[Air-l] Community "Critical Mass"?

[Mary-Helen Ward]

But why? Why reduce people's words, thoughts and emotional responses  
to mathematical coding? Why not use qualitative methods to capture/ 
represent/investigate the interactions? I understand that it's still  
a reduction; a distillation from the original, but it speaks in clear  
ways too.

Theory can be developed from life using many methods; maths is only  
one of them. Maybe when we talk about the 'body of knowledge' we need  
to think about its blood and guts (the messy stuff) and well as bones  
and ligaments.

M-H


On 22/12/2006, at 1:15 PM, Hugemusic wrote:

> Yes, well, these issues are perplexing, but not insurmountable.
>
> I'm sure the early scientists who wondered why trees burn but  
> (some) rocks
> don't thought they had a similar problem on their hands ...
>
> Maths can help with anything that can be quantified - strength of
> relationships, passion of the content, capacity for "leakage" of  
> involvement
> (the extent to which participants have a choice of fora) even  
> "importance to
> our lives" can be quantified ... it's a matter of coming up with  
> imaginative
> and reproduceable metrics, crunching the numbers and seeing whether  
> anything
> useful emerges.

<snip>

> The numbers can tell all sorts of stories if we begin to explore  
> them -
> we're just blinded by the size of the task and the lack of obvious  
> metrics.
>
> Incidentally, a quick peruse of the groups in Myspace shows a similar
> pattern to the one you observe in Yahoo! groups and as has been  
> reported
> concerning blog activity.  Very Long Tail, all of them ... but wait  
> - that's
> a mathematical relationship!
>
> Cheers,
> Hughie
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mary-Helen Ward" <mhward at usyd.edu.au>
> To: <>; "Hugemusic" <hmusic at ozemail.com.au>
> Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 11:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Community "Critical Mass"?
>
>
>> I realise that email lists seem a bit 'old hat', but I think that   
>> there is
>> a lot to be learned from them about how communities form,  fail or  
>> are
>> sustained online.
>>
>> I've been a member of one online community (email list only) for ten
>> years. It's shrunk a bit over the years - some members have died  
>> and  some
>> have lost interest - but it's still going and we still have a  few
>> postings most weeks. We are down to 29 members, but we all agree   
>> on the
>> list's importance to our lives. I don't see any way that maths   
>> could help
>> predict this kind of success. Many of the members aren't  able to  
>> get out
>> much; some are enormously busy working lives. We are  a mad mix of  
>> people
>> who just happen to get on and value each other's  presence. Just  
>> like any
>> friendship group really, except that we are  on three continents.
>>
>> Another quite different international community that I have been  
>> in  for
>> about 8 years is extremely successful in another way. It has a   
>> much more
>> mixed, lively and mobile membership; presently just under  200  
>> with a core
>> of about 50 regular posters. It also has a website  with  
>> photographs of
>> members and their projects (it is craft-based),  lists of members'
>> webpages and blogs etc, which is maintained  regularly. Again, the  
>> list is
>> very important to the people who  subscribe to it.
>>
>> Neither of these groups is based at Yahoo, but a scan of the  
>> email  groups
>> that are based at there will show how many never get off the   
>> ground, but
>> there are a few that do and remain hugely successfully,  with many  
>> regular
>> postings, pretty much indefinitely. I wonder if  they have  
>> anything in
>> common?
>>
>> M-H
>>
>> On 22/12/2006, at 11:22 AM, Hugemusic wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry, guys but I just don't agree.
>>>
>>> Sure, there's no hard and fast number that will indicate a  
>>> critical  mass
>>> for
>>> all, but there has to be some statistical indicator of probable
>>> sustainability - we're just not exploring the relationships deeply
>>> enough
>>> yet.
>>
>
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