[Air-l] Community "Critical Mass"?

[Hugemusic]

Why? Because it answers the question that was asked.

As you rightly point out, there's a lot of questions math won't answer, and 
you use other approaches for that, but to answer a question about "critical 
mass" you need a formula - albeit one that has many extraneous factors, some 
of which will be qualitative and informed by answering other questions using 
other methods.

I have no problem with using other methods and approaches to answer other 
questions, but this one fits the bill and should not be dismissed ... math 
*can* help answer the question of critical mass.

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 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Community "Critical Mass"?


> 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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