Art of Community

From RCC 2007

MarkDilley's sloppy notes

T-shirts as barnstars

• like Whole Wheat Radio, they get a "barnstar" for using the "I have been to the Whole Wheat Radio Outhouse/"

Toolkit

Language -- newbie and inexperience

Lag in time

Post interview - follow up questions

Amy Jo Kim - Building Online Communities - the bible for online community building

Door keeper - community memember building, Brian

Geoff talks LearnByDoing

JakeElliott's notes (please edit!)

Dawn Foster -- connect web 2.0 communities && open source communities
Tony - Increasing diversity is really critical.
Dave - Working on community building around games.
RavenZachary - I just go where the open source topics are.
Phil Tomson - This session is explicitly about bldg community - online & face2face.
GeoffBurling - Paper delivered @ last summer's Wikimania - building wiki/wikipedia communities. Wikipedia has had a few of initiatives w/r/t diversity: ie neutral POV attempts to represent all sides of an issue on an equal basis. No software will resolve neturality w/r/t heated highly emotional issues like Israel/Palestine. Also there is an initiative on wikipedia to resolve statistical bias - most editors are white male geeks (more data on Ents than Congo civil war).
BrianJamison - Fosters online communities & wants to learn more about what works & what doesn't
Audrey Eschright - Few female colleagues in the environment of software development. What do groups like User Groups do that discourages or encourages diversity? When the group is homogeneous to begin with, it's difficult to break in. How do groups treat newbies -- this is a place where groups can/do control diversity.
Dawn Foster - A lot of subgroups form in opensource projects (ie debian women, wikichix) - these subgroups create a sandbox / safety area for marginalized groups.
BrianJamison - There is an active refusal of new ideas in open source projects after the project becomes baked to a certain point - if you want to contribute it's time to fork.
GeoffBurling - Group dynamics.
RavenZachary - There's less hierarchy required in a wiki scenario than open source projects -- sucessful opensource projex have one or two "point people" ("benevolent dictatorship" ie guido vr). the meritocracy system people would argue makes diversity irrelevant because anyone who can help is able to help - you have limited identity in a meritocracy system. Diversity actually is very important though.
Audrey Eschright - Meritocracy rarely actually works out as it claims; there are usually serious barriers to entry. It's valuable to look at how the group is (en/dis)couraging contribution from newbies.
Dawn Foster - It's a lot harder to join OSS project than digg/wikipedia/etc.
Phil Tomson - Is the barrier to entry always bad?
Dawn Foster - you still have hierarchy within open source projects; just because you accept contributions doesn't mean you integrate them.
BrianJamison - Barriers to entry into linux kernel discussion are socially constructed (ie "i will bite your head off if you say something newbie on the kernel development listserv")
RavenZachary - Group diversity has been most successful at the lowest levels of software development. We don't have enough points of reference to know how well open source projects will be able to scale up to issues like UI and documentation. As OSS projects shift towards desktop technologies we'll see how well these processes hold up in the last phase of development.
Dave - Artists and Programmers have different social behaviours so it's difficult for them to integrate. How about open source project managers?
DanH - Are there various levels of open source projects? Mozilla _is_ open source but it doesn't _feel_ like open source - what coulud have caused that?
RavenZachary - Money.
Dawn Foster - Firefox from the beginning has focussed on ppl who are not usually users of open source software. A lot of the open source community started at the low level and as they move up the stack, the processes are very different.
Phil Tomson - We're not going to be able to change the culture of those existing cultures; but as we start a new community we can think about intentionally structuring communities.
RayKing - Diversity+community in aboutus : Aboutus is longtail; we have a ton of people editing their own page - the small community that we have is the administrators of the wiki.
Dawn Foster - Do you see any difference in wiki communities vs. other online communities in terms of diversity?
RayKing - Wiki people are builders; can't stand to see something wrong.
GeoffBurling - Even bad content attracts builders/fixers on wikipedia. The wiki chick mailing list caused a big conflict among male wiki-ers because they felt it was a form of discrimination.

JulieCaldwell - Try diverse sourcing? Let's go to Mongolia and have Open Space there.

