Life after Ning

[Vance Stevens]

Hi everyone,

You're probably aware that Ning has changed its business plan with the
result that the future for Ning for communities such as ours are
uncertain after July 2010.  I've been tracking URLs relevant to this at http://delicious.com/vancestevens/ning

There are several issues regarding what to do about Ning communities. 
One is content.  If you have any content here you would like preserved
you should back it up to an alternate location.  If you do that, please
tag is so it will retain some connection with this community.  Suggested
tags for content emanating from here are:

multiliteracies evomlit evo2010 evo10

The second issue is the community itself.  One option is to pay to
perpetuate this Ning, and the owners might consider this option once the
pricing plan becomes clear.  If this were to be the case, members here
could possibly carry on as before until the owners decided to stop paying
the bills. It does not seem feasible to me to ask the members to
contribute in any way, as this would alter the culture of this free
community, create logistical nightmares, require maintenance, Paypal ...
stop, we don't want to go there!

However, It should be possible to migrate our community to a new
location.  By migrate community, I mean move the members to a new space,
but not content here (is this possible? if so, how?).  This itself
raises other questions. First, which community?  One I have considered
because I understand it works and is simply achieved is grou.ps. 
Another that has been recommended to me is http://www.mixxt.net. 
Another I like the feel of is Cloudworks.

A second issue is that as this would involve mass one-click migration it
has been suggested (on at least one forum) that it might annoy some
members to be herded like this to a new community without their prior
consent.

This then is the strategy I suggest:

I plan to be traveling this July, but there is no
need to do anything before June. So my first step is to ask members
via this forum what they think about being involved in migration
experiments, and then in June, if it appears that this Ning community
cannot be maintained, I would like to try a few migration options.  Would it disturb you if you found yourself enrolled in two or three
communities, assuming I am able to do this as administrator of this community? or would you relish participating in such
experiments? Do you have any suggestions for any other communities we
might try?

If you have any thoughts on this please reply to this forum.

Vance

[Mariel Amez]

Hi, Vance.

First of all, let me say I would relish participating in such experiments. In fact, I have been experimenting with mixxt, socialgo & grou.ps. Of course they are all different from Ning, so we should each assess which of the Ning features we valued the most.

Socialgo is the one I liked the least. Too many of the features are only available through a Premium account, and requires separate login for user and admin interface.

I started using grou.ps with a new class. I had created a Ning site for them shortly before the announcement, so I had no users and little content. So far, I'm not pleased. Even though blogposts can be tagged, the tags are not visible when one reads the post, there is no cloud (which there is for videos & photos), and, most importantly, the search function involves titles, but not tags. Videos can only be embedded from YouTube, MetaCafe & DailyMotion (apparently no Teacher Tube or Vimeo, and no uploading).

I created a mixxt network, but it's still experimental (no users). I think blogging is a little complicated (users are not issued their own blog upon joining, but need to create it manually before writing the first post - I haven't fully figured this out yet). The search function does seem first rate, and with a tag cloud on the main page which brings in images, videos, posts, it should be dead easy to track content.

Having said that, I'm far from an expert, so there may be "flaws" which are simply a reflection of my inexperience and inability. It would be a great opportunity for me to see what webheads can do with different networks. It also remains to be seen what kind of "export" of content Ning will deliver in July (if they keep their word), and what compatibility it may have. Needless to say, I fully endorse the decision to abandon Ning: their behaviour should not be condoned - let alone rewarded with payment.

Looking forward to reading other comments.

Mariel

[Vance Stevens]

Hi all,

Thanks Mariel for experimenting with various choices for Ning replacements. I have decided to go with Grouply and not prolong this Ning network. Grouply allows easy upload of Ning content (including members, so it's a ready-made continuation of our community) but without blogs unfortunately. However, I did import the blogs to Posterous. Here are the details of our URLs associated with this Ning, being updated here: http://tinyurl.com/ningthing

* Multiliteracies
evo2010mlit
123members
o http://multiliteracies.ning.com
Applied for sponsorship by Pearson, awaiting approval(awaiting their response, no response as of 10 July 2010)
o Requested backup from Save My Ning on June 30, 2010
(awaiting their response, no response as of 10 July 2010)
o Migrated Blogs to Posterous: http://multiliteracies.posterous.com
+ Nina Liakos ported her own blog postings from Ning to Posterous
http://ninaevomlit2010.posterous.com/
+ Marial Amez: http://literaturettc.posterous.com/
o Migrated to Grouply: http://multiliteracies.grouply.com/
+ Mariel Amez: http://lit2009.grouply.com/
o Set up: http://multilit.spruz.com/ (no automatic import of membership)
o Used Ning Archive feature to retain archives of following JSON files
+ I got several files containing all but media content
# members 2147 media files NOT downloaded
# blogs 4 media files NOT downloaded
# discussions 3 media files NOT downloaded
# events 16 media files NOT downloaded
# groups 2 media files NOT downloaded
# music
# pages
# notes
# photos 76 media files NOT downloaded
# videos 2 media files NOT downloaded
+ I decided not to download apprx. 2200 media files to my computer
(members please take individual responsibility for this)

