Session 7: Management and Conflict

Belated post, did not realize initial post hadn't posted until sometime later and focused on final project instead...

Our final project focuses on Facebook as the primary SNS of concern. Facebook governance is stated in two primary pages with additional information linked to these pages: the Terms of Service page, entitled Statements of Rights and Responsibilities, and the Privacy Policy which includes Facebook's Principles, Privacy Policy, and information about safe use and the information they collect. Unfortunately for this post, my Friends and I are law-abiding citizens of Facebook and I was unable to identify any obvious infringements other than that I gave my password to my boyfriend to login to my account while I couldn't type easily due to aggravation of old hand injuries. I trust him and I changed the password as soon as I could type again.

I did, however, learn that Facebook was engaging its users in creating updated governance documents. They had spent several months collecting user input and creating new documents considering that input and put the resulting documents and the original documents to a vote among all Facebook users. See the Facebook Site Governance page for details. I found this particularly interesting since we just read an article, "Obfuscatocracy: A stakeholder analysis of governing documents for virtual worlds," which explicitly suggests that sites involve the users in the creation of governing documents to ensure that needs of all parties are considered. It also shows that the Facebook shows signs of being self-aware as described in Gazan's "When Online Communities Become Self-Aware." The redrafting of the governing documents was begun because of the questions and complaints Facebook received, the new drafts were created with user input, and the final results put to a vote among the users. I would also suggest that Facebook contains numerous micro-communities, each group or circle of Friends, and that many of these micro-communities are also self-aware in that they create their own norms...for instance my circle of church friends abides by certain norms while my network of former co-workers abide by a completely different set. It can be difficult to balance these, as what is acceptable to one group may be considered offensive in another.
Having studied the various laws and legislative attempts to control online content or access to it, I found Michael Madison's "Social Software, Groups, and Governance" to be extremely interesting, though I am not certain I understood it all. It is clear that as new technologies appear and the use of technology changes so quickly, legal governance will almost certainly be far behind the times. Take the MySpace suicide case for instance...external law has not caught up with the social nature of the internet and the case had to be tried under violation of the exisiting terms of service: she was accused of creating a false identity. Creators of these sites cannot anticipate every way in which the site may be used. You'll find that many updated Terms of Service, including the new Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities does include a clear "malicious use" clause which will have to suffice until external law can catch up. Finding the line between external and internal, formal and informal governance is, and will continue to be, a challenge as we move forward with an ever-changing online landscape.

Social Computing Session 6: Online Identity and Interaction

I apologize for the late post...I lost internet connectivity this weekend and had to wait until it got fixed.

For my final project I am working with J.Mastin to identify perceptions of privacy among teen and college age SNS users. Because of our familiarity with and the use of Facebook, we have chosen this as our primary site of study.

What is online identity?

Online identity is the combination of the persona a user creates and maintains in the online environment and the actions and interactions that support, enhance, or contradict that persona.

Use Scenario One: "Finding Friends"

Like many sites, Facebook uses the term Friend to describe any and all contacts a user has approved. This term is highly subjective and ambiguous in the immense and open online environment. Profiles are searchable by name, email, "networks," or affiliations like school or work. The system may also suggest potential Friends based on these elements or if you share Friends with other users.

User A joins Facebook and sets up a profile. Now User A would like to find friends. One option is the Search for People Function:

Once User A has identified a possible friend they initiate contact by choosing to add User B as a friend. The system sends out an email to User B asking that the Friendship be confirmed:


Once the Friendship has been confirmed Users A and B will be able to view each other's profiles, receive Status update information, and communicate via chat, Wall Posts, or the Facebook private messaging system.

Use Scenario Two: "Identifying depth of relationships"

The use of the ambiguous term Friend for all connected users creates some confusion around the depth of given relationships between users. Knowing the depth of connections between users can help one assess each other's real online identities...the people you most closely associate with and the ways in which you associate (use of language, tone, consistency of association) can indicate real interests, personality traits, and be important in protecting one's privacy. It can also, more simply, help identify people one may want to befriend, based on the type of relationships they support with other individual users.

One indicator of the depth of the relationship between users is the use of the public comment options. Users can comment on their Friends' Status or Activities. The following shot identifies a comment thread around a user's relationship status (mine...). If one looks at the language, frequency and consistency of posts by individuals to my Status and Activity information one can make some educated guesses regarding the depth and types of relationships between myself and these other users.


Assessing the relationships Friends have with each other and with others gives a user some feedback regarding relationships and what type of information one may want to publish in this semi-private forum. Unless the privacy settings are set for Friends only, information is viewable by people a user may not have any knowledge of. This is a huge privacy issue and there is plenty of information that a user may not wish to post so as to protect his or her online identity and privacy.

