DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!: Managing troublemakers in magazines' online communities

“Trolling” and other negative behaviour on magazine websites is widespread, ranging from subtly provocative behaviour to outright abuse. Publishers have sought to develop lively online communities, with high levels of user-generated content. Methods of building sites have developed quickly, but methods of managing them have lagged behind. Some publishers have then felt overwhelmed by the size and behaviour of the communities they have created. This paper considers the reasons behind trolling and the tools digital editors have developed to manage their communities, taking up the role of Zygmunt Bauman's gardeners in what they sometimes refer to as “walled gardens” within the Internet's wild domains. Interviews were conducted with online editors at the front line of site management at Bauer, Giraffe, IPC, Natmags, RBI and the Times. This article shows how publishers are designing sites that encourage constructive posting, and taking a more active part in site management. Web 2.0 and the spread of broadband, which have made management of fast-growing communities difficult, may themselves bring positive change. As uploading material becomes technically easier, “ordinary” citizens can outnumber those who, lacking social skills or with little regard for social norms, originally made the Internet their natural habitat

Explaining Virtual Community Participation: Accounting for the IT Artifacts through Identification and Identity Confirmation

This study draws upon self-verification theory, social identity theory and self-categorization theory to investigate the dual effects of system design, i.e., identity confirmation (the self) and identification (the community), on virtual community (VC) participation. An important theoretical development is the conceptualization of VC identity and the elucidation of its system design determinants. Community presentation, i.e., system design features for presenting a virtual community identity, is hypothesized to facilitate identification by setting the boundaries for inter-group comparison and highlighting the in-group homogeneity. Furthermore, system design features that prior research identified as determinants for identity confirmation, i.e., self-presentation, deep profiling, and co-presence, are argued to have impacts on identification directly by influencing social comparison and indirectly by making the VC identity attractive. The research model accounts for the dual roles of system design features, i.e., effects on identification and identity confirmation, in explaining VC participation. The implications of these results for both theory and practice are discussed

Examining the Factors Influencing Continued Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Knowledge Repository

Electronic knowledge repositories facilitate knowledge discovery and reuse by providing computer-mediated repositories for users to codify their expertise. However, why individuals volunteer to help strangers in these electronic networks is not well understood. There is no apparent benefit for the contributor and free-riders have same access to the public good as everyone else. Based on previous research positing that the interaction created by network participants produces an online public good of knowledge, the purpose of this paper is to investigate individuals’ intention to continue sharing knowledge in electronic knowledge repository. Drawing from social cognitive theory, and cognitive evaluation theory, we propose a theoretical model employing environmental factors such as feedback, rewards, and communication, and individual motivations such as perceived knowledge self-efficacy and self-esteem to explain person’s behavior (continuance intention) to contribute knowledge in the electronic knowledge repositories

Fair game? Journalists’ experiences of online abuse

Online abuse of journalists through comments below articles or on Twitter is now ubiquitous. The tough-minded industry culture means it has generally been dismissed as unimportant, however high-profile cases of rape and bomb threats have given it greater significance. This research, based on a survey of 267 journalists and four detailed interviews, sought to establish what effect it had on them and their behaviour. Results showed women were more likely than men to report often receiving insults or threats, and had stronger emotional reactions to abuse. News reporters were more likely to report abuse than other sectors of the industry, and were more likely to report problems with online gangs. Many described their powerlessness when targeted by organised gangs. Some respondents described serious problems offline and online, including leaving jobs and self-censoring due to fear of abuse

Mediating Role of Community Participation on the Relationship between Common Passion and Sustainable Development

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of common passion on community participation.It further demonstrates the relationship between common passion, community participation and sustainable development. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was employed.A sample of 284 respondents from six communities were used while 24 interviewees were interviewed amongst 24 key community leaders in three selected oil producing states in the Niger Delta region, Nigeria.The research findings indicate that community participation plays crucial role in community development sustainability.Further results from both analysis shows the common passion has a positive influence on community participation and sustainable development.More so, community participation was found as a mediator on the relationship between common passion and sustainable community development.This study is limited in scope, coverage and of course generalization. It is limited to the Niger Delta region of Nigeria which is believed to be the richest among other regions in Nigeria. Thus, other regions in Nigeria were not put into consideration.The present study has created awareness and knowledge about the current state of development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Secondly, it offers a framework to guide policy formulation, implementation and evaluation for sustainable development in the Niger delta region of Nigeria.It has also increased an understanding on the key factors that influence sustainable development of the Niger Delta people.The study offered an insightful result for the policy makers in government, non-governmental agencies and researchers in this field of study.The study contributes to community development practices and sustainability by identifying the relevance of group cohesion, interaction and common purpose as crucial element in facilitating community participation.The research opens up avenue for future study in examining those factors that stimulates community solidarity and group cohesion as catalyst for community driven development sustainability

An investigation of sociability measurements in online communities

This paper reports the results of an investigation into measurements of the sociability of proximate online communities, in other words, how well it supports social interaction rather than in terms of its usability, which tends to focus on task issues and user satisfaction. Measurements that have been proposed by other writers are investigated and several new measurements are proposed. These were tested during the introduction of a new proximate online student community called Veritas. The results showed that sociability is best measured by a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches

A system dynamics approach to study virtual communities

Abstrac

You are here: Building an online interactive map application

As new map applications have increased in popularity the opportunities for gathering geographic data have increased as well. The difficulty that interactive user-driven map applications have is the motivation for user participation. People have become more comfortable contributing to forums, blogs, and sites driven by user content, but user-driven map sites have been slow to cultivate a large amount of user-contributed data. Focusing on a small geographic area can increase user participation within interactive map applications. The design and implementation of an online map applications focused on a small geographic area is presented. The site uses a map interface to gather new spatial data from users, as well as allowing browsing and search. Users can also annotate existing data on the site through the map interface. The final site presents a mix between theory-based design and the inherent limitations of a practical implementation