[Air-L] the growth of some groups and not others

[Radhika Gajjala]

I find the questions about community and groups very similar (and circular -
going back and around and back again) to the days of early listprocs when
those of us who had listprocs on specialized topics would have backchannel
conversations on how to foster discussion and what the value of having a
discussing list was/is - and why the does the lurker stay a member etc.

Design may be quite a central issue in relation to social network systems
where discussion/connection actually is more dispersed and scattered and
less focussed in the name of plenty and an imagined "further reach" and
"inclusivity"


but the questions come back to the same issues of what does it mean to
participate or not in online forums - and what's at stake in collecting
knowledge and discussion in archives where people can access and reassess
and reaccess?

Status messages (in SNS), for instance, have no real accessible archives for
users - yet a lot of dialogue and exchange happens through those as well.

The more I see of how online communication functions these days - the more I
hesitate to use "community"...

(as someone who has published using that term whether hesitantly or not ...)

r
On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 11:04 AM, tom abeles <tabeles at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Murray
>
> You raise an interesting issue that seems not to have been fully addressed
> since the early 70's with Caucus and EIES as early social networks coming
> from the old BBS systems. With increased connectivity and a proliferation of
> social networking sites, the problem has only become more complex.
>
> a) The expansion has, in many ways reduced the personal information
> density- more "stuff" to filter through to get to personally important
> information
> b) more fragmentation as each "group" remains conflicted between being open
> and wanting to keep value from dilution. One observation, here, is that many
> "groups" start out with high density and hopes and then gradually fade
> either as the old guard fades or moves on, taking its knowledge with it
> which either leads to no activity or a bunch of newbies starting over but
> from a different place
> c) small groups form and become private.
>
> thoughts?
>
> tom
>
> tom abeles
>
> > Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:10:49 +0100
> > From: murray.turoff at gmail.com
> > To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> > Subject: [Air-L] the growth of some groups and not others
> >
> > The standard design philosophy currently being used in many social
> network
> > systems is to encourage the user to sign into the site and duplicate
> > functions like exchanging messages in different formats.  For many users
> > this is too much a waste of time in that most important things are
> carried
> > out by the user in their current message environment.  The addition of
> > groups that social networks finally recognized (they existed in some
> systems
> > in the 70's) as a key valuable addition to communication systems will
> spread
> > and be better integrated in message services.  I also note that some
> social
> > networks are making it easier to handle social network functions without
> > signing in and leaving your normal environment.  Like many of you I
> > currently am in 4 different network social systems and within groups
> within
> > those.  It gets to be a real mess when one cannot easily move through the
> > different environments by being able to do the same function in one way
> in
> > one place.
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Distinguished Professor Emeritus
> > Information Systems, NJIT
> > homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Radhika Gajjala