I'll be sending a message via Grouply shortly to all members who successfully ported with us to http://multiliteracies.grouply.com/

Nice knowing you, and see you on the 'other' side,
Vance

[Vance Stevens]

Hi everyone, I'm replying on this forum to see if it will generate an email. I'll send this out on the YahooGroup list as well. That's now the same as at http://multilit.grouply.com

This Ning is about to be co-opted for the next rendition of the TESOL PPOT 107 course on Multiliteracies for Social Networking and Collaborative Learning Environments. The course will begin on Sept 6 and ends Oct 3, 2010. You might have noticed I've been face-lifting it (didn't delete anything, just been moving stuff around).

This course continues with a Ning portal thanks to the generosity of Pearson Education, who are sponsoring Nings with memberships of up to 150 members. Right now, this Ning has almost 140 members, but many are inactive or perhaps even spammers. So we will have to cull out inactive members here.

If you wish to remain a part of this Ning, please update your profile with some personal information, and hopefully your picture or avatar. Once we reach 150 members, we'll have to start removing profiles of those who have not interacted here.

Regarding the tag for this course, let's continue using evomlit, or if you want to flag something for this group in particular, use ppot107 as well. These will come to the attention of past and present members of this group as well as only the current ones.

I'm also updating the http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/ portal and moving the old content over to an archived section. Again, I won't throw out anything of substance (unless there are broken links ;-).

Oh, if you're receiving or viewing this message, you are most welcome to participate in the new event. Maybe see you there,

Vance

[Mariel Amez]

Been lurking for a while, but would like to remain as a member as long as that doesn't prevent new people from profiting from the experience. Just do what you must do!
Thanks in advance
Mariel



Vance Stevens said:

Hi everyone, I'm replying on this forum to see if it will generate an email. I'll send this out on the YahooGroup list as well. That's now the same as at http://multilit.grouply.com

This Ning is about to be co-opted for the next rendition of the TESOL PPOT 107 course on Multiliteracies for Social Networking and Collaborative Learning Environments. The course will begin on Sept 6 and ends Oct 3, 2010. You might have noticed I've been face-lifting it (didn't delete anything, just been moving stuff around).

This course continues with a Ning portal thanks to the generosity of Pearson Education, who are sponsoring Nings with memberships of up to 150 members. Right now, this Ning has almost 140 members, but many are inactive or perhaps even spammers. So we will have to cull out inactive members here.

If you wish to remain a part of this Ning, please update your profile with some personal information, and hopefully your picture or avatar. Once we reach 150 members, we'll have to start removing profiles of those who have not interacted here.

Regarding the tag for this course, let's continue using evomlit, or if you want to flag something for this group in particular, use ppot107 as well. These will come to the attention of past and present members of this group as well as only the current ones.

I'm also updating the http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/ portal and moving the old content over to an archived section. Again, I won't throw out anything of substance (unless there are broken links ;-).

Oh, if you're receiving or viewing this message, you are most welcome to participate in the new event. Maybe see you there,

Vance

[Vance Stevens]

Hi Mariel,

Don't worry, we would never drop a member of this group as active as you. We constantly have applications to join our Ning. A typical spambot will randomly generate a name along with an email address having no relation to the name. Often that email address contains numbers as well. There will be minimal profile information, a random age, and a random location given. Normally that will be all there is.

When I get such an application I reject it. The problem comes when all the above are met except that the name and the email address coincide. In these cases I might accept the member, especially at this time when we are restarting a course.

We have a lot of these. I can get rid of 20 such profiles. There is no activity and no additional profile information. Likely they are timebomb spammers.

If we do find spam in our group (or if YOU find it, let me know) I can delete that member and all associated content, so all spam associated with that member is removed.

I now moderate all memberships here due to that problem and I think I've set up a capcha as well, after the hassle of several spam attacks.

So if you're human and reading this and want to participate in this course, please put something sensible in your profile so I'll know not to delete you when I need to make room for more,

Vance

Mariel Amez said:

Been lurking for a while, but would like to remain as a member as long as that doesn't prevent new people from profiting from the experience. Just do what you must do!
Thanks in advance
Mariel