5 ms·

A slightly better article on the same topic from a few years ago: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ http:/

by jfarmer 14y ago

A slightly better article on the same topic from a few years ago: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-... It's funny we couch it in such intellectual language. There's an everyday word for this: Potemkin village. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village Or, a thought experiment. What's more valuable? A social network with 10,000 people who are all at most two degrees of separation from everyone else in real life? Or a social network filled with 10,000 people from around the world, selected at random? Could you even call the second thing a "social network?"

gruseom 14y ago
"Potemkin Village" isn't about original communities leaving. A Potemkin Village is a fake facade erected to hide the real thing and fool visitors.
- jfarmer 14y ago
  Yes, sorry, I was talking about two things at once (as was the author). There are social networks that are valuable but evaporate (see, e.g., Digg). There are "inorganic" social networks that appear valuable because they have lots of passer-bys. Potemkim village is a good word for the latter. I'd put Google+ in that category, Robert Scoble's love affair with it notwithstanding.
  - gruseom 14y ago
    But no, I don't think you can be a Potemkin Village unless you are (a) fake and (b) designed to fool a temporary visitor. A Potemkin Village is a fraud. Even the people who hate Google+ don't claim that it doesn't actually exist. (Or do they?!) A Potemkin Village social network might be something like one with a bunch of sock puppet accounts that appeared to be active, but which in fact was set up to deceive, say, an investor into thinking there was a real community there. A tech term close to "Potemkin Village" might be "vaporware". The story behind Potemkin Villages is so colorful and profound (so good, as they say, that it had to be invented) that the term can only apply to deceptions of that variety. Veering off a bit, there's an interpretation of the story I've always liked, according to which Potemkin has facades of prosperous villages erected for Catherine as she passes by, and Catherine, shrewd as ever, expresses imperial approval even as she can see perfectly well that they are fakes. In other words, the whole thing was a charade (analogous to the old Soviet joke, "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us") conducted for internal political purposes, and none of the players cared about the actual status of the villages.
    - jfarmer 14y ago
      My thinking about the metaphor ended here: "Hey everyone, we set up this cool village for you all to come live in!" Like those creepy ghost cities in China. Google has the hooks to get everyone to take a tour, hoping that X% decide to stay. I hereby cede to you the title of Grand Master of Metaphor.
      - gruseom 14y ago
        More like Master Nitpicker on Random Points of Obsession. :)
- caseysoftware 14y ago
  "Potemkin Village" is what the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare.
  - gruseom 14y ago
    That example crossed my mind too but I'm not sure it quite fits. That would be like people getting off the boat and saying "What a delightful village! I believe I'll live here". But maybe you're right. It's a lot closer, and a neat twist.
  - woah 14y ago
    Wait, can we get a link? This sounds pretty epic, I haven't heard about it before.
    - jfarmer 14y ago
      Just Google: "reddit fake accounts"
  - vorg 14y ago
    > the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare. I doubt it's incredibly rare, but appears to be quite common. I had the same experience with a new programming language mailing list about 5 or 6 years ago. In retrospect, most of the accounts were controlled by a small core group trying to "generate buzz", as one of them called it later.
dredmorbius 14y ago
Your "Potempkin Village" reference is a red herring. What we have seen in successful (for a time) online communities have been limited, self-selecting, or gated communities. Usenet was effectively gated by requiring educational institution, technical organization, or government access, up until the Eternal September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september), so called because of the traditional influx of fresh users at the beginning of every school year whom Usenet veterans would indoctrinate into Usenet culture. When the floodgates opened to full public usage, the ability to assimilate new users (and existing content and behavior regulation systems) failed to keep pace, and Usenet's long decline started. Other examples include The Well, Slashdot, Digg, and even early Facebook (exclusive by decreasing degrees to Harvard, Ivy League, selective universities, any edu, and the world). There comes a point in any network in which it desperately needs noise controls. I've been dabbling on G+, and it's lacking in this regard (even boosters such as Robert Scoble point this out fairly regularly).
- dalton 14y ago
  Re: Eternal September, I had forgotten about that term. Every one of your comments on this thread is interesting and insightful. Thank you. What was the term similar to "Eternal September" that described the day AOL users were able to access the web? I was one of those AOL users... I remember setting up AOL winsock so I could use Netscape and bypass all of the AOL-browser garbage (http://www.netlingo.com/word/aol-winsock.php http://www.netlingo.com/word/aol-winsock.php) The day I got that all working was a great day in my teenage life :)
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    The Eternal September was AOL opening up Usenet, along with Compuserv, Demon Internet, and other early consumer closed network service providers.

