Greetings list. I've been looking for you for a month or so and now I've found you. I was prompted to look by Eben Moglen's talk at ISOC: http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338
While I am by no means interested in web programming (my domain lies between DSP and HCI), I am interested in social organization generally and lately, inspired in part by GNU Foundation ethics, I've decided to investigate the possibility of contributing to the effort to establish a rich ecology of _free_ online social organizational tools in whatever limited way I can. I've had a short conversation in IRC and taken a look through the mailing list archive. I'm excited by what I've seen. If the best ideas from the list are taken and developed well, I think we can establish fertile ground for diverse applications not yet imagined and set a great example for future paradigms. I would like to voice a few concerns I have that I have not come across in the list archive. Please fork new threads if you see fit. (1) I think it is good to start by asking the question: What makes Facebook irresistible? I've been using Facebook since I was a high school student in 2005. At the time, I was elated to switch to the new platform for one main reason: a unified, well designed GUI that communicated a feeling of 'seriousness'. MySpace had become a horrendous mess as each user was allowed to 'express' him/herself through deplorable homemade designs. Worse, the design was terrible from the start. I observed found that many of my friends felt the same way. Facebook was a clean, exclusive, and 'serious-looking' solution to the MySpace mess. (This doesn't get at why I was interested in those sites in the first place. For me, ironically, social networking sites were a place for me to exhibit a carefully constructed representation of myself. I found it easier to express myself within the limited parameters of Facebook than the much less limited parameters of MySpace.) This poses an interesting contradiction. I have come across many statements on the list to the effect of "the ability to express oneself fully should not be compromised in any way". In 8 years of being on the net, I've found that the best services have been those that impose heavy restrictions on self expression*. Why? Because design decisions are, for the most part, better left to good designers. GUI design is difficult and it seems to be done best by many talented designers working for money (with a few exceptions). [This is why I don't use any open source applications with GUI's. (Max/MSP > PureData. Apple Pages > Open Office etc. Safari > Firefox. OSX > Linux. Gmail > Squirrel Mail.)†] One way around this problem is to let the user impose his/her own customizations on everything (skins) / let the user ignore other people's customizations. * The very notion of unlimited self-expression is problematic from the start. As every artist knows, imposed limitations are essential to creative work. (2) Why is Facebook irresistible to me now? After watching Moglen's talk, I decided to, along with some friends, experiment with radically scaling down my usage of Facebook, attempting to replace as many of the services as possible with 'free' alternatives: (a) Messages were easily replaced by email (ironically, GMail!) (b) I found that 'status updates' were simply a distraction from what I consider more "wholesome" forms of communication, so I blocked everybody from my News Feed and made my Wall inaccessible. Others may disagree. This can be replaced by Identi.ca, SMOB or whatever. (c) Photo sharing seems to me to be a narcissistic activity. The way Facebook implements it, I think, tarnishes some of the 'specialness' of the photographs and stifles creativity. Another controversial opinion. I removed all of my content and replaced the service with Flickr, a platform that I find _nurtures_ creativity, for the time being (not so much better). (d) Groups were replaced by mailing lists (ironically, my tool of choice is Google Groups due to its superior interface and ease of configuration!) (e) Notes were replaced by blogs (f) Everything else is a superfluous distraction After replacing all of these features, I find myself unable to leave Facebook completely. Why can't I leave despite having replaced all of the features that GNU Social will purportedly replace? What about Facebook is essential for me? (a) An underestimated feature of Facebook is the 'Friends in Common' feature. It is very useful to track down somebody's profile and discover that you share a common friend. In fact I found my current roommate because of this feature. (b) It is very useful as a directory, or no-maintenance address book. If I need to track somebody down, this is the best way. 'All your friends are there'. (c) Lastly, _the most important feature of Facebook that has no alternative_(!), is Facebook Events. I live in a medium-sized city and being disconnected from Events means being disconnected from events altogether. Many people send email invitations, but most don't. Some events even have a no-apology 'if you don't have Facebook, too bad' policy. I am biased because I am a student in a city, but for me the priority for a Facebook alternative is finding a viable replacement for Facebook Events. To summarize what I've written so far: - A unified, well designed graphical interface is not to be underestimated (To put it more strongly, I will not be using any service that does not have a good interface that protects me from other people's customizations). - Most of Facebook's features are in my opinion superfluous and easily replaced. The features that give rise to rich social interactions and have no viable alternative are the ones that need addressing. Events and 'Friends in Common' are the most important to me. (3) Building on point (1), I would like to say something about adoption. My grandparents use Facebook. If GNU Social is seeking widespread adoption, it either needs to be or give rise to tools that the computer-illterate can use. But perhaps that is not the point. Eben Moglen has called our current interface design paradigm "point and grunt". Perhaps we should design systems assuming a high level of computer literacy just as the best writers (but not the most popular writers!) assume a high level of literacy. One proposed model is that in which everybody caries a personal server with them on which their node is hosted. I love this idea, but my grandparents don't even know what a server is. The cloud model is popular for a reason. It's easy as hell. Most of the people I know think of 'us' as the 'computer elite'. Is GNU social for the computer elite or is it for the incompetent masses? As per point (2), I think that GNU Social needs to, at a minimum, provide a Facebook Events replacement designed for mass adoption. Some of the other features, I'm not so sure. (4) But what's the point? The FOSS community has undoubtedly created many wonderful, useful tools over the past thirty years or so. But I am severely critical of the current pattern I see in the design of general, multi-purpose GUI tools (including web tools): innovation is negligible and any tool is a poor copy of tools that came before. † I listed some of these tools above. If GNU social aims at being a general social network replacement, like Elgg, it will almost certainly fail. Let's take the opportunity to break the pattern. Let's start with first principles, desires, and imagine something that goes beyond the status quo. What is the ultimate purpose of social networks? According to Moglen, Facebook is about getting people in bed together. Is GNU Social about getting people laid? I would argue that if it isn't, it will never be widely adopted. But then again, is wide adoption the point? Is freedom the point? What would that mean? It's easy to say "Facebook works, Twitter works, let's copy the model and make it free". I say let others do that work. I do not mean to be supercilious. I don't doubt that this thought has occurred to all of you, but I think it bears repeating. What is the future of mediated communication that we want to see beyond little tidbits of instant gratification? I'm excited to contribute to the extent that I can to these early discussions. Cheers, Morgan
