We believe social networks have significant benefits for people and society. We want to explore the viability of new social networks that aim for more social good, and also that mitigate known challenges of spamming, hacking, tracking, and the like. This document is a request for comments.
About this document:
- We welcome comments: use issues or joel@joelparkerhenderson.com or @joel_henderson
- This plan is a work in progress and likely to change as we learn more.
- We edit quotations lightly for content and anonymity.
Ideas that we are exploring - please let us know your comments.
Beginnings:
- Audiences: general public, niches, special interests?
- Comparisons: similarities/differences versus others?
- Communities: how can we encourage people to help?
- Motivations: gamification, extrinsic, intrinsic?
- References: articles, blogs, commentaries, etc.
Implementations:
- Scopes: benefits, features, minimum viable product?
- Names: real names, fake names, no names?
- Feeds: linear, algorithmic, customizable?
- Data: who owns it, who uses it, who controls it?
- Funding: advertisements, donations, subscriptions?
- Schema: data modeling, domain driven design?
Policies:
- Conduct policies: code of conduct, community guidelines, etc.
- Privacy policies: user rights, transparency guidelines, etc.
- Disclosure policies: security reporting, bug tracking, etc.
Possibilities:
- Matrix and Riot: secure decentralized communication and client
- Scuttlebutt: Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) distributed messaging
Technologies:
- Topologies: centralize, decentralize, distribute, federate?
- Routes: how to reach people, places, items, resources?
- Project management: priorities, expectations, timelines, tools, etc.
- Stacks: languages, frameworks, databases, interfaces, etc.
- Security: spammers, hackers, masqueraders?
Context of this project includes areas such as:
- Bigger social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Snap.
- Smaller social networks: MeWe, Vero, Ello, Clubhouse, WT.social, Parler.
- Distributed social networks: Mastodon, Patchwork, GNU Social.
- Blog networks: WordPress, Medium, Wix.
- Static site generators: Hugo, Metalsmith, Jekyll.
- Chat: WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Signal, Discord, LINE, Kakao, Slack.
- Active communities: Reddit, Hacker News.
- Websites that use technology for social good: Wikipedia, Craigslist. Archive.
- Foundations: Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Free Software Foundation (FSF).
- FLOSS groups: Open Source Initiative (OSI), Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC).
- Social coding sites: GitHub, GitLab, StackOverflow.
- Social identity: GPG, Keybase.
- Protocols: XMPP, ActivityPub, OTR, Signal.
- Crowdfunding: Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, Indiegogo.
