Many users of social networks are feeling helpless in front of the information they have to read. This kind of feeling has nothing to do with the presented content but with the allowed feedback a user can provide. Different types of social networks can be classified according how helpless a user feels.
On the lowest level, RSS feed aggregator websites provide no opportunity to the user to comment. On the http://planet.gnome.org/ website, the user gets on a single site the latest news from different sources but his ability to react is limited. All what he can do is to scroll throw the list and click on the links.
A more elaborated way in constructing a social network provide the user the ability to comment and to vote for a certain headline. The Google+ social network is a well known example. Similar to planet gnome, the user sees the aggregated news from different sources, but he the ability to write a small comment like “nice website” under an entry.
But how much ability to interact is needed by a user? This depends on the amount of information. If the social networks displays more information from very different sources this is equal to a bombardement of the user. The social networks sees the user as a victim and uses content as a weapon against him. This is called information overload. The user has no opportunity to fight back, the only thing what he can do is stay away from the website at all, but then he is in danger to miss important information.
The latest generation of social networks allows the user to stay on the website but feeling comfortable. This is possible by given the user more options to react to the presented content. A well known example for a First class social networking website is Wikinews https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page Similar to Google+ the website provides information from different sources. If the user doesn't like a headline, he can edit the entire article. He is in total control over the network. The only thing what the user can't change is the original information. Let me give an example.
The Guardian has published as new article about advancement in Robotics. Wikinews thinks that this is a story and creates on top of the guardian article a new wikipage. If the user edits the headline of the wikipage, the headline of the original Guardian article remains the same. The power of the user ends at the social network, he is not allowed to edit the underlying source.
The direct comparison between planet Gnome and Wikinews is an intellectual interesting challenge. Planet gnome presents to the user a nearly static website. The HTML page on the screen is the result of the Planet feedreader converter. Planet gnome is a minimalistic social network, the only feature is, that a playlist of URLs is rendered to the screen. The only possible decision of the enduser is, if he clicks on a link or not. For example, if the user is pressing three times on the first URL on the list, the traffic counter of the underlying blog gets noticed that the audience is very interested in the content.
In contrast, Wikinews provides to the user more decisions. Similar to Planet gnome the user is allowed to click on the link to the original content. Additionally, the user can drop a comment on the comment section, he can investigate the version history or the wiki page, he can modify the fulltext, he can add a picture to the wiki article, and he can even contact the admin to flag the wikinews entry as spam.
What he can't do in the Wikinews project is to contact the author of the original content. In the above described example the content was from the Guardian newspaper. In the Wikinews article only the URL to the source is given. In an article about the invention of an artificial life form https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/US_scientist_says_he_created_first_%27artificial_life_form%27 the URL of the original source was inserted into the wiki page in a special syntax:
== Sources ==
*{{source|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
|title=I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer
|author=Ed Pilkington
|pub=Guardian Unlimited
|date=October 6, 2007}}
This markup is rendered to the screen as a clickable link. The user has no ability to provide feedback to the link. The only thing what he can do is to click on the URL or not. He is not allowed to delete the original Guardian article from the Internet, because it is an external website which is not connected to Wikinews.
This kind of restriction is the only one on the Wikinews page, everything else can be modified by the user. In the given mediawiki installation the user is allowed to edit nearly anything and if he is trusted by the other users, he can even become an admin of the website and gets control over the root server.