[p2p-research] Defining Real Social Networks, an important initiative

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends,

I think this initiative should deserve our support, see
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/on-anoptism-true-distributed-architectures-and-the-need-for-real-social-networks/2008/01/04

thanks for adding your comments there.

I'm hoping that Kasper will launch a process to work on this,

Michel

Text:

Amongst the people I admire and have met are to French persons:
Francois Rey<http://www.linkedin.com/in/fmjrey>and Olivier Auber. I
visited Francois in his home in Carpentras, a very
memorable experience, and Olivier came to visit me recently with his family
in Chiang Mai, where we had extremely fruitful discussions.

What they share in common is a desire for true distributed architectures,
that are not under the control of intermediary powerbrokers.

I must admit that I have often a more pragmatic approach. My take, if peer
to peer being the relational dynamic emerging in distributed networks, is
that we can use a quasi-commons and pseudo-commons approach, i.e. evolve
self-organization even in proprietary platforms, simply using whatever works
for our purposes of creating more autonomous human communities. That
situation is far from perfect, but can be used to our advantage, and is a
tremendous social advancement already, even in its imperfect forms. We have
to develop a literacy of what constitute our common and different interests
with such platform organizers, just as the workers had to negotiate with
factory owners, until such time as we live in a society which is dominated
by the peer to peer form.

At the same time, I agree with have to create and struggle for more
autonomous and open social networks, but that will take time and effort.
Both the imperfect social web, our efforts to change it to our needs, and
the construction of more fully distributed peer to peer infrastructures,
should proceed in parallel.

Francois and Olivier are more insistent on the latter, seeing the dangers of
hybrid approaches where the interests of the platform owners, essentially
selfish private-benefit
corporations<http://p2pfoundation.net/Private-Benefit_Corporation>,
constantly limit and manipulate our behaviours in view of monetizing them.
Francois says we have to re-design the internet
completely<http://tiki.village-planetaire.net/tiki-index.php>,
while Olivier affirms that we really not have any true distributed
architectures yet.

In our conversation, Olivier introduced the concept of
anoptism<http://anoptique.com/>.
As our readers will recall, panoptism is the structure where only the
hierarchy possesses the information about the network, while
holoptism<http://p2pfoundation.net/Holoptism>is the principle where
everything is visible to all, and it is the principle
of transparency and participation-capture which is designed in the new
social web and peer project applications. Olivier insists that there is also
always an invisible architecture, that we cannot see, but nevertheless
influences and determines our behavioural choices. This is why, especially
in 'untrue' or 'incomplete' network systems, there is always anoptism,
invisibility, and that it is an urgent technical and political task to
achieve transparency in these social
protocols<http://p2pfoundation.net/Protocol>as well.

Which brings to an important new and related initiative, still in its
budding stages, but already announced by Kasper Souren in his
blog<http://guaka.org/2007/12/01/i-grabbed-realsocialorg/>:
Real Social. RealSocial.org <http://realsocial.org/> is a similarly inspired
initiative to define 'true social networks' and to give them a stamp of
approval. It seems to me this is congruent with the efforts of Francois and
Olivier, and I would suggest to evolve it in a kind of certification
instrument for the peer to peer community. What are the criteria for 'real
social networks' and 'true distributed infrastructures'? What systems answer
to those criteria. So just as we could judge free software by their
licenses, we could judge social networks by the measure of individual and
social autonomy that they allow.

Guaka (Kasper's online name) writes that:

"*I'm thinking of distinguishing Real Social and real social networks*.

*I'd consider CouchSurfing, BookCrossing, and all current ride share
websites that I'm aware of, as real social networks. They lead to real life
connections or actual forms of exchange, with less time spent offline than
online.*

*I could think of three that would fit my criteria for being Real Social:
BeWelcome, Ripple and Hitchwiki. The capitalization comes from the way the
networks, its organization and the software is developed*."

A priority, it seems to me, is to start with work on a definition of what
constitutes Real Social, or more formally, a Definition of Real Social
Networks, in the tradition of the definitions we already have, such as:

1. The Open Standards
Definition<http://perens.com/OpenStandards/Definition.html>.
By Bruce Perens.

2. Open Standards Requirement for
Software<http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Standards_Requirement_for_Software>

3. Free Content Definition<http://p2pfoundation.net/Free_Content_Definition>

4. Open Knowledge Definition<http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Knowledge_Definition>

5. Definition of Free Cultural
Works<http://p2pfoundation.net/Definition_of_Free_Cultural_Works>

6. Open Source Definition <http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Source_Definition>

7. Debian's Free Software
Guidelines<http://p2pfoundation.net/Debian%27s_Free_Software_Guidelines>

A question that comes up is the following: should we distinguish between the
technology layer, to arrive at a definition of 'true distributed
archictures' and a separate definition for the requirements of Real Social
networks, that would have the 'social requirements'?.

In any case, thanks to Kasper for launching this initiative.

Progress will also be monitored through our Standards page.

-- 
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