4 ms·

Every once in a while I like to think about the evolution of sites like forums, slashdot, digg, Reddit, HN, etc... And what could be done to improve them, mainl

Every once in a while I like to think about the evolution of sites like forums, slashdot, digg, Reddit, HN, etc... And what could be done to improve them, mainly from a technical rather than social aspect (such as the way voting works, how 'good' vs 'bad' comments are rewarded). Aside from r/theoryofreddit (which seems mostly focused on Reddit drama), are there other communities that discuss the creation and improvement of social networks?

grzm 10y ago
> mainly from a technical rather than social aspect (such as the way voting works, how 'good' vs 'bad' comments are rewarded) I'm interested in that as well, though I tend to think the tech needs to serve the social aspect. What kind of community you want determines what kind of features (technical aspect) you want. The features in turn influence the behavior of the users. Is that what you're getting at? Glancing at /r/theoryofreddit I think it is. Or is there something else?
- Herodotus38 10y ago
  To clarify, I think I want to find a place where people discuss the pros/cons of implementing features, hopefully in an objective way. Here are some ideas I'm sure others have had before, but which I think would be interesting: Could one take the model of Reddit and make it real time? Basically a large chat room. There are of course huge problems that would have to be overcome, such as how to prevent spamming (so maybe a cool down period after each comment?), how to 'rank' up voted comments, and others I haven't thought about. The next step would be live voice, but I don't see a benefit with video. Now this next part is completely niaive and idealistic and I'm ignoring all the problems that will need to be solved but what if there were such an online anonymous community able to discuss and debate things in real time? In such a system perhaps the best 'ranked' idea (based on democratic vote, which may not be the best way...) is displayed in brighter it larger text, or lasts longer before disappearing. So, you see I would love to hear from people who may have tried this or could tell me "no, X doesn't work because then you get people taking advantage of Y".
  - grzm 10y ago
    Gotcha. Offhand I don't know of any forums or mailing lists that focus on these types topics. One place to look for references might be at the development of chat room or forum software, looking at features that have been released/tweaked/removed over the course of their development; discussions on HN about features (how meta is that?); papers/research on social behavior and community building, peace studies, other social interaction. There's bound to be some graduate-level work on online communities, moderation, echo chambers, that might be useful as well. I had a possibly related conversation yesterday where nickpsecurity provided some ideas as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446 Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but hopefully you'll find something useful.
spaethnl 10y ago
> are there other communities that discuss the creation and improvement of social networks? Meatball Wiki[0] might be close to what you are looking for? From the about: > Meatball is a LearningCommunity of the leaders of online communities--their proprietors, developers, mentors, and samaritans. We explore what it means to build an online community or, perhaps better, a community online. As it is a community, it is defined solely by the personal relationships that form it. Our breadth of interest is fairly wide as we take a holistic stance to community development. What differentiates us from many online meta-communities is that while we do talk about technology, we spend more time talking about sociology; and when we do talk about technology, we do so in a social context. [0] http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/ http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/
clydethefrog 10y ago
There are no communities that I know of, but the field that you are describing is computer-mediated communication (CMC). Check out these journals if you're interested in research about online social networks. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-6101 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-61... First Monday http://firstmonday.org/index http://firstmonday.org/index

grzm 10y ago

> mainly from a technical rather than social aspect (such as the way voting works, how 'good' vs 'bad' comments are rewarded) I'm interested in that as well, though I tend to think the tech needs to serve the social aspect. What kind of community you want determines what kind of features (technical aspect) you want. The features in turn influence the behavior of the users. Is that what you're getting at? Glancing at /r/theoryofreddit I think it is. Or is there something else?

Herodotus38 10y ago
To clarify, I think I want to find a place where people discuss the pros/cons of implementing features, hopefully in an objective way. Here are some ideas I'm sure others have had before, but which I think would be interesting: Could one take the model of Reddit and make it real time? Basically a large chat room. There are of course huge problems that would have to be overcome, such as how to prevent spamming (so maybe a cool down period after each comment?), how to 'rank' up voted comments, and others I haven't thought about. The next step would be live voice, but I don't see a benefit with video. Now this next part is completely niaive and idealistic and I'm ignoring all the problems that will need to be solved but what if there were such an online anonymous community able to discuss and debate things in real time? In such a system perhaps the best 'ranked' idea (based on democratic vote, which may not be the best way...) is displayed in brighter it larger text, or lasts longer before disappearing. So, you see I would love to hear from people who may have tried this or could tell me "no, X doesn't work because then you get people taking advantage of Y".
- grzm 10y ago
  Gotcha. Offhand I don't know of any forums or mailing lists that focus on these types topics. One place to look for references might be at the development of chat room or forum software, looking at features that have been released/tweaked/removed over the course of their development; discussions on HN about features (how meta is that?); papers/research on social behavior and community building, peace studies, other social interaction. There's bound to be some graduate-level work on online communities, moderation, echo chambers, that might be useful as well. I had a possibly related conversation yesterday where nickpsecurity provided some ideas as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12776446 Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but hopefully you'll find something useful.

spaethnl 10y ago

> are there other communities that discuss the creation and improvement of social networks? Meatball Wiki[0] might be close to what you are looking for? From the about: > Meatball is a LearningCommunity of the leaders of online communities--their proprietors, developers, mentors, and samaritans. We explore what it means to build an online community or, perhaps better, a community online. As it is a community, it is defined solely by the personal relationships that form it. Our breadth of interest is fairly wide as we take a holistic stance to community development. What differentiates us from many online meta-communities is that while we do talk about technology, we spend more time talking about sociology; and when we do talk about technology, we do so in a social context. [0] http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/ http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/

clydethefrog 10y ago

There are no communities that I know of, but the field that you are describing is computer-mediated communication (CMC). Check out these journals if you're interested in research about online social networks. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-6101 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-61... First Monday http://firstmonday.org/index http://firstmonday.org/index