly strong.http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php
ReplyDeleteirc.netsplit.de - IRC Networks - Top 100
John Lewis: Did you limit users to a single submission on this? That's a "require email" or similar setting. Mind, not providing a single site, but avoiding ballot-stuffing. It's a Google Forms option.
ReplyDeletePutting on my "I'm not a real statistician but I've had coffee with some, and they might admit it" hat:
ReplyDeleteConsider this a very rough measure. Self-selected survey responses have crazy bad sampling skew.
The most interesting part is probably to see what options are mentioned, regardless of votes.
Otherwise, this is mostly a measurement of awareness and motivation, though the top few responses don't surprise me much based on activity and mentions on G+MM.
For Facebook's standing: my suspicion is that people who are inclined to pick FB are already there and have already committed to it. They're not (generally) looking at alternatives. The true FB interest is almost certainly hugely underrepresented, as a measure of overall G+ users.
Of the rest of the results, I'm surprised that Medium did as poorly as it shows here.
Putting on my "I'm not a real graphic artist" hat, with some modest data rearranging, we could get a Golden Gate Bridge logo out of this.
Diana Studer I don't see how one would go about using Blogger specifically (don't know about other blog platforms) in a social way. YouTube provides at least some basic tools for discovering channels and reasonable ways for commenting and liking/disliking content. Blogger really doesn't do that. You can publish there, but content has to be shared elsewhere (unless of course I've been doing something very wrong and that's why I only have 32 followers :P).
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor The idea that blog posts need to be advertised elsewhere is almost a given today.
ReplyDeleteThere are strong parallels to how publishers have operated for much of the past 200 years, if not longer. Books would frequently be published with "Advertisment" sections describing other works from the same publisher. A large role of literary magazines -- McCall's, Scribners, etc., was that these were catalog advertisements for the publishers. They were also useful vehicles for generating works, most especially serial publications (most notably Dickens, though many others), in which interest could be gauged, storylines adapted, etc., depending on reader feedback. Once completed, the works could be bundled and bound as a single (or multiple) volumes.
The stories of early encyclopaedists is similar, often being based on subscription financing.
The equivalents today are various, but Twitter (and other microblogging platforms -- see Mastodon) serve largely to increase the surface area of complex works. They're one of a slew of marketing tools -- author lectures, interviews, television shows, feature articles in newspapers, etc. (for whatever these work), and the like.
Complex long-form content is hard to get a grasp on. And that's not a problem of texts alone, it applies to any informational content. The more identifiable, attractive, portable, and transmissible you can make an idea or other information, the faster it will spread.
And that's not a pure positive. Crap content has a tendency to spread quickly. It's not subject to the same constraints as truth, and far more forms can be constructed.
TL;DR: Treat your blog as a long-form content that needs short bits and blurbs to help spread, consider microblogging, Twitter, social, etc., as part of that strategy.
Edward Morbius ... which IMM is the beauty of Google + - it's plus Google indexing throughout the ecosystem. If you post to G+ (be it blog or photo) if you post as a user (as opposed to re-sharing something), to YouTube, Google+, or the wider Internet which gets Google indexed, you're likely in great shape. Google was "one stop everything"until it started shooting itself across its product lines. :(
ReplyDeleteMichael Fenichel Or, turning that around: G+ offered privileged access to Google SEO.
ReplyDeleteThat's not necessarily a Good Thing.
Edward Morbius My point exactly. Blogger is a content-hosting platform, not a social sharing mechanism in itself. I don't see that it's a comparable alternative to G+ in the way FB or Twitter or the others are.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius No comment (hah), except that my focus is on the end user / participant experience, not ROI, influence metrics, or payment models across social media.
ReplyDeleteI believe:
1) there is also a third way besides "turning that around", considering many factors; it's not binary, and not "net un-neutral" necessarily. I paid nothing to Google except content, and it got indexed immediately.
2) Ditto "not necessary a Good thing" - also not very declarative. :)
I firmly believe (and preach a lot!) that people have individual wants and needs, comfort zones and horror scenarios, tech or social skills, interests, and favorite distractions.
And I stand by my belief that Google + was brilliantly conceived, designed, and implemented, especially when Google's founders followed the law of "dog-fooding" and apparently used and loved the product themselves.
I'll shut up now. ;) Tnx for the space.
Rhys Taylor Think of it this way. Content creators host their material where ever it is convenient, blogger and wordpress for example, or long posts on a general soc net platform. But those same people are consumers and engagers of these general social networks like fb, mewe, diaspora, etc. So, depending on your interest, creator, consumer or engager, you might be interested. See that chart i posted and you'll see there is a whole spectrum of social-like services even including chat stuff. So what you may not be tuned into is the fantastical mind boggling diversity of social interests out there, which is now becoming more aware to the mainstream public.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fenichel I largely concur with details placed for later ♦ my reflex-response is faster than accepted norms & I notice that my viewers went 100-x what it was when I tried my own domain-name stuff & related ♦ most of what bothers me is running client-side with 100 drill-down to get key-codes posted in text ~ erotica does not bother me except for some contentious issues which I have encountered via my personal experience but is «they have the lead» and most of my concerns do not pull traffic; I do have a Blogger started and the one site i tried yesterday just will not do what I need
ReplyDeleteHeavily contentious issues in News & Politics either gets hard-case like AJ and his recent failure or are limited to a core-audience that is interested ♦ complete normal's whom are Business Associates have gone to using YT as sole-source and is valid competitive issue though news-gathering is expensive and risk-intensive with few rewards so they sell the product to the advertiser not the consumer
10 Millisecond batch=times for 10,000 concurrent requests can be found but the product faces the same difficulties as the news-feed that has to get all of your traffic === 1-issue or their bias
I'm unhappy there isn't a clear competitor to Facebook, but mildly pleased that the distribution is bi-modal, not flat.
ReplyDeleteBernard Vatant I noticed it missing from wikipedia too, a while back when i was doing research, and I double checked with a list of other sites. Mewe was the only soc net platform not listed, it made me wonder if that was on purpose, especially since the owners are promoting the site.
