Slashdot Mirror
Rethinking the Virtual Community: Part Four
Early visions of the Virtual Community haven't come to pass for a variety of reasons. The idea is powerful and enduring, but is in need of reconception and redesign. VC's of the future may have to draw from the backyard fence, the tavern and town hall, water cooler, and the old-fashioned office. Is the Virtual Community a real possibility? Can it survive the growth, size and commercialization of the Net, as well as flamers, thieves, vandals, fakers and digital anarchy? What ought to be the responsibilities of members? How would you design or redesign it?
BUT, I'd like to point out that the original NeverWinter Nights community "just happened." In other words, it went in a direction that no-one planned for. And re-creating the environment simply enabled the communicty that "just happened," but had dispersed, to reconvene again.
I don't mean to say that you can't affect the community that's out there, but I tend to think that changes need to be made in _response_ to what people are doing, not in _anticipation_ to what someone thinks they will do. Jon Katz seems to be suggesting that people need to map out what a community will be before the community gets there, which I think is somewhat silly.
A planned community is not a community, it's a barracks.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
You can plan an army. You can plan a cult. You can plan a corporate environment. You can't plan a community.
A community is the sum of the myriad of individuals, with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies, who interact with each other in the same space, real or virtual. These things happen, they can't be planned, they can't be regulated and remain a community. Communities are not cut and dry things, they just happen. It's messy.
The reason why communities fall apart is because the people who participate in them stop participating. Perhaps the environment within the community has changed, and the people who add value to it no longer wish to participate. Perhaps they no longer have the time to do so. Who knows? But you can't just go out there and plan a community.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
many virtual communities, Quake, IRC channels, etc are (in my experience) a collection of people who are hiding behind their computer screens and not acting the way that they would IRL. Many of them are annoying little brats online but are quiet and reserved IRL.
.02
it actually annoys me when they make comments like "where do you live, I will come kick your ass". I honestly doubt that many of them could or really would. If you are going to make stupid comments, do them elsewhere...
IRC channel op's also tend to annoy me. Most of them think that they are God. They most likely don't have any power IRL and feel the need to make up for this on the Internet. Please go spend your free time doing something productive outside the "Virtual Community" rather than sitting there kick/banning people b/c they told you what everyone tells you to your face...
This is not a flamebait or bullshit, this is my personal thoughts on my experiences w/VC's on the Internet...
If you are one of these idiots please take note and remember that most people could care less that you have an @ or you are an Admin, or whatever. You are no better than the rest of us.
Just my worthless
Virtual communities happen when like-minded people get together and care about the community.
I'm a member of a couple of small, exclusive communities. Mostly email based and the only way to get in is if someone recommends you _and_ nobody has any objections.
That way, we keep the yammering idiots out and we keep the group small enough to have meaningful conversations.
_____
My Journal
You mean, when one's karma reaches 50 one hasn't attained ultimate perfection as an individual? OMG!
But you're defining a "REAL" community as one where members care about trivialities in each other's meatspace lives, such as marriage. Heck, I have "real"-life friends with whom I never really discuss such stuff. Babies? Marriage? Death in the family? It's all irrelevant! The question is, how are we going to implement the next cool idea???
BTW, best wishes for your impending marriage! ;^)
Katz is a Wired-mag reject - frightening thought, but the reality of it doesn't disappoint - who washed up on the shores of Slashdot. Like all "writers" paid to be controversial in newspapers, magazines and on websites, he parades his own half-baked opinions as though they were established facts, the results of years of diligent study. It's a classic technique that still suckers people. It's the very definition of "troll".
So why am I here? Ah, but I have a mission: to spread the word to those who mistake Katz's drivel as a serious attempt at discourse. Be warned: that way lies madness!!!
Check out the following books:
Fair warning, I am an Amazon affiliate, and will get a vig if you buy the books after following the links. Feel free to circumvent this if you wish.
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Sociability
Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
BRAVO!!! BEST EVER!!!
tagline
... hi bingo
You mean... there are other people on the internet?? I just thought you were all well-written IRC bots.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
The mechanism by which real communities were historically moulded from raping, pillaging hordes into the polite and modernised societies which many parts of the world is largely that of an internalisation of the power systems - self-discipline to social norms in other words.
Originally, as noted, there were no rules in society. If you wanted to do something, you did it and didn't care about consequences to anyone else but you. The only way to get anyone to obey was through a range of vicious threats - the medieval times were full of them.
However, once you persuade a community to self-moderate, (and the meta-moderation here is quite similar), such draconian measures just aren't necessary. Few will even think of significantly stepping out of line. Fewer still will actually do so. And when that self-moderation happens internally within each member, destructive behaviour is very rare indeed.
