what about having a sort of “opening hours” for discussion groups or communities, like saying for example allowing the members of a grour or community to interact or start discussions etc just in certain scheduled time during the day or the week etc… like teh metaphor of the “real life” events like when you have saved a particular time for going to the gym or going to a theatre or meeting with some friends etc like going to an “event” (it should be an option feature so that groups or communities can activate this feature if they want (it would help to make the social network less invasive or to loss less time in our “real life” (different from fb where you cannot scape almost trying to catch in real time all teh evens or discussions or interactions on each of the groups and making a mess if you want to have a more productive or focused life …
hope it makes sense… perhaps allowing teh development of extensions or add-ons could address this sort of features ?? sorry I don’t know if all these is feasible since I am not a programmer but wanted to share the “idea” itself with you all guys…
thanks a lot a cheers
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with Diaspora, you can even control your time !
There are tools, such as Block Site, that can prevent access to certain websites so that you aren’t tempted to visit them and waste time there. Once you’ve gotten work done, then you can unblock the site. (Check the add-ons or extensions site for your browser.)
This would be neither helpful nor desirable for a social network, because users are all in different timezones, and the times when some people are working, others are having dinner. What’s more, soc.net developers want users to be using their products more, not less, so having it shut off at certain times would be bad for that.
(Sorry if I misunderstood you.)
As for having times for community events, etc., this reminds me of Reddit’s AMAs and Google+'s Hangouts. I don’t know that we actually have any celebrities using D*, and even if we did, D* isn’t really made for that kind of thing. We could do something like Hangouts, if we had video, but that’s a very advanced feature, so we’re probably a long ways off from that. However, there has been some push for support of (real world) events, similar to what’s on G+ and Facebook, where you create an event and invite your friends, etc.
Personally, I’d rather see groups first. I think that’d go much further towards building community than events.
Thanks @brent for your replies !
I don’t mean a sort of censored control like that extension that limits you from entering to the certain websites scheduling a time (thats more like a parental control) I mainly mean a settings that the administrator of the group could control … is basically about having settings to control the way you share or manage a group or a community … it should optional to put scheduled time in which people involved could INTERACT so to speak… of course th group could always be showing all what has been posted even if the is not open for discussions… not sure if iit makes sense but trying to replicate a metaphor of teh real life in which when you go to a place you could see the windows showing the stuff etc but if is not open u canno’t “enter” so to speak …
but as I said it is just an option that the administrator’s could decide to control or not… if the dynamic of ghe group is like that…
is mainly about having controls and more control over the way you decide do interact in a group or community … sometimes those controls could allow a particular dynamic of interaction that could be more valid for certain groups (not for others of course) anyway is about having more settings and more options to control those things
I keep thinking that still many social networks are not emulating the “real life” as it is (or as it “should be”… ) interaction is still so conductist so to speak (just clicking to lile a post) but not offering teh chance to really exchange in a conversational way interacting on a subjjet that is happening at that right time… I keep thinking that it shoudl be more settings to allow controlling all those aspects (yes even perhaps merging the concepts of video conferencing or just audio chatting like the google plus hangouts etc,… not sure but I just visualize that sort of things even though not sure on how to properly write them into a clear concept to be transfer into a social network interface…
Hope it all makes sense 
thanks a lot for participating with your expertise and opinions !!
I think this is a great idea. Of course groups need to be implemented first, but I definitely think this is worth keeping and considering until then.
If a group grows big it would totally make sense to somewhere in the settings be able to restrict when what can be done. Conceptually it’s like a feature freeze or whatever, like saying “we do this at this time, everyone at once, instead of spreading it out and having slower communication as a result”. Only difference to now would be that there would be less junk in the groups’ streams.
As an example an group for testing of an application could be readonly until 9.00 so that the admin has time to sum up the bugs already known, that have been fixed or other info, before letting everybody get onto the discussions. Benefit? A lot of questions gets answered without filling up the stream. So a group could with this be used for meetings and stuff too.
Thanks a lot @ivangabrielmoren for your feedback… yes it would be good since as an option for certain groups that would like this type of dynamic… perhaps it goes on the category of an “event” not sure how this could be implemented… but the idea is that (certain groups or communities would like been able to interact together at a particular time of the day (scheduled one does not matter about different hours zone of the world as long as people want to participate they would deal with teh issues (administrators could always change teh settings etc so is a matter of having options…) cause at the moment social networks are so limited… we all seem be behaving like the "pavlov’s dog (http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html) just pressing “like” and or leaving a comment that perhaps thet other person would reply when not reading and looking through all the rest of facebook posts etc… it all seems so “behaviorist” till the moment (so ridiculously cold and distant… not sure if I manage to explain the idea…
so many times there are issues that if are not interacted at teh right time it would not give any result at all so in certain communities or groups with interests on discussing a particular issue this features could be helpful I guess…
I keep thinking the metaphor for these sort of settings are always present in the dynamic of the “real life” lets say when you go to a bar or a pub you know you would meet up with the people at certain time… of course the group has always its wall with all the stuff posted. people can always enter and see what is going on … but the interaction could start a scheduled period of the day or the week (if teh case) always a settign that you could control … you could even leave it open 24 hours a day so to speak by default …
regards…