ReplyDeleteSome transparency on methods for this poll:
ReplyDeleteThere were 157 responses, I was not one of them. It was multiple choice, as has been surmised by anyone doing basic math, although as I pointed out about 19% of respondents choose both MeWe and Diaspora (notwithstanding other choices made.)
I didn't show the long tail of the poll because people could enter their own inputs... anything they wanted. One person entered "none of your darn business" as their only response.
I promoted getting participants by adding this to the Google+ Mass Migration community and to my own stream. In both cases, I left sharing on and it was shared.
I did not turn on the single voting option because I wanted to keep the barrier of entry low and some people won't vote if they think the survey is capturing their email address. I did, however, monitor the votes on a nearly hourly basis while awake and reviewed the final vote timestamps at the end. I found not obvious voter tampering.
One thing I've noticed is how radically different various people use Google+. To some it was a place to easily share their art (photography, writing), it was a social platform for dialogue, it was a soapbox for crafting articles for mass consumption and it was a place for the type of asynchronous communication of the BBS era. It was capable of near real-time chat, sharing of links and discussion of those links (either articles or sites.)
These segments match Flickr, Medium, Facebook, MeWe/Diaspora, Blogger, Twitter, Instagram, IRC, AIM, and many other mediums...
In short, I think the reason no one is able to find what they had here from just one source is that there was very strong segmentation in the way Google+ was used.
Now the long tail picture I promised you.
Enjoy,
John -
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1yDnwYREzbosJrAiBMIg-PcSfFxRLraXiqiozL0KlkC179OdRTEP4xVFs2UeIHNoGCE2dI-CjV4jJA=s0
Edward Morbius > Freenode
ReplyDelete> and ... whatever Debian's
> primary server/network are,
> are up. Effnet too, AFAIK.
Earlier today, I downloaded and installed an IRC client, IceChat 9.21 (I deliberately did not choose mIRC because I found its interface to be rather cluttered in comparison to that of IceChat), registered my IRC nickname, DekuDekuplex, and participated on the #scheme channel on irc.freenode.net.
Personally, I might wish to avoid EFnet; according to the related Wikipedia article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFnet), "In July 1996, disagreement on policy caused EFnet to break in two: the slightly larger European half (including Australia and Japan) formed IRCnet, while the American servers continued as EFnet. This was known as The Great Split."
Since I live in Japan, given a choice, I am likely to opt for IRCnet over EFnet.
en.wikipedia.org - EFnet
John Lewis Here I think you really captured it, sampling or other tech issues (of surveys) nothwithstanding:
ReplyDelete".... Google+. To some it was a place to easily share their art (photography, writing), it was a social platform for dialogue, it was a soapbox for crafting articles for mass consumption and it was a place for the type of asynchronous communication of the BBS era. It was capable of near real-time chat, sharing of links and discussion of those links (either articles or sites.) "
That could be me saying that. I think that's it. "All of the above" = G+
Sad that we're (well us, at least) are speaking in past tense, no?
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cGDXjZO1b8SvlYo7JBg3wGUCKHC6sKVOxVinb2pf3LZhx_kjTOyjdkRJD4E2WWapqoiloSsM-yn3hpADTx3UHZjwaq8gyFxD_8Zq=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/JvzAlSBMeiU887sjgMxFSSd2M9lEUtaxAhN5CykqsMpwHSs8TrzGgA5n87ezY1FhlGn24JExPDvQczfpVkZQa7WgeaXCi5qjBPpm=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Kouw_5VWH7hPhTEgF5dAgSOQkeQHod5yrVpD0_q4Ndn8SnawC7noP7k1Epf5L0y70hnFJhLzorQANHEZW40txFEm9hI-mH71ca62=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-AeJU1dnuI1lLzKGTT7_57sXsh4hyFtAW0CLstfBFP2MPaESw9vUdX1bsETdolyXMmSBaLs-PJDgSHa2CwzYlKHM1Q5yAUYSBStO=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/10udax0NmB73Yp3_JVc-Tzim5qS3Sqphr2-GcTqsyUSuTWsrhHv2GXXVKKl_wBw3E1sUKlcW7Yhqg1JC47RqzrGbzicie5Xs5ile=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ClugTqkxPgLm7vAAr0iTx7WbHbCuFzu3ou_NXiYJeW20LHVxIJoSvs6JVuBWMSMxVMczAqJmNQCFuM22TPSBygI9CnQR7XZlTwEu=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f8dVnmQsbHZIBxWo178Z623bbrhiBe2jfRDqjxW9SWRUWqCQqIsag3fcO9uNX2VGyyGp3oc-VZ3ZmjihjY7h_VDbBlKxEkXvXAp2=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GCkfLsdCzA4ote2vt9FDBeLF5K4TrSfVoDROBsnzoOKzhQHVRq6dEY8uf0A_4-CYzDfpSPUDZuX3t2JS15Ikt8OWQkIn4hyWlkJ2=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f3Lnm61iTAsU9Lfc9VXR4CZy44lRJG9hpifTSDs9gsAHeVH9GecIECGPeUh-vnqCUsTio6OH76CZJ7jseCI4MGBzcLBtthRUveCH=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d_ilv46IiqApxiAxACBe_6OdkhG17PKiHYd99JQRIgyyYtjs2SbkGenOHNaEVgELXBtpPY_nJ5WMJKRDbqbT3IS7ct9C-P5owkPE=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/H5M83cmPVIimFg9nIDHlf9fqvCvufYOpsqHGIcxDA67plW8PRzvooFhTp_PjE997nzDYTbNkiQp8SPMlK_1wapPUQoRV_jqg5Zk9=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OUwrAK0Yt7gbPVgy-VmSz177uSyzwCJ6WEIRNjBLv3wZxD27KTmP7WZsoQ9HGpwUXkoJSg5ZQKbZ7EQtTv_AdJjfyR3BBbNuzI8Y=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gr1qLFVFgTzMopQU0Eu2vhQ44qb5UUvAoTOq1wqwzOcJvOPvkfAPk_fjWFSs3LgtrltcX6mom8Ltb64kvjy3iZ2Rqj2CSfq7JaQN=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EDncIList3Be8HajRPxRJRmnrhQ1fePIZ3cudHCAIfDe5xmUy3ENzWpxRc9JSIaqajsDtrbE5LnoQ_DyRqCP3wx-QM7io9JTywPN=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MhgbJxruQSZMDx6kgG2vJbl8ujZqUYj9OU0_XJ6TNna_T5X5YhrsygynxP6Br4WQ2Zhp_y5O83Gw8TZOtiYhfY-1Cv1rLxglXH9=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8aWIrGVOnxq0LtRirhhotradfTBmJRoEebmVbWSh8fDBU7fnmBAoj5veBx25U3NWqKFLgtD9JIpTAgYPPKqAWxelyPHWNcgLKWiU=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OqOvaCwRSWs3jme5OOnXjLmb-DUertS7Zvu8XtxMI1laaT7AQmV7XYG71qn358h6ar6mPJ1Xet4qL3aJZ7o-Oa1EHB4U8ryWoN0P=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cCpmFWYnPfoBQzJXhKzg4ZrCoI-sHzix6XxsKp_sIwCXxcScssjmTP17o9AYiyEN_JfI2k--_xOcqFs7pXt1T6i6uhcLJ4nH7PPL=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4CecHK6xh5WS0GcVUNaEIe-skRQ3O3LIwIPq7QazTD-Hlru9k1zqJ_T4RgKlcjXLAF2_ohmZIL0WzIVJBggCt5NSVsBZTOSCz_UY=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/w1Cs4i1lONf30dPngzvvUUh43bYrg_8je9QJcYHYOjMk-CE5stiAEEJfKkxaOHXntviGTCtF0YRSEe_nFFFnlJQB-7e9iImWwD0m=s0
I find this very interesting information, I knew Google Plus was diverse in the reasons people stayed here and It is quite neat to actually see that reflected in where people plan to migrate to.
