Sheldon Chang <sheldon@hyperlinked.com> writes: (01)
[...]
% Yes yes, I'm in complete agreement here! Lurkers are indeed very
% important because they provide that latent energy that may result in
% unique perspectives coming to light. Now, when I was talking about
% a community in which so much happens that people begin losing identity,
% I'm referring to the case of those very active online communities whose
% growth gets in the way of the community's ability to carry the shared
% energy that gives the forum its great potential to produce something
% greater than the sum of the people involved. (02)
Right. There is a rate of growth and a rate of churn on a community
that can overheat the group and make it not a functional group. (03)
So effective groups are bounded in rate of conversation , size and
churn. (04)
I propose that communities of people need to be less than
the nominal 256 people for things to be manageable. (05)
(I have a theory of group dynamics that follows powers of 2) (06)
% >> Because it is hard to measure, we assume that all lurkers are the
% >> same, but it is not true. There is a vast difference between people
% >> who are quiet, but paying attention as compared to people who have
% >> stopped paying attention. (07)
% There are also many reasons for why people are not actively
% participating
% more often. Since I started this by talking about identity, I'll use it
% as my illustration. When the average person is not able to gauge the
% personality of a group (i.e. identity), that person is not nearly as
% likely to share a great insight as someone who understands who's sitting
% around the table. (08)
For some personality types, this might matter. But the key is
that for the whole feedback loop to be effective, the writer has
to be writing to a known audience. (09)
% My favorite kind of lurker is the person who thinks differently from the
% dominant group of personalities in a forum and so doesn't feel like his
% viewpoints would be well received. One day, something may stimulate
% that lurker to pop up to the pleasant surprise of the group. (010)
Yes, we all look for that. (011)
% >> So.... For a list to be a healthy list, it must be thought of as an
% >> ecosystem, or complex system with feedback loops. The
% >> "identity/belonging" value for the active participants (and for some
% >> lurkers) is tied together with the utility/value of the conversation,
% >> which is tied to the potential energy of the list. This potential
% >> energy, then feeds back into both identity/belonging and
% >> utility/value.
% >>
% >> So we have a completed feedback loop. Our attention spans and our
% >> business end up being a rate limiter on this feedback loop. (012)
% I agree. Now, how do filters affect the characteristics of this
% feedback
% loop? (013)
That is a complex question. (014)
Those filters (like spam filters) which reduce noise, can
enhance the sense of the value of a group. (015)
Those filters that filter out signal can reduce the value
of a group. (016)
Even Kill lists can make group dynamics reduce the
value of a discussion if used too widely. (017)
If you get specific about the type of filter, I can be more
effective about expounding on it. (018)
[....]
% For your students, is their only mode of communication with some of
% their
% IRC/IM buddies the chat software alone or is there something else that
% helps them augment their interaction? (019)
Most often, IRC/IM is a augmentation of other social activities
and extends the social touching that they do. For me it is almost
content free. But they find value in that social bonding/touching,
which I don't find particular value in. (020)
% Does tolerance for chaos translate into an effective ability to engage
% effectively through chaos? (021)
Yes. (022)
I have some people complain that there are too many
links on some web sites. And they really don't stop complaining
until it gets below 10 links. (023)
Others can take hundreds and not have problems. (024)
% I find that people are oftentimes employing
% mental filters when communicating through highly chaotic environments
% like IM's. They can fake conversations with several other people while
% they're really intent on talking to one or two. (025)
Yes, I think that they do. Which is a strange thing to me. (026)
% "You never seem to be listening to me! It's in one port and out the
% other!" :)
%
% Sheldon
%
% ---
% Sheldon Chang
% Online Communities Developer, Web Designer
% E-mail: sheldon@hyperlinked.com
% Phone: 408-455-2559
% Fax: 408-273-6473
%
% Hyperlinked Web Services
% http://hyperlinked.com
%
% --
% This message is archived at:
%
%
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-----
John Sechrest . Helping people use
. computers and the Internet
. more effectively
.
. Internet: sechrest@peak.org
.
. http://www.peak.org/~sechrest (028)
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