A tenuous link to Delphi I accept, but a Google+ suggestion occurred to me, arising from my Delphi-oriented use of it.
A potential problem I am seeing already on Google+ is where I get a notification that “So-And-So” has added me to their circles. In some cases I don’t know this person, but they have added me because *they* know they share a common interest with me. I cannot see that they have this interest, because I am not told which of their circles they added me to or why – and I should not see this.
I appreciate the privacy this affords me when on the other side of the equation.
However, it does make it difficult to establish extended groups of common interests between people who do not otherwise know each other.
Currently with the limited number of people on G+, I can deduce that in such cases the likelihood is that they know me from my activity in the Delphi community and have found me through my “Delphi circles”. But I can only GUESS that this is the case – adding them to a Delphi ciricle is a good guess right now, but as G+ grows and the range of common interests among my extended circles grows, this will soon break down.
When I see that someone who I don’t know has added me to their circles, which of my circles do I add them to? Photography? Delphi? Chris Nolan Fans? Whisky? Cooking? Wine?
What I see is a need to establish a “Circle of Common Interest”
So how’s this for an idea for a Google+ feature that – as far as I can see – doesn’t exist yet:
“Rings” (or “Spheres”) – << continuing the “Circle” metaphor
The Music of The Spheres
A “Ring/Sphere” would be a “super-circle” initially created by someone. Anyone could then add themselves to that that Ring/Sphere – the overall effect would be the same as if everyone in that Ring/Sphere had created a circle of a given name and added everyone else with that circle to their own circle with the same name.
Essentially a “Group”
The creator of a Ring/Sphere would have the ability to specify whether people could add themselves to it without confirmation, require a “moderator/administrator” to accept a “join request” or establish a “Ring/Sphere of Trust” (allow a join request to be accepted by anyone already in that Ring/Sphere.
Obviously there are lots of potential variations on how the fundamental idea could work in practice.
+1 if you think it would be a good addition to Google+. 🙂
isn’t this a community as proposed by Orkut?
Quite conceivably it is a similar concept – it is technically just a “group” after all – but I never claimed originality of concept, only that the concept would be a useful addition, addressing a problem that I see emerging from my use of G+ so far. 🙂
If anyone can send me an invite I would be very happy 🙂 pdrivilas[at]gmail[dot]com
@Pani: Done 🙂
As someone who saw this happen on Orkut, and found that the whole thing became unworkable, I would propose something similar.
People who add you to one of their networks should be able to OPT IN to tell you the name of the network they added you to.
That minimally solves YOUR problem, while not changing the nature of Google+ significantly.
Warren
@Warren: Hmmm, but that does change the nature of Circles, creating a difference where people opt-in to this additional “exposure” and where they do not, and it doesn’t solve the issue of getting endless notifications of people adding me to their “Delphi Circle”, requiring/prompting me to then also add them to *my* Delphi Circle.
Rings/Sphere’s wouldn’t change the nature of Circles or Google+ generally, they would simply be something entirely new (to Google+). If I wanted to maintain my own “Circle of Delphi” then I could, and it would operate just as Circles are intended to.
If I wanted to join the “Delphi Ring”, then it would appear as one of my “Circles” but it would not itself *be* a Circle. It would be something other that works slightly differently to regular Circles precisely because it *is* something slightly different.