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Thoughts on Online Communities: Clay Shirky - A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy
Somebody from Joel on Software forum recommended this article on behavior of online communities:February 21, 2006 1:18 PM
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Thanks to Mr. Shirky for raising some pitfalls to be aware of. Seems at this time I'm more liberal then he is. Thru the reading I feel his idea that we should create barriers for behavior we think is bad. What if we let the community to decide what is "bad"? No - not the community - beware of "tyranny of the majority" - but a concrete individual can be responsible for its own actions and avoid what he think is bad.
This will be a goal for talkinghub.com . To help individual to work with what he think is good.
Also I have new thing to add to his list of things. When we are talking about online communities, there are no rules.
We can note some social online patterns from the past. Those patterns are pretty weak. And we can have much different result even with a small change.
Denis Krukovsky.
2 more in web social socialsoftware online link forum shirky talkinghub psychology community
Thoughts on Online Communities:Clay Shirky, Denis response, my thouthts
After reading the article in question I admit to wondering what the point of the entire exercise was.Beginning with data gathered in the middle of the last century, and moving forward to analyze just bits of the online community, I could assert nearly anything I wanted about community software, based upon the small scale demographics he seems to have used to come to his conclusions.
We are and were all aware of the pitfalls to be found in community software, much the same pitfalls I might add, as those which are apparent in community groups of any kind, be they online or offline.
Granted he does perhaps have valid insights into the ways in which a user of a public forum will behave, however, it appears to me that he is writing from gathered data, not from actual experience.
As someone who has used every type of chat software, beginning with the BBS system, up to and including working as customer service director for one of the largest gaming sites on the internet, hosting gaming rooms and working with online medical communities I've seen software that was used as it was supposed to be, and software that was not.
He does make a valid point in that the users are there for each other. Hence the term community.
In truth a large part of that is dependent upon the user that the software targets. If in fact it targets a group of individuals such as physicians, nurses and attorneys, it will be used with a far different result than that which targets lonely rebellious teenagers. It doesnt' appear to me that he has made the differentiation in coming to his conclusions.
Roberta Drake
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