Parts of suggestion implemented:

• Any new entry created by a user - such as an organization listing, a job posting, etc - will now automatically be included into a user's network. 
  

Parts of suggestion not implemented:

• We haven't yet included "default relationships" for the automatic creations.  Angus is looking over the list and seeing if there are some reasonable default choices. 
• We also are not automatically adding to the network entries that were just edited by the user.  A user may not want to have everything they touch become part of their network, as that could quickly get unwieldy. 
  
• All relationship types are archived and stored, so we can likely mine this down the road to show some interesting patterns.  We currently are not, but as we develop the network, we'll definitely return to this idea.
• As part of a later revision, we may "grandfather" in entries created previously by users and add it to their networks.  We'll first see how this first iteration goes over with our users, and if it causes an unexpected problems before we proceed with a second phase.

It seems to me that if you join a group as a user or create a resource as a user then these relationships should be automatically added to your network on your profile (and the network of those groups and resources). Shouldn't it be an opt out rather than a laborious opt in for establishing relationships?

Then the question becomes what default relationship descriptor do you use for these types of links. For User to Group - the obvious would be simply 'Member' for User to Resource it could be 'Contributor'. If a user wants to edit the relationship they could always go back and change it and add descriptive text.

Ultimately I expect that WE users should/will have the ability to search for objects in the database through the social net - e.g. which objects are linked to people in my network, or those that are X degrees of separation from me. This will be facilitated by having robust relationship links between all objects in the WE database.

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More thoughts:

Would be good to retroactively (and on an ongoing basis) harvest the database to add network relationships for people who have:

• Created resources / wikipages / jobs and events  - 'creator' relationship as default

• Edited a resources / wikipages (more than X times) - 'editor' relationship as default

• Commented on a resources / wikipages / jobs and events (more than X times?) - What relationship here? None appropriate seems to exist maybe we add 'Commentator'

• Ranked a resources / wikipages / jobs and events (can only be once!) - does this establish a network relationship? Probably not in an off itself.

• Joined a group - 'Member' or 'Admin' depending on current role as default.

• Not sure about how we handle organizations. Probably leave that up to individuals as that is more sensitive.

This change needs to be spelled out in an email to users given the option to opt out entirely of auto-linking in profile settings or by removing links one at a time as they are created. It would be good to have a simple way to remove recently added links  - e.g. all or click specific boxes to remove new auto-links.

by angusparker