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5O31PB_t_59vwdosH1hifYXPMyQuCRJ8bpPiPYTxocanrKr34oJ72x_JWefhxKeWd5EBRrE6_gmtVJFiysp4IZhwMy3L2UB96b3n=s0
Great poll John Lewis ! It certainly makes me happy, for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteJust as an FYI, more than 8,000 GPlus refugees have joined Pluspora to date. We expect more users and more activity as the countdown nears.
We also have an xmpp chat function like hangouts as well.
Is there a how-to guide for Diaspora/Pluspora? I have the Diaspora Native WebApp installed on an Android device and always get "connection refused" errors.
ReplyDeleteTom29 The homepage of most pods should point you at docs:
ReplyDeleteHelp: https://joindiaspora.com/help
Tutorials: https://diasporafoundation.org/tutorials
Wiki: http://wiki.diasporafoundation.org/
Tom29 There are help pages and a wiki that has FAQs:
ReplyDeletewiki.diasporafoundation.org - diaspora* project wiki
https://diasporafoundation.org/tutorials
They don't say a lot about the WebApp though.
I got it to run on my Android tablet though - it could not retrieve the pod list when I started it, but I just entered the pod name directly and that worked. However I don't see much of a benefit in using the web app vs using the browser - I am mostly using the browser version myself now.
Tom29 hi! Use the browser and in the right hand menu hit "toggle mobile". It acts just like an app. That's what I do now.
ReplyDeleteWhen you get in, make a #newhere post and include the tag #GPlus refugee. Tags work great in D* .
Search the tag #tip.
We set up a bunch of posts with tips for new users with that hashtags .
You can also make a post and ask a question and #help and people will answer you and help you. I'll come find you and say hi later!! :)
Rhys Taylor mm okay
ReplyDelete1. Content is king , engagement is queen. Many serious bloggers spend much more time on carefully planned promotion across as many sites as works for them (mine is various FB, and minimal G+) Or by joining a meme that fits.
2. Commenting on a blog needs to be simple, for the commenter! Many bloggers expect their readers to jump thru hoops, login for My Site, battle a Captcha. Not going to happen. Some are still using G+ comments - which will presumably die a sudden death. Bye bye comments. I accept anonymous comments, but, I moderate first.
3. Finding new blogs. Mostly via following interesting comments (as I do, or did, on G+) and otherwise search by topic. Or the memes. Many of my readers come via search by image.
No such thing as a free lunch. Blog traffic requires work, promotion, and keeping up with changes.
Diana Studer NB: channel is king, and Sumner Redstone bloody well knows it. Or should.
ReplyDelete(He said it, long before Gates did. And runs a channel company: Viacom.)
A bad road is a good filter. Joseph Wood Krutch.
Sometimes increasing costs is the route to higher quality and experience.
But yes: discovery, fostering community, finding interested (and interesting) voices, and differentially smoothing or roughing up the path for those you do and don't want to contribute is key.
Edward Morbius "A bad road is a good filter. Joseph Wood Krutch."
ReplyDelete"A horrible road is a blockade." Me
Most people expect a very minimal barrier to entry, they can be tricked into doing more, but they very often are too easily discourage online. I think this is what Diana Studer is referring to. You can have great content, but if I don't feel involved or connected then I'm not going to followup.
Thank you so much for doing this, John Lewis ... much appreciated! On an off topic note: you mentioned Blogger and "migrate from Google+ to them with fairly simply third-party applications." I'm at a loss to find out exactly how to do that. Going through the threads in this community, I end up getting confused as I can't seem to find an aggregate of what to use and exactly how to do the migration. (Something about exporting G+ as json files, but then I don't know what to do from there.) If you have a link to the thread where there are instructions, what third-party apps, etc. ... OR, point me towards the right search term to use to find what I need ('cuz I don't want to take up your time more than reading this ... ;oD), I'd be grateful ... :o)
ReplyDeleteRobin Griggs Wood It's a third party app and full use is $20, demo use is 3000 posts (which is less than it sounds.) I can't fully endorse this product yet, but the new version promises to have an easier blogger uploader. Use at your own risk (or if you only have ~3000 posts.)
ReplyDeletegplus-exporter.friendsplus.me - Google+ Exporter
John Lewis I hear you, but there's a possibility of reducing obstacles too much. It's a balance.