Some communities do operate like this - evolt.org is one of them. Evolt members do enforce community norms without admin intervention - for a community of 3,000 self-opinionated web developers like me, to not to have a flamewar for months at a time is almost unheard of. And the last few times that someone's ripped off our (now former) design, it's been members of the community who have pointed it out and sent private 'cease and desist' notices.
If you want more of the theory behind this, have a look at Foucault's Discipline and Punish.
Fair warning - Amazon Associates apply. Circumvent if you feel that way
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
I've been rather faithfully reading all of his "Virtual Community' articles - and I'm getting the distinct impression that Katz isn't even READING the comments.
There've been HOW many comments saying he's wrong? And how many were actually written intelligently and with proofs to backup what the were saying?
I wouldnt' change the 'virtual' community at all. Its FINE how it is. They exist, they're hard to find - AND WE LIKE IT THAT WAY!
Sheesh. Noone wants half a billion teenagers invading their personal space. Things start to suck when they get crowded.
This is WHY slashdot has to use moderation. ITs WHY we've got Natalie Portman-hot grits-naked AND fearless troll posts.
Its why the BBS's went down. Its why Usenet sucks sour frog ass. Its why Aol and Compuserve and Prodigy and webTV have caused the downfall of many, many intelligent forums.
So... actually, I WOULD change something - I'd make the virtual communities even HARDER to find. I don't like crowds, I don't like morons.
And if it means Katz is more convinced we don't exist -- GOOD. I'm more and more inclined to think he's jus a Perl Script anyway.
Frito - Grouch, elitist, capitalist. And damn proud of it.
Poor little no puppy toe!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Yes-- not that this effect doesn't happen with RL communities too. The leaders going around behaving as though they think they're God is a cause of both emigrations and revolutions.
In my experience of VCs (specifically, talkers), both the places which underdid leadership (so randoms felt free to log in and abuse the residents, who consequently were always watching their backs) and those which overdid it (so the leaders were always coming down like a ton of bricks on the residents, who consequently were always watching their backs) were, well, causes of dissatisfaction among residents. It's an important (and difficult) balance to get right.
(shameless plug: IMO there are communities around which achieve this balance very well :) )
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Someone commented on here that Jon Katz is just a well written Perl Script, I tend to agree... Taco must have removed "Post Columbine" from his database. :)
Seriously though, I'm not even sure where this comes from. I've been reading through these last four articles and it seems to me that Katz is saying that the virtual world of the net is some how superior to the real world. This could not be further from the truth.
First of all, something that I don't think I've seen mentioned, is that no one on the Internet can ever truely be "known". Its impossible to really know a person unless you see them in real life situations. I don't think that's possible in IRC. Because of this it gives people a different personality online. Little dorky geeks from high school can all act real tough in chat rooms, why? Because there is no consequence for doing so other than being booted out in which case they go elsewhere because they aren't interested in community, they're interested in annoying people.
Things like coding communities work because the people in it have a common goal, but I think there would be a lot less bickering if people actually knew each other. Even when people don't like each other, when they are face to face they are usually somewhat tactful, and that's not true online.
I'm not really sure what Jon wants when it comes to a virtual community, I like the net the way it is, but if Jon wants people to be like they are in the real world, I don't think its possible.
Never knock on Death's door:
The Anti-Blog
Responsability requires accountability.
Accountabiltiy requries some form of non-forgible identity.
These are lessons al llearned early in the online games industry. Why do you think you need to buy an Everquest box to play everquest? for the revenue? Not particualrly, the box sales rvenue is dwarfed by the monthly recurring revenue from subscription.
The reason is attach a significant cost (you $50 to $60) to having to create a new identity. Your identity being the key-code shipepd in the box. This makes the threat of ostracism real adn th threat of ostracism is traditionally what keeps communities functioning.
Okay, I know this reality of life won't be popular with at least one slashdot contingent, so let the flames begin.
In some MOOs, you can construct an elaborate habitat.
The thing I've noticed about community is that a shared purpose is required. This is different from a shared interest. A purpose means that there is a reason you are participating in a community at that moment.
So... if we just toss a few predatory Orcs into the high school chemistry chat room, maybe it will turn into an actual community. ('Cause you can't get your homework graded until you band together to kill the Orcs?)
I think "virtual communities" are indeed a possibility -- many, in fact, currently thrive amidst the "commercialization of the Net."
First, I believe it's a fallacy to speak of the "Virtual Community" with a capital V and C, as if it was a single, monolithic entity. Not that Jon Katz was making such an assertion, of course.
