New Zealand Transition Initiatives Social Network

From oil dependence to local resilience

This social networking site has a major decision to make about its future, please read

Transition Towns Social Network May be Moving House


Introduction

We have been informed by ning (the company that owns the transition towns social networking site we have been using for about two years now), that from July 31 we will have to pay for the ning service.

There are a number of paths we could choose at this point. Please offer your comments on this, by June 4th at the latest.

Exploring the technical options:




Some detail on the options
Keep the national Ning site and pay $200
This would mean setting up a widget on the front page of the site to attract donations up to $280NZ. Easy to do, has to be done annually, and would need to be done by July 31st. While there are cheaper options for having a ning site, their limitations would make them unworkable for our purposes. This same consideration (whether to keep or let go) is being had by a number of Transition groups around the country, who have active ning sites for their local region.

Use Facebook and their community pages
Timaru TT already uses it. Events are OK. Subgroups not possible but people connected to the main Transition Timaru group page, can be invited easily to join other groups that Timaru people want to setup as distinct group pages.

Content could not be easily imported into facebook - it would be an entirely manual process.

Facebook is extremely popular so many people already have an account and know how to use it - a very important point if we want to facilitate (make easy) the use of any social networking tool.

Can be quite busy - information overload

Some specific recommendations and guides would need to be written up, help people use this tool to advantage.

Upgrade the transitiontowns.org.nz site
Some automated content import may be possible but there could be some manual
copying over needed.

There are many social networking add-on modules that will get us 90% of the
functionality but some tidying up work may be necessary.

This web site is open source and not reliant on a profit making corporation for its existence so there will not be fees or similar problems cropping up again. Running costs still exist, but they are more under our control. Technically-minded volunteers are required to maintain the system and keep it running smoothly.


Build a new social networking site using Wordpress & the buddypress plugin.Would involve creating a whole new website. Buddypress looks promising and has nice pictures on it’s web site but it is somewhat of an unknown quanitity - we’ve never used it.

Similar to the upgrading of www.tt.org.nz (above), this is open source and not reliant on a profit making corporation.

Start using a new free social networking site
Wackwall allows importing of ning content. Still in beta. Might not be for free forever, either.


Please offer your comments on this whole discussion, by June 4th at the latest.

Tags: networking, ning, social

Views: 64

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jamie Bull on May 17, 2010 at 12:33
No guarantee that Facebook will stay free either. I totally oppose using Facebook. - for me it demeans what TT stands for. I use Facebook myself and am well aware of it's strengths and limitations. And it's mis-use and abuse. feel we need to have more control of our own site and ability to do what we really want to do. Especially with groups and communications. We have enjoyed the benefits of Ning for no charge and wonder why we abandon them because they cannot stay viable with a free service. Most websites cost. And if they get lots of takers, the cost may even come down again.

Repeating - I would not use the site if it went to Facebook. I feel taht strongly about it. We have no idea of how they will keep changing the rules and what impact it will have on us as members. The privacy issues are very important.
Permalink Reply by Pat van Berkel on May 17, 2010 at 13:04
Don't favour Facebook as that may cost soon also. And don't trust it (so don't use it).
First choice is extending the tt.org.nz site. We don't know where The NZ Transition is going to go, and keeping it in NZ control is good. There is a cost tho' to volunteers to set it up and maintain it. Don't know a solution to that.
Second choice is paying the $280/year to Facebook. Maybe we can even try that for a year to give breathing space to make the conversion. Other choices will spring up over the next few months as many others face this issue.

Creating a new social networking site is inside my first choice. Leave it to the volunteer developers to choose how to set it up - extend the current tt site, or use Wordpress, or use Buddypress, etc. The key thing is its free, in NZ control, and not supported by government or any organisation.
Permalink Reply by Miles Thompson on May 17, 2010 at 13:22
My two cents:

1. Totally agree that the facebook option is a non starter. Transition towns may well want to have a presence there but it can't be its main home.

2. The best option, if it could be pulled off, would be to upgrade the transitiontowns.org.nz website and add some more social network type features.

3. Strong preference for open source built on an open source framework.

4. As someone who's done a lot of development on ning I'd just like to mention that ning itself is a very poorly documented mess of spaghetti code and erratic features. maybe the paid one will be better, but I doubt it. The new CEO is an a-hole and I think the new ning will be just as bad, and is not in any way conducive to the transitiontown philosophy http://paidcontent.org/article/419-ning-cuts-40-percent-of-staff-go....
That said, it may make sense to pay them their bloody money for a few months until a proper 'transition' can be accomplished

5. All in all this is very unfortunate.

6. I'd like to help where i can.


Some questions

1. NZ is not the only transition town with a presence on Ning, what are the others doing?
2. What is the current transitiontowns.org.nz site built in, and who built it?
3. We may want to consider mahara.org.nz for nz? Just because, with luck we may convince someone from that group to help port the site??