ReplyDeleteOne alternative is to have a slightly-resistant outer barrier but an easier inside experience. And keep in mind that the issue here is not platform adoption as a whole, but commenting on individual posts.
For the record, I think most blogs get the balance wrong, and in bad ways. That doesn't obviate the underlying principle.
You're a jewel, John Lewis ... thank you.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius the outer barrier is finding the blog.
ReplyDeleteOnce found, the inner barrier depends on the blogger.
Whose time is more important, the writer, or the reader?
One of my first blog lessons was - if you stand on your soapbox and shout, the people will stay away in droves. Social requires writers to give, as well take expectantly.
I still wonder what people expect if they migrate (dead) G+ posts to a shiny new blog.
ReplyDeleteHow will readers find that blog? And why will they read a pile of old G+ posts??
I'm also underwhelmed by a photo collection, with no captions or context, and no possibility to engage (without signing up to yet another account)
Bernard Vatant do you plan to move your G+ posts to the blog? Could start feeding them across slowly to revive the blog?
ReplyDeleteOne interesting side effect is that if you publish your posts from Google+, they will (probably) finally get indexed by Google Search.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis they were, being indexed. Remember when we had Google Authorship? That was fun while it lasted!
ReplyDeleteDiana Studer But they don't bubble up very well in searches... I have a strong suspicion that as Blogger posts they will have a lot more weight behind them, from an SEO perspective.
ReplyDeleteRaw Google Exporter to Blogger results I just dropped the xml output of Google Exporter into a new Blogger Blog as an experiment. I found out the Exporter exports images in their original size, so I dropped them down to "extra large." Deliberately, I have not cleaned up the file so that you get some idea of the amount of "polishing" you'll have to do to make things appear as you wish using a "simple" Blogger template. (I'm no Blogger expert, I just use it a lot.)
ReplyDeletegoogle.arnoldtradecards.com - Google transplants from Victorian Landscapes
That is a daunting amount of polishing.
ReplyDeleteDiana Studer SMOP: A simple matter of programming.
ReplyDeleteOutput is basicaly Markdown. Blogger wants HTML.
Something to catch the tag notation and convert it similarly.
Because both the archive format and major endpoints such as Blogger, Wordpress, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, and static site generators such as Jekyll, Pelican, and Hugo, etc., are standardised, standard tools can be written to do this.
Even nonstandard ports can be done.
War story.
Some years back, in another forum shutdown, I looked at the question of porting content from the old system to various new homes. It turned out to be fairly simple to grab the old content, except that the CMS (content management system) feeding it was buggy, leading to some very broken output. And I had nearly a quarter million posts to deal with.
My tools were a crufty old laptop and Linux shell tools.
It took me about 24 hours. I'd run an HTML validator over the archive, which would report the various errors with the posts, sort the reported problems by frequency, take the biggest one off the top, see if I could script a simple sed or awk expression to fix it, and then go through the next one.
(I'd backed up the entire archive first, and worked off of the set of posts matching the bug being fixed, so there was no risk of losing content.)
A few other issues involved apparent write-loops in which a single post got many others appended to them. Those were identifiable (by size or repeated patterns that I could find), and I either manually fixed those with a text editor or had another script to fix that flaw.
It was a matter of walking down the list of bugs and iterating on (almost entirely) automated solutions, each hitting a few tens, hundreds, thousands, or more, of posts.
I wrote ... I don't know how many repair scripts -- probably dozens, maybe a hundred or more. Most only a line or two. But it was a mix of manual and automation that's exceedingly powerful.
Beyond the scope of many people, I know, but if you want access to an archive it's doable. And the problems here are far smaller and more standard.
The main point is that automating conversion processes scales exceedingly well.
Surprised no-one has mentioned gopher ;)
ReplyDeleteSeems that protocol is having quite a resurgence, especially amongst people on Mastodon ;)
https://fosstodon.org/users/d4klutz/statuses/101269792388027023
Filip H.F. Slagter Or badgers!
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius Regarding the mix of automation and manual effort: you are the only person besides myself to cop to using this technique, though of course it must be common. In the early days of ICANN I frequently had to deal with large volumes of adhoc data -- summarizing email responses to a global survey under extreme time pressure, for example -- and it is amazing what you can accomplish with a few short scripts and regular expressions...
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius How long ago was this? Because:
ReplyDeletecrummy.com - Beautiful Soup Documentation — Beautiful Soup 4.4.0 documentation
This has been around a LONG time and it deals particularly well with even bad markup and tags.
John Lewis The story is of voting age in most jurisdictions.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis Thanks for the Beautiful Soup ref. That's apparently installed though I haven't played with it.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius Diana Studer Since I am too simple to understand matters of programming, ;-) I have contacted Alois Bělaška via Exporter help for assistance. I don't understand why Exporter output is in a format that Blogger bungles and I don't know to what extent the responsibility to put things right is mine.
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver If you'd selected Blogger export specifically, this sounds like a bug. And G+E should support that AFAIU.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius I am pretty sure G+E exports in Blogger format only when selected. No bug there.
ReplyDeleteOn Blogger you can choose (at least when writing a post, or my copypasta from a Word document) to use Compose mode ... or HTML. I only use that HTML option to tweak glitches. But perhaps that could make it simpler to debug?
ReplyDeletePeggy K or David Kutcher would know.
Diana Studer I think he's referring to the software package Alois made that automates the exporting and uploading of Google+ posts to Blogger.
ReplyDeleteBenjamin Russell I have to admit, I liked Usenet when, as someone else noted, it was easier to reach. (The original AOL software included a direct link, but that's long gone. If you don't want to pay for a "newsreader," you have to go through Google, which doesn't allow access to the more - er - questionable groups.) I may just shell out for the newsreader this time, though.
ReplyDeleteBernard Vatant I agree. Unlike many other members of this community, I have no interested in preserving my older posts. I don't post or collect photos, and my day-to-day notes on books I've read, reviews I've posted, and such are not worth the trouble. (They were practically meant to be ephemeral!)
ReplyDeleteJust for the record: I've been leaning towards a combination of a personal blog (yes!), Goodreads (for my book posts), and possibly IG, as well as the LinkedIn account I already have.
