twopointouch

Joshua Porter has published slides from a presentation reminding us that there is over a hundred years of research into behavioural psychology waiting to inform the way in which social web applications are designed. Through the links, I found Peter Kollock’s 1996 essay, Design Principles for Online Communities, which collects together some key points from work done over the previous twelve years. The first two of the studies it covers predate the web, and at the time the latest appeared, 1994, there wasn’t a lot of the web as we’d recognise it today – no Google, for one thing.

Nonetheless, it’s quite astonishing the degree to which these principles might help with what sometimes seem like very modern issues: wikipedia vandalism and blog bullying come to mind easily. That’s quite a trite point, of course, but the simple idea that co-operation requires sustained interaction with stable, visible identities (1984) sometimes seems to be beyond the architects of some of the biggest products in Web 2.0. The sort of scandals revealed by the launch of the recent Wikiscanner utility, for example, wouldn’t have been a possibility if these ideas were built into the design of the system.

Here are the key points. It might be fun to measure your favourite rising star in the Web 2.0 world against these criteria:

• Axelrod’s (1984) requirements for the possibility of cooperation:
  • Arrange that individuals will meet each other again
  • They must be able to recognize each other
  • They must have information about how the other has behaved until now

• Ostrom’s (1990) design principles of successful communities:
  • Group boundaries are clearly defined
  • Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions
  • Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules
  • The right of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities
  • A system for monitoring members’ behavior exists; this monitoring is undertaken by the community members themselves
  • A graduated system of sanctions is used
  • Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms

• Godwin’s (1994) principles for making virtual communities work:
  • Use software that promotes good discussion
  • Don’t impose a length limitation on postings
  • Front-load your system with talkative, diverse people
  • Let the users resolve their own disputes
  • Provide institutional memory
  • Promote continuity
  • Be host to a particular interest group
  • Provide places for children
  • Confront the users with a crisis