Here are some of the top options for alternatives to Ning based on a bit of google searching.. I have only included full 'social network in a box' type options, not 'frameworks within which you could build a social network (like drupal)'. Those more frameworky type options may well be worth considering..


Open Source (PHP based)

Elgg - http://elgg.org/index.php
Buddy Press - http://buddypress.org/ (Built on top of wordpress, which is a good thing)
Social Engine - http://www.socialengine.net/
Mahara - http://mahara.org/group/view.php?id=1 (local but more 'elearning' focused, really)


Out of box / paid services (like ning but both better than ning)

Social GO - http://www.socialgo.com/
Kick Apps - http://www.kickapps.com/applications/the-kickapps-platform

--

I wish that all the options were not php based. Current pick from the open source/php based options would be elgg or maybe buddypress.
Permalink Reply by Robin Hoare on May 17, 2010 at 13:28
so how much space/bandwidth is required please?

Robin
http://hokianga.com/Swim
Permalink Reply by Rimu on May 17, 2010 at 13:48
It was mostly me who built http://transitiontowns.org.nz, using Drupal http://drupal.org/. It's an open source CMS written in PHP with thousands of free add-on modules, great documentation and a huge community of developers
Permalink Reply by lee0007 on May 17, 2010 at 13:49
Dear Deidre & Community Members,

Kia Ora, as some of you are aware our small team have volunteered our time over the past year to integrate social networking tools - groups forums & connecting - with a platform to help people, connect with each other based on their talents, skills and interests.

We do not charge for these tools. Instead, our social enterprise business model will enable us to support non-profit and charitable organisations though a "success fee" similar to Trade me, once we begin to connect people with paid work - i.e when we find you a local mechanic to fix your radiator or an accountant for your end of year tax return.

Like the Wackwall option we are still in Beta but better yet we are based here in Aotearoa, and would welcome everyone's input regarding future development.

I'm a member here because I share the belief that community resilience vs government dependence is the way of our future. We need people like you, and communities like Transition Towns to work with. In exchange I volunteer my talents, passion and years of web experience to provide tools that will help transform the way we all work together.

I see this time of transition as an opportunity for us to co-create a world class social enterprise. Please consider us as an option.

Kind regards,
Renee Lee
www.worknow.co.nz
Permalink Reply by Rimu on May 17, 2010 at 13:51
How do people feel about chipping in $10 or so? Surely the community can raise the money.

However I share other's concerns about reliance on closed-source systems, run by foreign profit making corporations. Even if they are convenient.

I'm confident that transitiontowns.org.nz can be improved to meet most of the needs that transitionaotearoa.org.nz currently fills, and I am willing to help make that happen.
Permalink Reply by Jamie Bull on May 17, 2010 at 14:05
thanks so much for your offer
Permalink Reply by Nicola Rankin on May 17, 2010 at 14:27
What an awesome opportunity this is for us! Lets integrate the two sites by building social networking into the transitiontowns.org.nz website thus resolving the issues brought about by having two sites in the first place and putting us totally on a open source platform. Thanks very much for offering your expertise for this work Rimu.
Permalink Reply by Gary Little on May 17, 2010 at 14:45
To use open-source applications and websites seems to be the most logical way to go.

Using Facebook, or other seperate social networking sites, free or otherwise, does not appeal to me.

To have all the TT needs on one website is also a huge benefit. I feel that the continued use, and upgrading of the tt.org website should be to our advantage. Transfering of pertinent systems from aotearoa.org would be required however.

This option does appear to require some knowledgeable input but earler replies indicate that it could happen using existing TT members expertise.

I presume that the cut-off date of 4th June for these submissions may indicate that there is the possibility that an upgrade of the tt.org site may well be possible by the change-over date of the ning site to a site with a charge. I hope i am correct in this assumption.
Permalink Reply by Tim Jones on May 17, 2010 at 14:55
Another network I'm involved in runs on Coactivate, www.coactivate.org, which is a free service that describes itself as "a platform for social activism". For more information, and a link to technical details, see http://www.coactivate.org/about

In my experience, it's a little less user-friendly than Ning, but not bad, and it has workflow tools that may be useful.

Worth checking out, I think.
Permalink Reply by Andrew Watkins on May 17, 2010 at 15:43
Another definitely not for facebook.
Glad to be leaving Ning as well. The basic concept is ok but the implementation is flawed leading to a messy and busy site.

For example every posting leads to an email saying x has posted a message, but instead of telling you the message it forces you to visit the site to read it.

My recommendation would be to go with a standard content management system e.g drupal, joomla, django etc with social networking plugins.

That said - to get full control would imply using your own web server which might cost you about $10-$20 a month anyway.

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