ReplyDeleteA previous commenter accurately noted that many G+ participants simply don't want to be on F******k, though perhaps for different reasons. (My own is simply that I distrust and avoid anything that generates an incipient air of mass hysteria, as F******k did when it was opened to the public.)
I also agree with the commenter who noted that, if you keep a blog, you pretty much have to advertise the posts elsewhere. The RSS feed no longer seems popular.
John Lewis Diana Studer Yes, I used Alois Bělaška's free demo version of Google+ Exporter. I selected Blogger export. Then I opened a new Blog on Blogger and copied the code produced by Google+ Exporter into the html side of Blogger as the first post.
ReplyDeleteI do not understand if the pretty good but not perfect results of Google+ Exporter are the result of user ignorance, unreasonable expectations on the user's behalf or software that could use a tweak here and there.
Has anyone here gotten better results with Google+ Exporter's Blogger output option? If so, how did you process Google+ Exporter's product to get those results in Blogger?
Steve Vasta > If you don't want to pay for a "newsreader,"
ReplyDeleteNot all newsreaders are fee-based; here is a list of recommended newsreaders:
Recommended Newsgroup Newsreaders:
newsreaders.info - Recommended Newsgroup Newsreaders
Since that list includes, in my opinion, some newsreaders that may be very difficult to install and/or use, here are two other related lists, one of which lists only free newsreaders, and the other of which lists both free and fee-based ones:
Best Free Usenet Clients 2018 - UsenetReviewz.com:
https://usenetreviewz.com/free-usenet/usenet-clients/
Best Usenet Newsreaders of 2018 - UsenetReviewz.com:
https://usenetreviewz.com/best-usenet-clients/
Another alternative, if you already use GNU Emacs (an editor with special keystrokes that takes time to master) is to install GNUS, a free newsreader, in Emacs. Although it took me approximately a month, after reading various online documentation from multiple sources, to install GNUS in Emacs, once installed, it usually works without a problem (it does occasionally hiccup when connecting), and actually has certain features that Agent lacks (such as the ability to create an embedded customized icon that appears in USENET posts).
(If you somehow manage to set up and use GNUS, you will earn the bonus of being admitted into the unofficial genius-club of programmers who use newsreaders. This is both a boon and a bane: There are some programmers who actually check which newsreader that you use to post, and if you use GNUS, they will then expect you to be gifted at coding. This caused one such programmer, who was then the administrator of the Racket users mailing list, to tell me in e-mail after I submitted multiple bug reports that he did not like, "There cannot be two types of members in this community: those who contribute code, and those who don't." Apparently, he was astonished later when I told him that I was actually a poet, and not a programmer. I didn't want to spend many hours in coding in Racket when I preferred Scheme, so I eventually left the Racket community entirely.)
(If you attempt to use a free newsreader that supposedly works on multiple platforms, you might run the risk of finding several that initially seem easy to install, but which may only be easy to set up/use on Linux/UNIX, but might be extremely confusing to set up on Windows. I myself spent several hours in trying out several before giving up and eventually settling on Forte Agent (see http://www.forteinc.com/agent/), which does charge a one-time fee, but which is guaranteed to work flawlessly, look relatively clean, have many useful features, run extremely quickly (startup takes approximately 2 seconds on my computer), and be easy to use (many useful features have a dedicated button). (Apparently, it was written by someone who also happened to graduate from my alma mater, and who is capable of writing an excellent application. This person apparently worked very hard on this application, and charges a fee because he/she believes that the product is worth the fee.))
(A possible compromise might be to stick with Windows-only options. (Another alternative might be just to skip lunch on a weekend day and simply purchase Agent.))
(One caveat: Although not listed in the first article, Mozilla Thunderbird can also be used as a newsreader; however, I would avoid using it because it might be buggy. Thunderbird is based on the same technology as Seamonkey, which I have used extensively as a browser, but which was not very useful for reading e-mail; when I configured Seamonkey for multiple e-mail servers, it lost track of which messages had been read, causing me to lose much time. Mozilla technology seems to be excellent for browsers, but relatively poor for reading e-mail messages, and possibly also for reading USENET messages (which rely on very similar technology).)
ReplyDeleteSteve Vasta > A previous
ReplyDelete> commenter accurately noted
> that many G+ participants
> simply don't want to be on
> F******k, though perhaps for
> different reasons.
Indeed. Previously, I had used that social network service; however, I left shortly after a friend who was a fellow graduate of my alma mater stopped using it. (Generally speaking, he had seemed to enjoy the fine art of satire; apparently, that strategy did not fare well there. After he left, I searched in vain for a replacement who shared his trait, drew a blank, lost interest in the service, and left.)
In addition, one reason that I never returned to that service was that I later read an article describing their Orwellian policing tactics: "Facebook's Top Cop: Joe Sullivan" (see https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/22/facebooks-top-cop-joe-sullivan/#5580f18d54f4):
"For years the site has had back-end algorithms to weed out fake spam accounts and monitor kid-adult interactions. Lotharios, beware: 'If you’re sending friend requests that trend to 80% female, that’s a red flag [emphasis is my own], or if you change your birth date a lot—under and above the 18 threshold,' says Sullivan. 'Our site integrity team has built engines to feed in characteristics, and they start hunting people down. When you have single concrete rules, it’s easy for people to figure them out, but with machine learning, it’s evolving all the time.'"
While, in practice, I don't usually send friend requests that "trend to 80% female," that statement immediately raised a red flag for me for 2 reasons:
1) Back in college, gender-based discrimination was unheard-of; the academic environment there essentially expected and demanded that students and faculty not be discriminated against on the basis of gender; and
2) I don't enjoy being subject to Orwellian surveillance: Being forced continually to calculate the ratio of friend requests sent to those of the opposite gender versus those of the same gender is extremely distracting, and also highly annoying.
Basically, if I followed Sullivan's logic, the only way to be certain of not raising a red flag with their security team would have been to send all my friend requests to those of the same gender, or worse, simply not to send any friend requests at all.
Neither of those solutions made any sense to me; therefore, I deactivated my account with them, and eventually deleted it altogether.
