Ticket #9281 (closed PLIP: wontfix)

Opened 7 years ago

Last modified 7 years ago

Use dashboard as social networking tool

Reported by: laurenskling Owned by:
Priority: minor Milestone: 4.0
Component: Unknown Version:
Keywords: social network, dashboard, web2.0 Cc: plip-advisories@…

Description

The one thing that (out of the box) Plone is missing right now is a social networking opportunity, the big thing in the web2.0 hype. While people are starting to talk about web3.0, let's realize our last steps into web2.0.

Motivation.

When research reports like the one from Idealware compare Plone to other CMSs it always get top points but lacks web2.0 features. This while Plone is actually quite close to having a social network; the dashboard. It already has the profile page. If we create a way to link profiles as friends, we have the basics of a social network. People can see the work others have done and send messages.

Assumtions.

Plone trunk ideas are to pimp the author profile page anyway.

Proposal.

  • Allow users to tag each other as friends.
  • Use the profile page more as a networking profile.
  • Allow commenting on profiles to imitate sending messages.

Implementation.

Add a multi-reference field to the profile containing links to friends. I think conventional commenting can do to send messages back and forth.

Risks.

It can be a risk that it turns out to be sloppy seconds. We have to try not to imitate facebook or myspace, but just make it another decent social networking tool that stands by itself.

Change History

comment:1 Changed 7 years ago by hannosch

Personally I'd like this functionality to grow up as an add-on package first and only after we have seen what works and what is used, to adopt this into the core. I haven't seen many people actually looking for this type of functionality in Plone sites very often. For any kind of social site, Plone as a whole is not a good solution and people tend to use PHP-based CMS's instead anyways. In my opinion we shouldn't try to compete in the social space, as there's too much functionality that people look for and we don't have at all.

comment:2 Changed 7 years ago by MatthewWilkes

I agree with hannosch. Also, your implementation description is far too barren, how would a reference field be implemented? What would the UI changes be?

comment:3 Changed 7 years ago by alecm

This is complex and would require a large number of infrastructure changes which makes it somewhat inappropriate for 4.0. It is probably best provided as an add-on product, since the functionality is not really core-CMS functionality.

comment:4 Changed 7 years ago by limi

Hi Laurens,

I'd love to work with you on this as an add-on product that can possibly be shipped with a future version of Plone. Shoot me an email, and let's try to do a Skype session or something to hash out the initial scope, I think we can get pretty far with not a lot of changes here.

I do agree that this is definitely out of scope for 4.0, though. :)

comment:5 Changed 7 years ago by erikrose

Clearing Owner field of 4.0 PLIPs so we can use it to mean "implementor". (Many of these owners were automatically assigned from choosing a Component that had a default owner.)

comment:6 Changed 7 years ago by smcmahon

  • Cc plip-advisories@… added

comment:7 Changed 7 years ago by MatthewWilkes

FWT Vote: -1

comment:8 Changed 7 years ago by rossp

FWT vote -1. Sounds like a great add-on, though!

comment:9 Changed 7 years ago by davisagli

FWT vote: -1. This sort of thing is hard to get right both from a design and implementation perspective, so I very much agree with the approach of tackling it first as an add-on product. If there are changes needed in Plone core to support such an add-on, of course, then we should consider those individually and separately.

I imagine that such an add-on would be easier to build in a membrane-based site where you can take advantage of the fact that members are real content that can have references.

comment:10 Changed 7 years ago by raphael

FWT vote: -1

Please do this as an add-on first and then let us know where you needed to patch core components. Then we can get started on more ...

comment:11 Changed 7 years ago by calvinhp

FWT Vote: -1 a great add-on, but not part of our core features as it deviates from our primary focus of managing content.

comment:12 Changed 7 years ago by esteele

  • Status changed from new to closed
  • Resolution set to wontfix

Rejected for Plone 4.0 by FWT vote.

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