(Initial text by Jon L., 4/19/2003)

^^Preamble

SSA was formed to assist, support and defend the creation of social software standards and practices. Social software is a dynamic and constantly evolving environment, rich with possibilities to create better connections between people using tools that support interactions within online communities, social networks, and virtual teams. With a growing number of active developers, we need a central nexus to help drive the process of coordination and interoperability between different developers among existing and emerging products and services. (Revision by Liz L., 4/19/2003, and by Marc 4/25,'03)

^^Purpose of the Alliance

We propose a trade group of social software developers and other interested parties who work together to create and promote open standards for the social software community. Social software blends tools and modes for richer online social environments and experiences that connect to people in the real world. Some examples of social software are weblogs, wikis, forums, chat and instant messaging environments, or instant messaging _other collaboration systems, shared spaces, commons and any virtual world where people interact_ _and related tools and data structures for identity, integration, interchange and analysis. (Revision by Stowe B, 4/20/2003, Marc 4/25/'03)

Q.

• Measures of Success? How do we observe we're doing well, serving our purpose? (rev Phil 5/5/03)
• Constraints or Restrictions? What won't SSA do? (rev Phil 5/5/03)

^^Operating Guidelines

The alliance will:
*aid discovery of developers working on synergistic projects and standards
*assist in shaping open standards that mesh well with other alliance and Internet standards
*help promote each standard and sets of practices to gain wider adoption (Marc 4/25/'03)

The alliance will operate as a decentralized association of social software developers, companies, consultants, students, researchers and practitioners meeting online and in person to propose and discuss standards and practices for the social software and related tools. (Marc 4/24/'03)

^^Membership and Organization

(What's our model? Do we need a board of directors? Formal membership requirements?) (I suggest we let the ants do their thing. Those who do - must, those who won't - don't. At the least - a basic constitution.) (Letting the ants do their thing is cool, but I think we need at least some minimal structure, or we may find the ants marching in circles.) (Ants can behave as ants do because of a few imbedded granular rules that produce emergent behaviors. The only solution here is to put proximity rules in place, ie rules about how each piece of sofware or each wiki or each blog reacts with its "neighbors". If we really are talking about social sofware, think of each piece of code as a social entity with interactions with others. Still the problem is the emergent behavior cannot be determined ex ante by the rules put in place. Experimentation is key. Adam 5/503)