This is the reason that I have no intention of ever returning to that social network service.
forbes.com - Facebook's Top Cop: Joe Sullivan
My opinion of Facebook is primarily based on this article.
ReplyDeleteIf you +1 this, I'll probably post more.
theguardian.com - Social media copies gambling methods 'to create psychological cravings' | Technology | The Guardian
I've lost the link, but we react to red.
ReplyDeleteRemember when G+ had that HUGE red banner up top?
Jeff Diver this is how to import backup to Blogger https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/41387?hl=en
ReplyDeleteDiana Studer THE RED BAR OF RAGE. Indeed I do.
ReplyDelete(Followed by THE BLACK BAR OF DESCENDING DOOM.)
Alois Bělaška I followed Blogger's directions and the Google+ Exporter results displayed with each post reproduced as a single Blogger post and not as part of a Collection. I had expected (for no particular reason) that I would be downloading the Collection as a whole in a single Blogger post.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall if I asked that comments be downloaded, too. I should have, as evidently I do not get a second chance without buying the software.
Thanks again for your help! Below is an example of the exported post. The only thing corrected was the size of the image displayed, which I changed from "original" as Google+ Exporter downloaded it to "extra large."
P.S. All 37 posts in the Victorian Landscapes Collection [ https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/4Uq9kB ] were downloaded. None were left out.
google.arnoldtradecards.com - Poplar Pond looks like a quiet, romantic hideaway. Unfortunately, wehave no idea where it might be. Guess we each have to find our own! Seecomments below for the back of this card.
Alois Bělaška Do you have an official support channel or bugtracking page?
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius absolutely, any question or bug report can be sent to google-plus-exporter@friendsplus.me or mention me or Friends+Me here on Google+.
ReplyDeleteAlois Bělaška I can confirm this, also in the app there's a help button that sends an email.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis yeah and that too :)
ReplyDeleteAlois Bělaška John Lewis The Help for Google+ Exporter is outstanding. Other software and social media, take notice! I think this bodes well for the further development of the product. As demonstrated here, respectful dialog with users is encouraged.
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver Alois Bělaška I was apprehensive at first, but Alois has won me over. He is very responsive and understanding of the problems we, as users, face. If he delivers on my current request soon, I might feel the need to actually suggest it even though I'm supposed to be impartial. ;-)
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver thank you!
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis eh, and which of the requests is it? ;-)
Alois Bělaška Oh, to make the export for Blogger XML split if they are large files into smaller files so they don't time out on import.
ReplyDeleteRight now it times out from the reCAPTCHA bug if the file size takes too long to upload.
John Lewis :D already part of the latest 1.5.0 version released a few hours ago.
ReplyDeleteAlois Bělaška OH, downloading, thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt (mostly) worked! I have a huge blogger now.... which oddly got crawled by some weird Linux bot. But whatever, I can now easily search my own posts and browse by date... things that were much harder before. I did end up breaking down the file import size to 1000 posts, but I have limited upload speeds. Others will have better luck with larger chunks.
ReplyDeleteI have not had a chance to make the results of my Google+ Exporter pretty. I opened a new blog to house them and even picked a template that was not similar to my other blogs. Here's the comparison between the way the Exporter file appeared on Blogger [ https://victoriandiscoveries.blogspot.com/2018/12/hat-at-ready-at-her-feet-somebody.html ] and the way the original post appeared as part of my Collection "Emma Jane Arnold's Favorite Victorian Fashions [ https://plus.google.com/u/0/107337796965103228583/posts/2eAaQkF95px ]
ReplyDeletevictoriandiscoveries.blogspot.com - Hat at the ready at her feet, somebody wanted to be sure to show off this outfit and the very full hairdo. This card is a mystery. There were no markings on it to indicate its sponsor or maker.
So majority are on MeWe ?
ReplyDeleteKerem Go This poll can't answer that question, although it might imply it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that sample of people who answered the poll were both "self selected" (they decided to answer the poll so they were motivated, perhaps to promote their favorite place) and "limited" (I only posted the poll in two places, this community which leans heavily toward both MeWe and Diaspora, and my own personal stream.)
In short, maybe? but you can't say from these results or this method. It certainly seems like either Diaspora or MeWe are frontrunners... but the why is radically different for each.
Has anyone mentioned the MeWe "Too Many Nazis" issue yet? Lots of people cannot afford to ignore it. https://plus.google.com/117625104356152557124/posts/9UZhoufMK1G
ReplyDeleteplus.google.com - MeWe _still_considered harmful: "Too Many Nazis" - INFO GATHERING POST (UPDAT...
I tried MeWe and the platform seems ok, albeit fledgling. But I just can’t get comfortable with the amount of extremism and conspiracy theorists there.
ReplyDeleteThink I’ll try to switch back to RealLife.
Paul Egan YES! Someone here in G+ that its a great opportunity to make social media usage lesser and focus more to real life. I've been already deleted so many accounts of mine from social media sites. Twitter / Instagram / Google Plus combo was left and after G+ is gone, I don't think I've ever replace it with any other social media channel and just let it go.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've also tried MeWe... Posted a few of my photography work, didn't get any interaction at all and then deleted my account. Either I, or the world of social media is ready for a new social media.
ReplyDeleteJust registerred mewe.com - MeWe: The best chat & group app with privacy you trust. and see silly Status of what are you eating, listening to... seemed teenage.
ReplyDeleteGab.com is not on the list. Its nice to use, but only 300 characters.
Another friends.freezoxee.com - freeZoxee.com longer character allowance.
ReplyDeleteAmelia Hoskins FreeZoxee . com appears to have a political agenda (specifically, a politically right-leaning preference.)
ReplyDeleteWould you say that's been your experience there?
To be clear, I don't care if it promotes a political viewpoint, but it is important that people are aware if one exists before joining.
Quoting from the about page:
Freezoxee is the new american patriot network. Meet new people and share your ideas far away from the mainstream media bias and censorship.
Freezoxee™ is a new beacon of freedom where you can exchange opinions, views and ideas far away from the ugly censorship and political correctness increasingly being imposed on those who dare criticize lunatic views on society and will not bow down to "progressive" gender or race dividing Agendas.
