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

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by lee0007 on May 19, 2010 at 20:17
Ae! I love this thinking & I know we have the ability to develop something world class if we co-create with the understanding (as Mark points out) that intentional development does take time and will require testing, learning, feedback more testing and ultimately, patience and a willingness to try something new.
Permalink Reply by lee0007 on May 19, 2010 at 20:45
Miles thanks for the summary

In short there are many ways that our tools will work for this community & the individuals, groups & communties represented. We offer all the basic networking tools: public and private messaging, forums, connect & groups functions.

And in addition we provide: people search & talent matching, public & private trade marketplaces (for time trade, volunteering, work expereince and soon paid work) Yet this is just the beginning...We believe we have the tech & dev, skills to co-create a world class online network of community resourcing tools but we need people and communities to co create with...

Our co-founder Joshua is also based in Wellington, he is a very talented programmer, a director of a couple of web / media companies and involved with a number of social enterprises (350nz & intersect to name just a couple) I am sure he would be happy to talk with you guys about this.

Our tools are built using open source code (Ruby on Rails + Insoshi networking platform) I have always worked with php in the past but am loving the more agile development environment. that ruby on rails enables. I have also used Joomla which I believe is similar to Drupal although I recommend Wordpress over either nowadays...

We would love the opportunity to present these options to those involved with deciding the future direction
Permalink Reply by lee0007 on May 19, 2010 at 20:53
Thank you for your support Jay
Permalink Reply by Miles Thompson on May 20, 2010 at 12:00
Hey Lee,

So.. uhm I think everybody appreciates an offer to help, but I feel like there is a bit of a mismatch between the level at which you are operating and what is going on for folks in this discussion.

I think it would be a great shame if folks here missed out on at least the chance to properly consider what you are suggesting, so allow me to ask some questions that I hope will bring things down to the same level.

I guess I have met Josh (briefly) as he is in Wellington. No doubt, I have enormous respect for him as both a talented entrepreneur/programmer and also as someone who's heart is clearly in the right place, who wants to do something about the same things transition towns is about and has shown a capacity to actually turn that into action - impressive efforts such as, as you say, the 350 degrees campaign not to mention timetrade itself. No doubt you are also the same. However, there are some things that I think would be helpful to clarify as to where you are coming from and who you are about, so that it could be understood how things would go down if you did help out..

Can you clarify who is 'you' in your posts above - i mean, when you say 'our tools' who's tools is that?

Are you a commercial group or a non profit?

When you say 'our social networking option' - are you suggesting something where 'you' would build a custom website (using RoR and Insoshi say) or do you have some sort of framework that you've already built that you think might easily be extended to the transition towns group(s) need?

Assuming you are a commercial group,what is in it for 'you' ? I mean if it is just a matter of doing good for staff morale, or to improve your presence on the web or something, that's probably going to be totally fine, but I think it would help to be clear on why a commercial group would be so keen to help?

Is this something where you are suggesting that folks from your 'crew' in their own spare time might do this or would it be something where they could work on it in paid time??

If you did build something would you be keen to have outside developers contribute or rather just basically build the thing to the specifications of the group?

Are you picturing something where you would host the site as well?

Would it tie in to your other things, like timetrade or is that not necessarily part of the picture.

Would you be willing to work on something like the buddypress option - ie contributing your time to make that happen and/or merge with the existing tt.org.nz site? (My understanding is not, just trying to clarify)

I guess generally, how do you see it actually working on a totally pratical level?

To be clear I'm not one of those 'involved with deciding the future direction' of this thing per se - other than perhaps by being present here on the group and trying to help (hopefully constructively) clarify things and/or add my 2c.
Permalink Reply by Miles Thompson on May 20, 2010 at 12:18
Sorry that should be 'Hi Renee' - just figured that out. Either way I guess.
Permalink Reply by Hella D on May 20, 2010 at 14:07
I like the idea of moving to wordpress. I have been using wordpress since 2006 and am very impressed with it. It is open source so we will not have to worry about many things and it is also quite in line with the whole transition movement. A lot of people don't use facebook still and many may decide to stop using it as more alternatives are around.
Permalink Reply by Miles Thompson on May 20, 2010 at 14:33
Thanks for the comments..

