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The Idea
In light of recent discussion, I'd like to bring back an idea I posted about a few weeks ago. I think this is highly relevant to the continued growth of the vine, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone who considers themselves a part of the community would weigh in on this. The idea I'm submitting for consideration and discussion isn't a new one - I want to talk about group functionality within Newsvine. At its most basic level, this would allow users to band together and create sub-communities within the large newsvine community. You can almost think of them as corporations - in many ways, they would be treated as individuals, but would have a group behind them. Users can form and/or join these groups, which would have various benefits as outlined below.
Group Abilities
- Meta-Organization
This is going to be the primary reason that 90% of users join groups. Let's say I'm really interested in science. I could simply keep an eye on The Science Section and that would be fine, I'd be sure to get all the latest news that is tagged "science." Oh, but wait a second, here's 15 seeds to the same story from the Discovery Institute, I'm not interested. And here's something on Christian scientists. And here's a science fiction writers convention. In fact, here's something about astronomy, which I am profoundly uninterested in though this is at least tagged properly. And let's not forget the ten thousand user posts reiterating the same bad ideas - not that some aren't great, but a lot of user content is rubbish that I'd rather not sort through when I'm in a hurry. (I'm rude and can't be bothered.) What is the solution? I join VineSci, the elitist newsvine science group. They share my disdain for the discovery institute, bad science writing and astronomy, for some reason. The members are all interested in the same stories in which I am interested, and so by browsing their page instead of the main science page I can be sure that the stuff I'm not interested in will be filtered out.How will this work? The same way Newsvine organization works, through posts and seeds - except internally, groups are able to post to only the group and are able to "seed" only content that already exists in newsvine. In this way, groups filter content in a way that even the tag system is unable to do. As a side note, I want to make clear that if you are not a member of a particular group then this is all entirely invisible to you - the group filtering/meta-org functionality is completely internal and nondestructive. In fact, I was even toying around with the idea of requiring a specific group client to participate in the group - but that's going a bit far into the realm of superfluity.
- Enhanced Moderation
Since groups are non-destructive and entirely optional, they should be able to take slightly more drastic measures when it comes to comment/discussion moderation. This horse was beat to death in an earlier discussion, but I'd like to bring back one element: subjective user rating. Let's say my elitist tendencies aren't satisfied by simply filtering out main content in which I'm uninterested. Let's say I'm also very irritable and easily annoyed by comments which I feel are simply idiotic. On any good non-scifi non-astronomy science thread with lots of comments, there are always going to be a handful of users who write ignorant things - maybe they are preaching religious views, or misrepresenting ideas, or being needlessly hostile. Newsvine itself, without groups, can't really do anything about these comments - we are told to ignore them and set an example, etc. But groups have a bit more power.I propose that each group be given the ability to vote on individual comments, and in so doing build over time user ratings. If group members consistantly vote against content from a particular individual, it should be somehow flagged as not worth reading. Conversely, perhaps through some sort of integration with the meta-org system, if a user consistently gets positive reviews from group members, that person's content should also be flagged. Maybe put these scores on a sliding scale from 0-1000, and everyone starts at 500. Let's say group members have the option to set thresholds - I don't want to see anything anywhere from anyone whose rating is 250 or below. But, anyone whose rating is 800 or above automatically gets added to my group's content page without any members having to internally seed him or her. That sort of thing. Discuss.
- Group Columns
This one is a bit more simple, but groups should be able to open public columns just like individuals. Group members with sufficient standing within the group are able to post as members of that group instead of just individuals. Sort of a group-blogging feature. Since ultimately there is always a single individual writing the story, in the end all group column links will dead-end in individual links, but it's a nice added functionality. Actually, now that I think about it, this wouldn't be so cut and dry - how would this work? I think it's important that groups are able to add content as groups, not as individuals. - Language/Region/Specialist Support
This is where this discussion ran headlong into the more pressing language support discussion. The idea calvin espoused was that groups could be formed to handle foreign language implementation - sort of base groups in every language working on a volunteer basis for now, which would serve as the springboard for that countries newsvine.co.XX. Jacque Frenchman could start a french group, and members who can speak french join. Perhaps those who are fluent in french and english could register as such, and they are responsible for check the quality of translations. I would then go to www.newsvine.co.fr and it would the French Group Column, in a sense. Ya follow? This could work.Another possible way to build on this implementation is the use of specialists - these are professionals or experts in their fields. We could have a group made up of physics professors, a group of wallstreet analysts, etc - sort of build-in legitimacy, provided these people are willing to cooperate. And it's entirely optional and self-regulated - so how swanky is that?
Conclusions
There's obviously a lot to discuss here. How do you folks feel about these issues? I know there is going to be a lot of controversy, especially over feature-creep and we don't need this and this is a news site not a group site etc - but in a way, that's the whole point. In my experience, the main thing that prevents a solid community from forming on newsvine is the great disparity of opinion between users, on everything from science curriculum to politics to how newsvine should be used. In fracturing the community into groups, we would in essence be providing a community of communities, with a niche for everyone and everyone in their niche.