Gab is the social network that became (in)famous for being the place that the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooter frequented, along with many, many other hate groups. Is it possible that there are still people who haven't heard about this, whose only concern is character length limits on posts? 😣 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html
ReplyDeletenytimes.com - On Gab, an Extremist-Friendly Site, Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect Aired His Hatred in Full
John Lewis I've not had enough experience of the site, although am joined there, from recommendations by users I support elsewhere. Its American patriot and I am Brit, so I don't know how I shall use it yet.
ReplyDeleteI'm perfectly comfortable with 'right', certainly rather than censoring 'left' agenda; as your extract shows.
"..far away from the ugly censorship and political correctness increasingly being imposed on those who dare criticize lunatic views on society and will not bow down to "progressive" gender or race dividing Agendas"
I guess it will be 'horses for courses'. Everyone will choose.
Greg S I'm well aware of his association with Gab. There must be many criminals world wide using mainstream social media sites, so this one time event would not put me off.
ReplyDeletePeople can mute and block those they don't want.
I've listened to the founder of Gab explaining they offer free speech, but will have guidelines. They are fast growing, despite loosing payment systems, being demonised.
I'm currently using Gab and finding it works well, and finding some topic areas that fit with a few of my 'news' Collections.
Its likely different platforms may be useful for the varied Collections of G+ users. I shall use Pinterest, Instagram for visuals as well as creating new blogs, and Minds.
G+ users are obviously going to be happier with longer text facility, and choose their platforms accordingly. Blogging may also be an additional way to go.
Greg S Additional comment: Google might have slammed Gab, but I came across pedophilia on G+ recently, so they are not 'holier than thou', nor as vigilante as they might profess.
ReplyDeleteFor various reasons, many users would be veering away from Google platform anyway.
Amelia Hoskins Did you try reporting it? I suspect that trying to report white supremacists on Gab would be a wasted effort - but even in these closing days G+ will wipe that garbage with a quickness.
ReplyDeleteGreg S & Amelia Hoskins I find that what I look for in social media is not the number of offensive remarks, but rather the ease with which they can be eliminated from my feed and reported as violating the host's terms of service.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, I have never come across pedophilia on G+, but if I ever did, rather than complaining to fellow users, I have tools to deal with it. That's what the G+ option "delete, report & block" is all about. Social media are only as vigilant as users are.
How do the social media outside of G+ compare with G+ in this regard? Facebook and MeWe users, what's your experience?
Greg S Yes, I reported and blocked and left the Community
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver Yes, self censoring is important. I've not tested GAB in that respect yet, as havn't needed to.
ReplyDeleteJust as we would cross the road, or leave a pub, if we didn't like the conversation, so we can ignore those we don't agree with.
Amelia Hoskins Except it's more like moving to another room in a restaurant because you stumbled across a room full of people yelling "Sieg Heil" - if the restaurant is willing to host them, they're not going to get to host me.
ReplyDeleteGreg S that is an excellent analogy and I’ll have to remember it.
ReplyDeleteGreg S If City Hall allows people to host rallies and the Nazis have one, you don't leave the city. I suppose you can say that a social network is more like a restaurant, but it's more like a huge chain of restaurants that offer catering. If the Alabama restaurant makes a fruit plate for the Klan rally, to you stop going to the local restaurant?
ReplyDeleteAnalogies are sticky.
John Lewis OTOH, if the entire city is full of Nazis, and the mayor is dog-whistling more in, you might want to reconsider domiciles.
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver Google also do make some effort to either eliminate or dissuade various types of behaviour.
ReplyDeleteAs I've been prowling through Google+ Communities, I'm finding that there are a lot of pr0n-related ones. But few of those have much by way of activity, even where there are many members. Others lack either. I suspect a fair bit of cleansing going on.
The scale of all this stuff is pretty mind-numbing. Even small networks can have a tremendous amount of toxic activity.
John Lewis There's quite a ToS to go with that agenda as well.
ReplyDeleteJeff Diver on FB you can report. Depending on FB it may be cleared or they may say no we are fine with this.
ReplyDeleteThe HUGE advantage is instead of G+ politely writing Muted but leaving the post in your feed, you can 'Hide this post' which does what it says on the box.
Diana Studer G+'s "muted" behaviour was idiotic.
ReplyDeleteReport as spam, for a long time, hid posts immediately. Which was what I wanted. Desire-path dark patterns.
Edward Morbius "Idiotic" is too kind.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis that App looks interesting: a mass moving of, say, any specific G+ Collection to somewhere public; to sort out later on. Google's Blogger is staying then? I'm on Wordpress for other things, but would start a Blogger for news posts, if it is to stay. One thing I am not liking now on G+ is how a follow up comment does not stay attached to the specific post.
ReplyDeleteJohn Lewis I can see from various comments after I mentioned Gab, there seems to be some fear of free speech: platforms ought naturally reflect all opinions around the world. Those wanting one political leaning will find their comrades - within a platform, or to use your analogy the right restaurant room.
ReplyDeleteReading Diana Studer its a good idea to think more about blogging properly now, rather than the social media postings. Especially with that G+ exporter App to sweep up previous G+ posts. I don't want to go through and see what I would repost to somewhere, if, like news, its out of date. Those post can exist in a blog G+archive. Whereas non-news can be used afresh, 'as if' new.
Amelia Hoskins "Free speech" has effectively become a dog whistle for racism, national supremacy, populism, fascism, neo-nazi or outright nazi groups, and more.
ReplyDeleteThe user populations and commnties represented on numerous of the so-called "free speech" platforms not only include such groups, but are so overwhelmingly slanted toward them as to make the policy seem completely deliberate. What I've seen of several such sites -- Voat, Gab, 4chan, and MeWe all come to mind -- and of founder or key members' statements, removes virtually all doubt that this is in any way accidental.
There's a long (53m) interview of Mark Weinstein on "Whiskey Politics" (YouTube) where both subjects dance around this issue in ways that, for those who are aware of what the site actually contains, makes the behaviour obviously deceptive.
Now, if those are the ideologies you uphold, associate with, and prefer to be identified with, go right ahead. But some may have issues with that.