Analysis and Reading Connections:

It is useful and important to know who one's fellow users are associating with in an SNS like Facebook, and to know the nature of those interactions. Security settings can support privacy by limiting access to only approved Friends...however if a user has a desire to network, than they must allow more open access. In this instance, knowing ones Friends (and those who want to be one's Friends), and something about the relationships they support with other users can be critical in protecting one's online persona and privacy. As usual, I found some of our readings far more applicable but most were quite interesting.

In "The Social Affordance of the Internet for Networked Individualism" the authors are concerned with societal change "away from groups and towards networked individualism." (Wellman 2003, 3) Attention is a commodity as people trend towards moving through multiple communities that they choose to participate in, a concept also discussed in the Huberman article. In Use Scenario Two, the more attention a user receives from other users may be an indicator of the depth of the relationship between users. Take it a little farther with the discussion of the Huberman article and the reciprocal nature of relationships is also an assessable indicator of the depth of relationships. Judith Donath's article talks about how Friend lists can provide social context, though the ambiguous nature of the term Friend may make this complicated to assess.

In terms of our final project it may be interesting to know how teen and college age SNS users assess their friends and their relationships with other users and whether or not they consider these relationships when they consider online privacy.

Social Computing Session 4: Social knowledge production and services

Online social recommendation systems vs. real world advice seeking

For a project for another class I have been locating materials about Geogiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. Before I complete the project I wanted to know what others thought about some of the items I have located. To that end, and for exemplars for this posting, I visited Amazon.com and BN.com to check out the customer reviews of The Duchess by Amanda Foreman. See the screenshots above. Amazon.com had more reviews available than BN.com though many of them were more like plot synopses or vague "liked it," "loved it," or "hated it" type commentary. There were a few that I found helpful with well-written, thoughful discussions with accurate spelling. I found the Detailed Ratings on BN.com very helpful because they really fleshed out what elements specifically the reviewer rated highly or poorly. Unfortunately there was only one rating/review to work with there. Amazon.com does include a tagging feature that may prove helpful as I continue to look for additional materials.

I found the article Social Annotations in Digital Library Collections particularly relevant in this case as the ratings and reviews function as a history of others responses to and interests in the text. While they are not page or even chapter specific, these recommendations can help a user decide whether or not an item is relevant and/or worthwhile for whatever purpose. Also, both Amazon and BN offer "people who bought this also bought" features that may prove helpful in finding additional related materials. Kristina Lerman's article about filtering also applies to some degree...BN.com provides both collaborative and social filtering elements for users of MyB&N. Unfortunately, my research in this area has been very recent and the system is designed to filter based on my overall use and therefore has not provided any additional recommendations for me. We'll see how long it takes the system to catch up with my new interest...if it does at all.

The trust issues discussed in previous sessions came to the fore while I was looking for reviews...how does one determine whether or not a review is trustworthy? This is especially true when one is looking for research materials.

So, in comparison, and also in search of a review I can trust, I spoke with a writer friend who recently began researching Georgiana for her book. I've known her for years and trust her ability to critically analyze material. Her comments about this book were in line with some of the reviews available online, but since I know her, her background, and her abilities I am more inclined to view her review and reviews that are similar more favorably. I also emailed an old history professor whose research included the era of Georgiana, though I have not received any details back yet.

Overall, I found this week's readings varied and interesting. I am particularly excited aboutthe potential future of libraries as they continue to adapt to mobile communications and the changing social needs and ideas. If our library database incorporated "annotations," or reviews by registered users, tagging, or other social computing and knowledge-sharing elements I would be ecstatic! I personally find research rather lonely and sometimes do not trust my own analysis...having a social history in this environment would make for more interesting research. At the moment, one can accomplish some connection by using bibliographic references, who has used what in what context and when...but the speed and variety allowed by the elements discussed in this week's readings allow for many more connections and discussions. As always, quality is a concern when allowing ratings, reviews, tagging, and other "unregulated" social elements, but if the system incorporated elements of social capital allowing these elements and the users themselves to be rated and reviewed, then perhaps the quality and trustworthiness could be analyzed with some degree of reliability.

Session 4 Citations

Allen, Stuart M., Gualtiero Colombo, Roger M. Whitaker (2009). Forming Social Networks of Trust to Incentivize Cooperation. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, HI, 5-8 January 2009.

Ellison, N.B., C. Steinfield and C. Lampe (2007). The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Eryilmaz, Evren, Mitch Cochran and Sumonta Kasemvilas (2009). Establishing Trust Management in an Open Source Collaborative Information Repository: An Emergency Response Information System Case Study. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, HI, 5-8 January 2009.

Gleave, Eric, Howard T. Welser, Thomas M. Lento and Marc A. Smith (2009). A Conceptual and Operational Definition of ‘Social Role’ in Online Community. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, HI, 5-8 January 2009.