Take, for instance, Slashdot's favorite topic -- Linux. LUG's (Linux User Groups) are a decent example of regional-based congregations (forgive me for using that word) that discuss current, topical issues both online and in person. No LUG that I've witnessed seems to functions as an insular, exclusive body. Rather, they localize concerns and themes important to the broader Linux community.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
was bankrupt.
sulli
RTFJ.
Commercialization of the net doesn't really make a difference here, except that applications vulnerable to spam can lose utility. Features such as /. distributed moderation are useful to prevent this. Otherwise, I don't really see the threat.
sulli
RTFJ.
>What ought to be the
>responsibilities of members?
Well, they have to be educative to each other.
RThey have to support the newbies and to protect them from eventual abuses...
Like in real life.
Eachof them should be an example for one another.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Early visions of the Virtual Community haven't come to pass for a variety of reasons.
This clearly demonstrates you have no idea what you are talking about. AOL, the enemy of geeks everywhere, is FILLED with hundreds of not THOUSANDS of Virtual Communities. All built and maintained by its users. Unfortunatly AOL gets greedy and once the VC is popular, they take control over it and run it into the ground. The point still stands. I know of an other VC over at that other site that I won't mention that is maintained by its users. This is all not even mentioning IRC chatrooms, MUD's, webrings, Instant Messaging, et al.
Just because you don't like the very popular and available options does not mean they didn't/don't work out or exist.
Burn Hollywood Burn
So, I'm not really sure what Katz is getting at. Of course the "community" needs to change and will change -- however, I find it difficult to believe that this will happen as a result of a considered, planned process. Like other communities, this "virtual" one will continue to morph with the whims of its members -- and to ask whether it will "survive the growth, size and commercialization of the Net [etc]" is to miss the point. Commercialization is an essential requisite of a truly successful online community, just as trade is an essential element of any "real life" community. Over time, as the problem of scarcity becomes less of an issue, this may of course change -- but, rest assured, there will always be a "dark side" to this community as with any other. And, far from being a problem, it will be what continues to provide this society with much of its zest and many of its successes.
What we might do is embrace these disparate elements of our new community, and avoid making the same mistakes we've made elsewhere: waging pointless "wars" on what we consider the less desirable elements of society; alienating the most useful differences by embracing conformity; running scared from change in a desire to maintain the status quo. Whether we'll succeed in this is to be seen: I'm hoping.
This whole "virtual" community thing seems a little over the top, even for our esteemed Mr. Katz.
Seriously, there is a reality that you can have a virtualized (not a virtual) community in any online forum or chat room or message board or BBS or etc. But, that community is not stronger, no better, no weaker, or no more real than any "meat space" community. And it seems throughout this series of articles that is the one theme that Mr. Katz has failed to truly touch upon.
When talking about the Virtual Community © Jon has placed more promise, hope, and reality into the world "virtual" than into the word "community". Doesn't he understand that no matter how virtualized any place of meeting may be it is still just a community made up of real people (even the ones pretending to not be real people are still backed by real people. It isn't just a made up fantasy land). The problem is that in the early days of fantasizing about how great the virtual community could be, no one stopped to think that it is just as easy, maybe even easier, for the idiots, morons, mental midgits and freaks of the real world to interfere with the virtual world. Nobody stopped to think that through in the early days, because it wasn't so easy to jump online. But, now we are faced with the reality of that statement. People are coming online at an increasing rate, and acting as idiotic as any drunken brawler. And the virtualized community that was supposed to be this great utopia was not.
Simply looking at the development of real community through the ages will allow you to understand that there is a huge parallel between meat space and virtualized space. How many generations of "communities" were made up of ravaging, raping, pillaging barbarians? It took time to develop our communities into the realitively polite and modernized society we have today in meat space (where all of the rape, ravage, pillaging, stealing and other garbage happens behind closed doors where we aren't supposed to look). In time, the online communities that survive whatever shakeout will come will find a way to deal with the miscreants just as the real world has learned to deal with criminals. The idea of a virtual jail is appealing for the humor value alone, but not so unrealistic. Perhaps, if tracking is made more sophisticated (as it is bound to be), creating an area that miscreants and rebels are "locked" into is a very real possibility. A frightening one, as many people that are not really a threat to anyone but the powers-that-be would be thrown into these virtual jails, but a possibility none-the-less.
In time, we will see what really happens. But it isn't as bleak as some people seem to think, and it isn't as cheery as the original framers of the "virtual community" idea wanted to believe. Reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between.
------------