The history of free speech is also vastly more nuanced than is generally portrayed, and in particular the present sine qa non of debate that it represents "the marketplace of ideas" is an extraordinarily modern casting, dating only the the 1950s.
Even J.S. Mill notes that truth will rarely prevail under such conditions, and that the most compelling defence of free speech is that it allows the least privileged voices consideration. Not the most. Modern support of free speech conveniently forgets this.
Edward Morbius People are often confused about the distinction between "most reviled" and "least privileged", thinking that holders of widely despised positions are by definition lacking in privilege....
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius We've reached a stage in US and EU countries where some of the "_least privileged_ voices" you mention have been elevated when not always common sense.
ReplyDelete(Being UK, I am not aware of the extent of any unacceptable free speech in America) though do follow US goings on and note that people acting aggressively, and calling other people nasty names, are often describing their own behaviour.
1 hour or so in, it seems #pluspora has the facilities to add or not, people to engage with.
Amelia Hoskins "1 hour or so in, it seems #pluspora has the facilities to add or not, people to engage with."
ReplyDeleteDo you have a link to announces it?
Amelia Hoskins you would like threaded comments?
ReplyDeleteYonatan once promised that for G+.
But we DO have threaded comments on Blogger.
And https is free (unless you have a paid domain)
Amelia Hoskins hi. Add me on pluspora and if you have any questions about the platform, don't hesitate to reach out. David Thiery and I are GPlussers who started the diaspora pod as a place for plussers to go after this pace shuts down.
ReplyDeleteI think what John Lewis means is did you make a "new here post" with a #GPlusrefugee hashtag. That is how everyone has been finding each other. The hashtags work really well on diaspora.
Amelia Hoskins what Di Cleverly said and feel free to add me too and if you have any questions you can message me on there or on Hangouts.
ReplyDeletehttps://pluspora.com/u/dthiery
pluspora.com - Pluspora is the brainchild of Di and myself. We created this place because of the uncertain future of G+ and the censorship of its AI. Please make yourself at home here and don't be afraid to put your feet up on the coffee table!
John Lewis What I meant was that people start 'sharing' with us; but we have the option to mute them if their subject matter is not of interest. One problem with announcing #newhere is the marketeers may pounce. I've deleted my original intro post with that, and not sure if I will continue with Public, if I'm there to tie up with previous G+ users from my Circles, whom I can search for intermittently.
ReplyDeleteDiana Studer Yes! I would prefer threaded comments, (have gotten used to it on Twitter), another reason why I may not use #pluspora much: also their photos look blurry, so thats a right-off for me.
ReplyDeleteYes, I could start Blogger, but won't it shut along with G+ ? If not, then I would consider making a blog to contain all my G+ posts (or most) temporarily, as there is not enough time to go through take-out to choose different platforms for each Collection.
I have several Wordpress blogs half attended to and may try another one for G+ Collections. I hadn't really thought of loading them up to a blog site! Why not, I suppose! :) Will attempt to do some on Minds too.
I will be attempting to integrate the photo Collections into a new website. Having varied subjects means finding different platforms, websites or blogs - suitable for each. For instance my fashion page stuff can go straight to Pinterest. I think my recycled fashion Community might be best integrated on my fashion website; using blogger maybe.
Much to think about!! :)
Di Cleverly Yes, the hashtags are working well. I get your point, we are found by #newhere OKAY. I simply don't want streams of frequently posted stuff from other new people I don't know, chocking up the stream - havn't we had enough of that .
ReplyDeleteGood idea it was to start a place there. I see it as a meeting place, rather than for subject posting, while GPlussers are considering their options. It may well be after closure, that many turn up there.
With G+, having many followers is no indication of having engagers on posts of more than half a dozen. I will specifically invite people with similar interests to #pluspora and other platforms.
David Thiery Thanks for thoughts.
ReplyDeleteA meeting and catch up after G+ closure is great idea.
For text only, I like it, and good working hashtags. But for photos it looks awful. Poor resolution (to me) and just no style to make it worth doing well.
So it will be elsewhere for photo collections.
Re my Environment collection with 90,000 followers (god knows, they are just from signing up to android I would reckon!) when it was featured; I may post to several places concurrently until deciding which to focus on. ...some work ahead.
Amelia Hoskins that was the original idea. Just a place where everyone could find each other. Something more "Plus" like may come along, and then we may all migrate yet again!,
ReplyDeleteAmelia Hoskins hmm...all the photos I've seen looked good. Do you have any examples you've seen that look bad you can show me? Maybe they're from a different pod that's setup differently or using an older version of diaspora.
ReplyDeleteAmelia Hoskins Blogger isn't tied to G+ closing down. It is used as a base for paid domains too. For now, it is certainly alive.
ReplyDeleteI've pretty much decided: a Wordpress blog, plus Instagram as a way of publicizing it. I've already joined Goodreads.
ReplyDeleteNo large photo collections here, so no need to "migrate" such. Neither did the Communities in which I've participated here ever generate the sort of relationships that others have described and want to keep intact, so those aren't considerations for me.
As noted earlier, I will continue to post here until the site closes down, and, once settled in my new sort-of-homes, I'll put the information into a pinned post on my page.
For now I'm going with minds.com. #1 is the site ease of article writ8ng and variety of tools. #2 is the Voluntaryist philosophy of the owner. #3 is the crypto integration. Bye g+. It was fun!
ReplyDeleteScott Swain Pin your decision to your stream and use the hashtag SignalFlare to help people find you quickly.
ReplyDeleteScott Swain I'm starting Minds: I liked Bill Ottman's thoughts also after listening to him.
ReplyDeleteI would love to know if text formatting is possible? Really miss embolding and italicising
John Lewis How do we pin a SignalFlare list of sites post when we only have collections? Do we pin it to the top of ALL collections?
ReplyDeleteAmelia Hoskins
ReplyDelete1. Go to your own personal stream.
2. Make a new, public, post with your SignalFlare, giving a link to your new account(s).
3. Post.
4. Click on the three buttons on the upper right, and select "Pin this post" (or words to that effect.)
5. Copy the whole thing and put it in your profile.