Massa, Paolo (2006). A Survey of Trust Use and Modeling in Current Real Systems. Trust in E-services: Technologies, Practices and Challenges. Idea Group. http://www.gnuband.org/files/papers/survey_of_trust_use_and_modeling_in_current_real_systems_paolo_massa.pdf

Williams, D. (2006). On and Off the 'Net: Scales for Social Capital in an Online Era. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), article 11. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue2/williams.html

Social Computing Session 4: Social Role, Capital, and Trust

There was a lot of material in these readings...to discuss I will be comparing and contrasting features from the two sites I chose, Citizendium (http://en.citizendium.org), hereafter refered to as CZ, and Care2 (http://www.care2.com).

The first concept discussed in our readings is that of "social role," in A Conceptual and Operational Definition of 'Social Role' in Online Community. People play many roles in their lives, different roles for different environments, situations, purposes. I found the discussion of structure and culture very interesting in this reading. There are roles that cross cultures, that are identifiable wherever one goes. I found the idea of roles in the online community intriguing as I hadn't really thought about roles online much as I base most of my social conceptions on real world interactions. I did find, however, that some sites have very clearly defined roles, while in others the structure is less identifiable. Take CZ as an example of the former. CZ is a reference site similar to the well known Wikipedia. One notable difference is that CZ requires that members be approved before they can begin to contribute to the site rather than being an end-user and the site has three very clearly defined roles. The authors are the majority of registered users, and are the people responsible for proposing and creating content. Editors are authority figures responsible for maintaining consistency and performing other editorial functions on the work of the authors. There is a second authoritarian role in CZ, the Constabulary (see screenshot above). These individuals oversee site policies and are a behavioral rather then editorial authority. In Care2, roles are less well-defined and more social-based, though one can proclaim one's activist status in terms such as "rabid" or "casual" in one's profile. One would assume that ones's actions would then need to back up that proclamation if one expects to gain and maintain social capital on the site.

Social capital...this concept is fascinating in that I found it astonishing that this could be measured to any satisfying degree. Color me surprised. I also found that the article, On and Off the 'Net: Scales for Social Capital in an Online Era, did a good job of identifying the positive and negative perspectives and also in labeling "bridging" and "bonding" as distinct types of social capital. It seems to me that both CZ and Care2 are both primarily involved in "bridging" in that they bring together people from all over to contribute and communicate about a particular topic or interest. Care2 offers some "bonding" characteristics in that I know my use of the site was instigated a little over a year ago in support of a petition put together by friends. There is also a singles area, where the site may act in part as a dating service, I don't know for sure because I am not registered with the singles area, but the description seems to indicate that it is a place to meet people whose values mesh, possibly leading to romantic relationships.

Trust is a big deal to me, especially when online, so I found these readings extremely valuable. Paolo Massa defines trust as "the explicit opinion expressed by a user about another user regarding the perceived quality of a certain characteristic of this user." The emergency management article didn't quite strike a chord for me, but the third trust related article, Forming Social Networks of Trust to Incentivize Cooperation certainly did. In particular I found the idea of reputation satisfying. CZ clearly attempts to build trust with it's users from the get-go, by insisting that producers of content use their real names and be approved by the site before they can contribute. The use of real names draws a clear connection between reputation in the virtual world and the real world. CZ also has clear avenues of enforcement of value and behavior in it's two authoritarian roles, the Editors and Constables. Care2 has multiple incentive mechanisms to build trust and reputation. These include "green stars," "butterflies," "testimonials," and "golden notes." These are all incentives posted to one's profile, either by fellow individual users (green stars, testimonials), the community (golden notes), or the site itself (butterflies - a record of one's activity on the site). The user and community generated incentives have clear social capital and trust worth, indicating that others in the community recognize and approve of a particular user. The butterflies, as automatically generated records of one's actions in particular areas within the site, are a true representation of a user's actions. Interestingly, the stars and butterflies are recorded in total permanently, but the icons actually "disappear" from a profile after a month. I found this an ingenious device for driving continued participation! By collecting stars and butterflies, testimonials and golden notes, a Care2 user has several incentive based tools to stay active and build a reputation on the site.

Overall I found this session enlightening and may include concepts discussed here in the final project. I am particularly interested in young (teen/college age) users and their perceptions of privacy and trust in their use of online resources.