by jfarmer 14y ago

gruseom 14y ago

"Potemkin Village" isn't about original communities leaving. A Potemkin Village is a fake facade erected to hide the real thing and fool visitors.

jfarmer 14y ago
Yes, sorry, I was talking about two things at once (as was the author). There are social networks that are valuable but evaporate (see, e.g., Digg). There are "inorganic" social networks that appear valuable because they have lots of passer-bys. Potemkim village is a good word for the latter. I'd put Google+ in that category, Robert Scoble's love affair with it notwithstanding.
- gruseom 14y ago
  But no, I don't think you can be a Potemkin Village unless you are (a) fake and (b) designed to fool a temporary visitor. A Potemkin Village is a fraud. Even the people who hate Google+ don't claim that it doesn't actually exist. (Or do they?!) A Potemkin Village social network might be something like one with a bunch of sock puppet accounts that appeared to be active, but which in fact was set up to deceive, say, an investor into thinking there was a real community there. A tech term close to "Potemkin Village" might be "vaporware". The story behind Potemkin Villages is so colorful and profound (so good, as they say, that it had to be invented) that the term can only apply to deceptions of that variety. Veering off a bit, there's an interpretation of the story I've always liked, according to which Potemkin has facades of prosperous villages erected for Catherine as she passes by, and Catherine, shrewd as ever, expresses imperial approval even as she can see perfectly well that they are fakes. In other words, the whole thing was a charade (analogous to the old Soviet joke, "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us") conducted for internal political purposes, and none of the players cared about the actual status of the villages.
  - jfarmer 14y ago
    My thinking about the metaphor ended here: "Hey everyone, we set up this cool village for you all to come live in!" Like those creepy ghost cities in China. Google has the hooks to get everyone to take a tour, hoping that X% decide to stay. I hereby cede to you the title of Grand Master of Metaphor.
    - gruseom 14y ago
      More like Master Nitpicker on Random Points of Obsession. :)
caseysoftware 14y ago
"Potemkin Village" is what the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare.
- gruseom 14y ago
  That example crossed my mind too but I'm not sure it quite fits. That would be like people getting off the boat and saying "What a delightful village! I believe I'll live here". But maybe you're right. It's a lot closer, and a neat twist.
- woah 14y ago
  Wait, can we get a link? This sounds pretty epic, I haven't heard about it before.
  - jfarmer 14y ago
    Just Google: "reddit fake accounts"
- vorg 14y ago
  > the Reddit guys started with by making thousands of accounts and sharing, commenting, etc. In that case, the fiction became reality which I (assume) is incredibly rare. I doubt it's incredibly rare, but appears to be quite common. I had the same experience with a new programming language mailing list about 5 or 6 years ago. In retrospect, most of the accounts were controlled by a small core group trying to "generate buzz", as one of them called it later.

dredmorbius 14y ago

Your "Potempkin Village" reference is a red herring. What we have seen in successful (for a time) online communities have been limited, self-selecting, or gated communities. Usenet was effectively gated by requiring educational institution, technical organization, or government access, up until the Eternal September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_september), so called because of the traditional influx of fresh users at the beginning of every school year whom Usenet veterans would indoctrinate into Usenet culture. When the floodgates opened to full public usage, the ability to assimilate new users (and existing content and behavior regulation systems) failed to keep pace, and Usenet's long decline started. Other examples include The Well, Slashdot, Digg, and even early Facebook (exclusive by decreasing degrees to Harvard, Ivy League, selective universities, any edu, and the world). There comes a point in any network in which it desperately needs noise controls. I've been dabbling on G+, and it's lacking in this regard (even boosters such as Robert Scoble point this out fairly regularly).

dalton 14y ago
Re: Eternal September, I had forgotten about that term. Every one of your comments on this thread is interesting and insightful. Thank you. What was the term similar to "Eternal September" that described the day AOL users were able to access the web? I was one of those AOL users... I remember setting up AOL winsock so I could use Netscape and bypass all of the AOL-browser garbage (http://www.netlingo.com/word/aol-winsock.php http://www.netlingo.com/word/aol-winsock.php) The day I got that all working was a great day in my teenage life :)
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  The Eternal September was AOL opening up Usenet, along with Compuserv, Demon Internet, and other early consumer closed network service providers.