Community rules rule communities: Part 3
Who ya gonna call?
On exclusive community sites, like the Well and Facebook, the community polices itself. With AOL chatrooms, Friendster & MySpace, you need a visible police force. As well, the consequences of bad behavior have different ramifications according to the level of investment in the community. A recent New York Times Sunday Magazine article tells the story a young teen in Missouri who committed suicide, apparently because of falling into a false romance set by the Mother of another girl in the neighborhood. Yet more proof that Junior High is stranger than fiction. While I hope this is an extreme case, it shows the emotional dependence that these sites can engender.
But is there any way that the site could have monitored or prevented this without alienating the users it sought to attract? The jury is still out on this, and is currently waffling about going in. The states attorney in St. Louis refused to prosecute citing lack of evidence but Los Angeles County prosecutor is now rumored to be looking into the case. The appalling reality is the lack of repercussions to these kinds of harassment.
One of many issues here is that different mindsets are drawn to each community. In my experience teaching at art schools, the bad kids are stars on MySpace and the somewhat cleaner young adults post to Facebook. However, the basic motivations of communicating with their friends, establishing some cultural reference points in their profiles and making smarmy comments are always durable pleasures. In the case mentioned above the peer pressure to be seen in the community was a strong motivation, fairly obvious in a thirteen year old but obviously suspect in the Mother.
Can’t Buy an Avatar
So different users desire different things, even different identities from communities and we see evidence of this in the professional communities like LinkedIn and Arrows & Boxes. These communities have expectations of accountability far beyond the social networking sites. LinkedIn is a series of social yardsticks in a very concise form. Professional discourse sites, like Boxes & Arrows, are platforms to express ideas to the community and gain discourse & reputation points in return. Both of these rest on named participation.
Facebook establishes you in a community, but allows a great deal of construction in terms of history, alliances, interactive mechanisms and image selection to create a very personal view within those boundaries. MySpace allows & almost provokes the invention of identity; all you need is some kind of name and email address & a birth date of your own invention. A good tattoo goes much further than a list of likes or pet peeves. It allows, in a way similar to Ebay, people to capitalize on their idiosyncrasies.
MySpace tends to capture people with stronger musical interests because of the ability to embed music in your page; to the point where it has become a crucial viral marketing medium for bands & the tattered remains of the music industry. In contrast, Boxes & Arrows is not known for it’s playful qualities though many of members may have tattoos.
In sum, humans have an uncanny ability to create and desire complexity. Therefore the best rulesets are the most concise. These rules & the effects they will have must be carefully thought through & tested before launching the community; any revisions to the original rulesets will feel like censorship, which damages the impulse to cluster.
On an emotional level, the users are motivated by either collaboration, self promotion or rebellion, which is why attempts to commodify these activities usually fail. Sensitivity to the community is paramount here. They only become viral & successful if their designers recognize that they will be out of control in the specifics, but contained in the general shape by the initial rules. All of these sites attempt to invest you in growing your participation; in order for this growth to be manageable, the premises of behavior need to be straightforward.
Addenda:
While this was intended to be a two part piece it quickly grew to three and the issues raised will be revised & revisited for some time to come. There are only partial solutions to social sites and many people are working very hard to figure out another move in this game. We will talk about those as they appear.
On exclusive community sites, like the Well and Facebook, the community polices itself. With AOL chatrooms, Friendster & MySpace, you need a visible police force. As well, the consequences of bad behavior have different ramifications according to the level of investment in the community. A recent New York Times Sunday Magazine article tells the story a young teen in Missouri who committed suicide, apparently because of falling into a false romance set by the Mother of another girl in the neighborhood. Yet more proof that Junior High is stranger than fiction. While I hope this is an extreme case, it shows the emotional dependence that these sites can engender.
But is there any way that the site could have monitored or prevented this without alienating the users it sought to attract? The jury is still out on this, and is currently waffling about going in. The states attorney in St. Louis refused to prosecute citing lack of evidence but Los Angeles County prosecutor is now rumored to be looking into the case. The appalling reality is the lack of repercussions to these kinds of harassment.
One of many issues here is that different mindsets are drawn to each community. In my experience teaching at art schools, the bad kids are stars on MySpace and the somewhat cleaner young adults post to Facebook. However, the basic motivations of communicating with their friends, establishing some cultural reference points in their profiles and making smarmy comments are always durable pleasures. In the case mentioned above the peer pressure to be seen in the community was a strong motivation, fairly obvious in a thirteen year old but obviously suspect in the Mother.
Can’t Buy an Avatar
So different users desire different things, even different identities from communities and we see evidence of this in the professional communities like LinkedIn and Arrows & Boxes. These communities have expectations of accountability far beyond the social networking sites. LinkedIn is a series of social yardsticks in a very concise form. Professional discourse sites, like Boxes & Arrows, are platforms to express ideas to the community and gain discourse & reputation points in return. Both of these rest on named participation.
Facebook establishes you in a community, but allows a great deal of construction in terms of history, alliances, interactive mechanisms and image selection to create a very personal view within those boundaries. MySpace allows & almost provokes the invention of identity; all you need is some kind of name and email address & a birth date of your own invention. A good tattoo goes much further than a list of likes or pet peeves. It allows, in a way similar to Ebay, people to capitalize on their idiosyncrasies.
MySpace tends to capture people with stronger musical interests because of the ability to embed music in your page; to the point where it has become a crucial viral marketing medium for bands & the tattered remains of the music industry. In contrast, Boxes & Arrows is not known for it’s playful qualities though many of members may have tattoos.
In sum, humans have an uncanny ability to create and desire complexity. Therefore the best rulesets are the most concise. These rules & the effects they will have must be carefully thought through & tested before launching the community; any revisions to the original rulesets will feel like censorship, which damages the impulse to cluster.
On an emotional level, the users are motivated by either collaboration, self promotion or rebellion, which is why attempts to commodify these activities usually fail. Sensitivity to the community is paramount here. They only become viral & successful if their designers recognize that they will be out of control in the specifics, but contained in the general shape by the initial rules. All of these sites attempt to invest you in growing your participation; in order for this growth to be manageable, the premises of behavior need to be straightforward.
Addenda:
While this was intended to be a two part piece it quickly grew to three and the issues raised will be revised & revisited for some time to come. There are only partial solutions to social sites and many people are working very hard to figure out another move in this game. We will talk about those as they appear.
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