Just to be clear (in case this confuses others) the option we're discussing (which seems to be the front runner at the moment) is to use "BuddyPress" which is, yesm based on Wordpress (so presumably you get to use a lot of the same plugins and such)

Have to say I also think BuddyPress is our best option at this point.. even though it won't be easy to integrate it with the existing transitiontowns.org.nz site. I've also used wordpress a lot and like it a bunch. (Especially the number of widgets and such that it has support for.

buddypress - http://buddypress.org/
wordpress - http://wordpress.org/

--

PS probably worth noting that Wordpress just went to a major revision number of 3.0. Bit of a shame that BuddyPress isn't quite able to support WP3.0 full yet. Seems they are going to support Wodpress 3.0 at BuddyPress 1.3.. but from what I can make out BuddyPress is at 1.2.x currently.. http://trac.buddypress.org/browser/tags
Permalink Reply by Danyl Strype on May 20, 2010 at 15:05
If you don't like PHP, what about OpenCore? It's based on Plone. The only major feature missing at this stage is events calendar, but hopefully that's coming. You can see a working example at
www.CoActivate.org

OpenCore home page:
http://www.coactivate.org/projects/opencore/project-home

Na
Strypey
Permalink Reply by Miles Thompson on May 20, 2010 at 15:18
Yeah.. gotta say I agree... but the php.. its unstoppable. Also its gotta be good to work in a language where we'll get a maximum amount of flexiblity regards to volunteer techs that can help etc etc
Permalink Reply by Danyl Strype on May 20, 2010 at 16:20
Tena koutou

Mark:
"I'd have thought that there was an international interest in a hot transition social networking site"

And you'd be right! A team gathered from the international Transition community have put some serious work into building a free and open Transition networking platform, see their announcement here:
http://transitionculture.org/2010/03/18/the-new-absolutely-brillian...

There is a beta version you can try out here:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/

On Thames, I understand where you're coming from Mark, but I think it's important to learn from the lessons of evolution. Once a half-ass design gets underway, the longer it is developed on, the harder it is to go back to first principles, and transition to a better design. This is exactly the problem TT emerged to deal with - the way our whole society has evolved around the half-ass design of dependence on fossil fuels. Also, I don't think Ning's actions - offering a free service as bait and then imposing a charge with insufficient transition time for users who can't afford to pay - should be financially rewarded.

I would suggest that even if you do continue with Ning, that you:
- inform your users immediately of your intention to transition to a free and open networking platform
- identify which system you intend to transition to asap
- dual-train your key networkers and any new users coming onboard on *both* your existing Ning and the new system

Finally, does anyone know what OOOBY is going to do about their Ning network?

Nga mihi nui
Strypey
Permalink Reply by Danyl Strype on May 20, 2010 at 16:35
I tautoko Rimu's concerns about 'walled gardens' and I think this whole situation with Ning illustrates their pitfalls clearly. FaceBook is even more of a walled garden than Ning. FB owns every piece of data you put up on their server. Migration of data might be tricky from Ning to another system, but if you want to take you data from FB, you would be proposing to steal their "intellectual property".

I admire your pragmatism, and good on you for working with what is available. However, I would be careful about equating the number of people 'befriending' a FB profile or 'joining' an FB group with the number of active supporters you have. The psychology of a social networking site is that people don't like saying 'no' to their friends. I have joined hundreds of FB group because I was invited, but in reality I never have time to look at the pages or contribute usefully to them, and if they send me lots of tofu messages through my FB inbox I just leave the group (that's a failing of FB - private messages from 'friends', and mass mailouts from groups and causes should be in separate inboxes by default).

Nga mihi
Strypey
Permalink Reply by Danyl Strype on May 20, 2010 at 16:47
Tena koutou

Jan:
"I think we need a formal Transition Towns organisation that can apply for funds, can employ people (parttime), with the necessary checks and balances (accountability & reporting) in place."

Maintaining a nonprofit entity if a lot of work. You need a committed executive (including chair, secretary, treasurer and committee), an AGM etc. There may be good reasons to have a separate legal entity, but I just want to remind people about PINZ (Permaculture in NZ). PINZ is an incorporate society, and is in the process of registering for charitable status. Since TT is totally compatible with the kaupapa of permaculture, and as I understand it is an outgrowth of the permaculture movement, I see no reason why applying for funding and employing people for TT purposes couldn't be done as an autonomous subproject of PINZ.

For that matter, I would like to see some integration between the PINZ web presence and the TT Aotearoa web presence. This could save a lot of volunteer time and hosting costs that could end up being used up duplicating the same services in isolation.

Nga whakaaro? Thoughts?
Strypey

▶ Reply to Discussion

RSS

Groups -- Login Required to Join

Events -- NZ Time -- Record and Share Notes

© 2012   Created by Deirdre Kent.

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

Sign in to chat!