Regulating Behavior in Online Communities

In thriving communities, a rough consensus eventually emerges about the range of behaviors the managers and most members consider acceptable, what we will call normative behaviors, and another range of behaviors that are beyond the pale. A Rape In Cyberspace, the newspaper report by Julian Dibbell (1993), describes a classic example of unacceptable behavior in LamdaMoo, an early virtual environment. Mr. Bungle, an avatar in the online community, wrote a program that forced two avatars controlled by other participants to have virtual sex with him and with each other, and to do brutal things to their own bodies. In describing the event online the next day, one of the victims begged “"I am requesting that Mr. Bungle be toaded for raping Starsinger and I [stet],” where “toad” is the command that would turn Bungle’s avatar into a toad, annihilating the character’s original description and attributes. Within 24 hours, 50 other characters also called for his toading. Three days later the community had a real-time discussion of the issue. An system administrator who observed this discussion eventually ran the toad command to eliminate the Mr. Bungle character. Although LamdaMoo did not have a policy against cyberrape, when one occurred in its midst, this action instigated widespread discussion and crystallized a view among many inhabitants of what were correct and incorrect types of behavior in this community.</p

Watching Together: Integrating Conversation with Video

Watching video online is becoming increasingly popular, and new video streaming technologies have the potential to transform video-watching from a passive, isolating experience into an active, socially engaging experience. However, the viability of an active social experience is unclear: both chatting and watching video require attention, and may interfere with one another and detract from the experience. In this paper, we empirically examine the activity of chatting while watching video online. We examine how groups of friends and strangers interact, and find that chat has a positive influence on social relationships, and people chat despite being distracted. We discuss the benefits and opportunities provided by mixing chat and video, uncover some of the attentional and social challenges inherent in this combination of media, and provide guidance for structuring the video-watching experience

Talk Amongst Yourselves: Inviting Users to Participate in Online Conversations

Many small online communities would benefit from increased diversity or activity in their membership. Some communities run the risk of dying out due to lack of participation. Others struggle to achieve the critical mass necessary for diverse and engaging conversation. But what tools are available to these communities to increase participation? Our goal in this research was to spark contributions to the movielens.org discussion forum, where only 2% of the members write posts. We developed personalized invitations, messages designed to entice users to visit or contribute to the forum. In two field experiments, we ask (1) if personalized invitations increase activity in a discussion forum, (2) how the choice of algorithm for intelligently choosing content to emphasize in the invitation affects participation, and (3) how the suggestion made to the user affects their willingness to act. We find that invitations lead to increased participation, as measured by levels of reading and posting. More surprisingly, we find that invitations emphasizing the social nature of the discussion forum are effective, while invitations emphasizing non-social aspects of the discussion are less so