`Newsgroups: workspace.socializing`

previous    top    workgroup    thread    next

Subject: BUILDING ON-LINE COMMUNITIES - Alfred C. Thompson II From: pit@contrib.DE (Pit Schultz) Date: 24 Jul 1997 13:16:16 +0200 * * * * * BUILDING ON-LINE COMMUNITIES by Alfred C. Thompson II, "Teacher, Hacker, Net Surfer" act2@tiac.net http://www.tiac.net/users/act2/ The latest great "discovery" is that communities can be built on the Internet. On-line communities are not, however, a completely new thing. Usenet newsgroups have existed on-line as communities for years. Bulletin Board sites, such as The Well, have also built real though virtual communities. Employees of Digital Equipment Corporation built international communities of thousands of people using that companies internal network and a tool called VAX Notes. While the implementation details are different, there is much to be learned about building on-line communities from these precedents. Successful on-line communities include a mix of people and types of contributions. Most of all they include large amounts of dialogue. Unanswered speeches, documents without discussion, and one way communication will not make a community. Discussion makes communities. The discussion must also be "safe." The participants must feel that they can express themselves. The most successful on-line communities also include an "in real life" component. *Types of People Most on-line communities consist of a number of types of people. These people provide the give and take that builds community. While a community can exist with a subset, the best (most interesting and stable) include all of them. *Question Askers People who ask questions start things off. In some communities the questions they ask as purely informational. "Is it time to plant?" in a gardening community. Or "what should I buy?" in almost any community. In a political community, and many are even if not in the sense of election events, the questions relate to why things are, how they can be changed, or who's at fault. Questions start dialogue. *Question Answerers People who answer questions are the on-line communities single biggest asset. In many communities the person who answers questions is an expert. People come to learn from them. In "political" communities, the question answerer may just be the person with the most or the loudest or the most extreme opinions. In any case that person either attracts controversy or additional questions. Sometimes they attract both. Having several experts or opinionated people can really spark interesting discussions. Others will wade in from time to time and "stir the pot." *People Who Disagree People who disagree are often a variety of question answerers. They are also, occasionally, people who show up just to disagree with the community. Sometimes they do it for fun. Sometimes they are out to convert people. For whatever reason they speak out in disagreement with the majority of the community. Within reason these people actually help build community. The community rallies to defend itself, supports its resident experts, and fights back against an intruder. People who disagree can be the irritant that builds a pearl in a community. As long as the irritant is not too severe. *People Who Sit and Watch Some would argue that "lurkers", those who read the on-line discussion but don't actively participate are not part of the community. I believe that they are. They may not seem to be actively building the community but they are a part of it. While some of them may never participate, many will. When the time is right, when they feel comfortable enough or when an issue really moves them, they will participate. And of course on the Internet, where readers mean as much in calculating advertising rates, they can not be overlooked. Keeping them interested in returning is important. At Digital, tests we ran indicated that most on-line conferences had between 7 and 10 people who only read for every person who actually wrote to a conference. *Moderators Moderators perform several functions. in some cases they feed conversation. They add comments or ask questions. Sometimes they play the devil's advocate. But most often the watch and make sure the communities rules and mores are followed. Good moderators understand the community and its expectations; they don't try and change a community. Rather they allow it to evolve in safe ways. These are the people with power and authority to enforce rules. They may remove participants or discussion comments. While some communities appear to function well without such people that generally means they are operating quietly and effectively. *Safety Contributors feel safe in a good community. This does not mean that they don't expect to have people disagree with them. Rather it means that the level and type of disagreement will stay within known and tolerable limits. Such limits vary by community. In some disagreement may be hard and fast, flaming may be common. As long as these flames are expected and the recipient is prepared to take them, the discussion may still be considered safe. In other communities the mores and expectations will be different. What the rules are or that they be written is not important. What is important is that the rules are known and enforced either by peer pressure or moderators. *In Real Life Meetings The best on-line communities meet face to face from time to time. The Well had its Well Parties. Digital's VAX Notes communities had their Note's Parties. These face to face meetings built community though a combination of factors. One of course was the "high bandwidth" communication that they facilitated. But more important are the intangible effects of actually looking someone in the eye. People who meet in a social context, be it a diner in a restaurant or a barbecue in someone's backyard, tend not to remain or become enemies. They come to a get together with preconceived notions, what someone looks like, or how their voice sounds, and invariably those notions are shattered. The 6' 6" giant one expects is only 5' 9". The Japanese person one expects to be short and skinny is actually 6' 4" and built like a linebacker. Expectations are seldom realized. One is forced to see, not a stereotype based on ideas and opinions but a real person. The whole community does not need to meet for this to work. It is often enough if a few of the most vocal are involved. The best meetings often involve a few people who are local to each other, who host one or two people, who are normally very far away in geography. These sort of meetings bridge a gap that is more then just physical. It brings a psychological closeness to the group. It is tempting to believe that geography has no meaning to an on-line community. That would be a mistake. The effects of geography are there even if they normally do not effect the flow of conversation. Bridging that physical gap, even if only in part and for a subset of the community, works well to strengthen the community as a whole. *Summary Dialogue is important. People must feel safe and valued. But most important, the people in an on-line community must believe that they are a community. Then and only then does a living, growing and real community exist in the virtual reality of cyberspace. # HybridWorkspace 18.06.-28.09.07 www.documenta.de/workspace # nettime mailinglist: www.desk.nl/~nettime # Internationale Stadt: berlin.icf.de/~pit # email: pit@icf.de temp. tel. : +49 561 108890