Session 3 Citations

Java, Akshay, Xiaodan Song, Tim Finin and Belle Tseng (2007). Why We Twitter: Understanding the Microblogging Effect in User Intentions and Communities. Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop, 12 August 2007, San Jose, California.
http://workshops.socialnetworkanalysis.info/websnakdd2007/papers/submission_21.pdf

Ling, K., G. Beenen, P. Ludford, X. Wang, K. Chang, X. Li, D. Cosley, D. Frankowski, L. Terveen, A.M. Rashid, P. Resnick and R. Kraut (2005). Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(4), article 10. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/ling.html

Ridings, Catherine and David Gefen (2004). Virtual Community Attraction: Why People Hang Out Online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 10(1). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/ridings_gefen.html

Schrock, Andrew (2009). Examining Social Media Usage: Technology Clusters and Social Network Site Membership. First Monday 14(1). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2242/2066

Tedjamulia, Steven J.J., David R. Olsen, Douglas L. Dean, Conan C. Albrecht (2005). Motivating Content Contributions to Online Communities: Toward a More Comprehensive Theory. Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Social Computing Session 3: Motivating content contributions

See AnswerBag profile: http://www.answerbag.com/profile/?id=866449

Assignment Results:
I found this session’s readings and exercise to be enlightening, and highly enjoyable. I think I lurked a little too long on Answerbag before jumping in, as I didn’t quite meet two of the four elements of our assignment. I did receive 14 answers to my first question, “How many years between siblings do you think is ideal?” and the question earned 29 points as of this writing. I also received 6 comments, though not on any one answer. The most on one answer was 3 comments, received due to the conversational nature of the comments between myself and the asker, Designer4theking. My second highest question rating was 25 for “How long did you know your s/o before you held hands? hugged? kissed?” Overall, I found the experience to be fun and engaging. One experienced member, keithold is cooler now, welcomed me to the community when I answered his question, “What is the herb belladonna also known as?”

Strategy:
In the beginning I lurked for awhile. I found it very difficult to get started until I decided to just be myself…the pseudonym, Limetree, is simply what my first name means. I just couldn’t seem to get involved unless the questions I asked and/or responded to were meaningful to me, or to someone I had developed a connection with like Designer4theking. At first I had a hard time coming up with a question that I thought might be considered interesting for myself and also to others. I think in retrospect I might have started by answering questions, before formulating my own. Unfortunately I fell into a consumer mentality, both because of the drive to complete the assignment as well as the need to consume content that was relevant and interesting to me personally, so my initial actions were to ask questions, to make people come to me. My initial question was fairly successful in a short period of time, a circumstance that drove me to become more participatory as I rated answers and responded to answers that were particularly interesting.

After asking and responding to several types of questions, my next step was to lower my guard a bit…okay, actually a lot. I found a question from Designer4theking, who had previously responded well to my question “How long did you know your s/o before you held hands? hugged? kissed?” She asked, “Can you describe your childhood? Any great experiences?” To answer, I posted a poem I wrote a few years ago about my childhood. To do so was a huge risk for me, as I consider myself a closet poet and rarely share my work openly. This answer provoked a conversation between myself and Designer4theking via comments. As with the welcome from keithold is cooler now, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the encounter.

In relation to the readings:
I find the question “Why?” to be very interesting…why do people want to hang out online? What is it about the online experience that is so attractive to so many? Until this class and moving very far from home, my online presence was minimal. I know the answer to my “why?” I joined Facebook to maintain relationships with friends and family at home, Skype to talk to them via webcam, and everything else as prompted by this class. A couple of the readings, and Virtual Community Attraction: Why People Hang Out Online in particular, address one of the reasons it is so important to understand the motivation to engage socially online. Virtual communities have “enormous information and revenue increasing potential.” (Ridings & Gefen, 2004) My participation on MyB&N has a lot of potential for the company, so much so that B&N just sent out a notice to prompt me to rate and review some items I recently purchased in an effort to make me feel that my contribution will be unique and will benefit the community. (See Hypotheses 1 & 4 in Using Social Pyschology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities)

I found the paper, Motivating Content Contributions to Online Communities particularly intriguing. By dividing users into four groups, 2 types of lurkers and 2 types of contributors, I was better able to place myself and my own use in the general scheme of things. The discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation was important to me as I used AnswerBag. Once I found the experience “inherently interesting or enjoyable,” I was much more willing and eager to be involved and to contribute actively. Trust was important, especially when I posted my poem. The accountability factor also impacted my use, knowing that questions and answers are monitored and the monitoring enforced was important throughout all stages of the assignment. The goals concept was harder for me, as I got caught up in the novelty of the experience and the social experience, rather than remaining focused on the external goals imposed by the assignment. Consider the findings in the article Using Social Pyschology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities for Hypothesis 6, “Members who are assigned challenging specific numeric goals will rate more than members assigned non-specific do-your-best goals.” I found that the specific numeric goals of the assignment were an initial driving factor for me, but that the social connection and feeling positive about my interactions with the community became much more important for me, so much so that I lost sight of those initial challenges.