Dave - GeoffBurling are you going to continue working on the Ehtiopia page or hope that Ethiopians take it over.
RayKing - This statement of one culture wanting to learn and talk about another culture should be preserved (ie GeoffBurling writing a wikipedia entry about Ethiopia).
Phil Tomson - Personally if i'm going to be reading wikipedia and there's a choice between reading about Ethiopia from a perspective of Ethiopia than perspective of American.
RayKing - What about the wisdom of crowds + a diversity of writers about Ethiopia.
GeoffBurling - Writing some kind of crappy stuff about Ethiopia has brought in Ethiopians to contribute and fix it.
Dawn Foster - Another really important aspect of diversity is multiple perspectives.
BrianJamison - Being too close to a software project ie makes it difficult to document it.
MartinPfahler - Majority of the population doesn't have time to be online, one of the discriminating factors now is how much time can be spent online; how do you get participation from those people?
Dave - Digg etc. lets you make a significant contribution easily.
Audrey Eschright - Article stubs. Maybe there are things that communities or projects can do that.
MarkDilley - Original contributions can be imperfect; imperfect contributions can draw in new users.
Dawn Foster - Some people are really good at creating things from scratch and others are better at working on other people's ideas; allowing both ways of working is a way to help people contribute in the way that works best for them.
GeoffBurling - Good peacemakers/mediators are really important to wikipedia and
Dawn Foster - IE having a diverse skillset in online communities.
RayKing - And face2face communities; if you have a room full of peacemakers nothing gets done.
MarkDilley - If you want friends from different communities, you've got to make an effort to go out and make friends.
JulieCaldwell - What is crippling our democratic system is that people who are not established as skilled are not welcome at the table. One barrier of entry in face2face administration is that people capable of mentoring are too busy to do so; online people seem more willing to mentor. It's important having been mentored not to forget how to mentor.
MarkDilley - Support enables a diversity of contribution. "Experience Interaction with Inexperience." It is vital to either to a little mentoring or designate people to do it.
Blazer - The "newbie pissed everyone off" story is backwards: the experienced intimidated the newbie.
Dawn Foster - Be sensitive to where the newbie is at and how fresh the information is for them when they enter the site.
Blazer - Maybe what we've done wrong is we haven't channeled the newbie correctly.
Dawn Foster - second life's intro area is great - better more guided tutorials could encourage and support contribution.
MartinPfahler - Newbies need to know where the tutorial and handholding is going.
Audrey Eschright+RayKing - Give newbies options to enable different kinds of learning.
Phil Tomson - If you inculturate newbies too much you risk losing their unique input or the uniqueness of their input.
MartinPfahler - Explain the learning curve up front "You've got to feel some pain up front to contribute."
Dave - That in itself will really turn people off.
Audrey Eschright - Let people choose their level of involvement.
MarkDilley - There are movements to identify good wikizen behavior. Let's move away from "newbie" - if you're calling someone "newbie" you're creating a power dynamic that may not be true. Differences in experience can create conflicts.
Dawn Foster - Newbie is relative - Linus T would be a newbie on the firefox project.
MartinPfahler - Early followup questioning about experience as a newbie is important to capture the experience before it's forgotten.
JulieCaldwell - If you have certain levels of users will that create animosity?
Dave - In online gaming it sure does. Having "Level 17" floating over your characters head it causes animosity.
BrianJamison - If the design of the game requires interaction of people in different experience levels then they will interact.
MartinPfahler - Access to govt administration is similarly difficult in the real world. That difficulty could be replicated in online communities easily if user levels is a structural element of the community.
Dawn Foster - Lack of reputation is a barrier to entry.
GeoffBurling - Many people on wikipedia seem to think the "goal" of wikipedia is to become an "admin" -- it's kind of an award on wikipedia that doesn't have any meaning.
BrianJamison - I think that award has meaning for those people; one way to build community is to build in things like that which can have meaning for some people.
GeoffBurling - But many people who get "admin" move on and don't participate any more.
Phil Tomson - If they achieve the status "admin" are they going to try to live up to that status? Maybe there's a psychological benefit to that kind of titling.
GeoffBurling - Results are mixed. People really get burned out on "admin" responsibility.
Audrey Eschright - Rotating admins on a time-limit (term) has worked.
Phil Tomson - If these roles are powerful they should be time-limited.
GeoffBurling - People start accusing the admins of running a "police state" etc.
BrianJamison - That's sort of inevitable, even in situations where there is really no power.
GeoffBurling - The smaller the group, the more vicious the fight is over any scrap of power.
Blazer - Maybe its just easier to push buttons in an intimate setting. In a larger group you can't so you have to behave.
Dawn Foster - How do you set logical goals within a community? Goals that the community can work towards that are productive and achievable.
Blazer - Published standards can help people self-select to participate productively by having something to refer to when presenting their success (IE "eagle scout" status in boy scouts).
Audrey Eschright - Some systems can be engineered to bring in new members by encouraging members to bring in others.
Dawn Foster - Online and offline networks integrating through systems like MySpace &c.
MarkDilley - But you have "friendster friends" and "real friends".
Dawn Foster - We belong to multiple communities, not just one community.
Audrey Eschright - That effects how some of these community tools are used.
Blazer - Different communities is a better distinction than "online/offline"
MarkDilley - THis is a language issue like "newbies"
BrianJamison - Response to "newbies" really is totally critical.
Dave - Giving newbies some kind of other title that doesn't single them out + also getting the experienced community to support newbies more; both of these need to happen simultaneously.
BrianJamison - "Community Building on the Web" book
Dawn Foster - Working on a book called "The Art of Community" by Amy Jo Kim
MarkDilley - Also fighting a battle against "user" language. Real names attached to real people (on meatball wiki) really changed the process of community.
Blazer - (against anonymity in wiki) If you want to be a part of a community then you need to take time to make a user account.
BrianJamison - Some information needs to be published anonymously for job or other reasons.
Audrey Eschright - Anonymous quick editing can be a hook to get people into the community.
BrianJamison - Do you want to collect knowledge and clean it up later or to create a community?
GeoffBurling - Aaron Schwartz' post about wikipedia. He discovered 90% of material contributed is by people who make less than 25 edits.
Audrey Eschright - A metaphor from ficiton writing: "If you can get them to turn the page once, they're in the habit of turning pages."
MartinPfahler - Keeping people engaged is more important than getting them with an "elevator pitch"
BrianJamison - FAQ is not enough for people in the biodiesel co-op for more than a small group of people - the culture needs to be set up to invest time in helping answer new participants' questions.
MarkDilley - Be a builder. Part of being a builder is "don't be an asshole."
Audrey Eschright - Moderation systems that cripple legibility (ie taking out all the vowels).
Dawn Foster - It's difficult for community leaders to find the point at which to interfere.

MarkDilley - Communities attract people who are looking for community, so very social behavior can be expected from new participants.