I'm going to be reading and commenting this paper.

Nice description on 43 Things and I really enjoyed reading. I'm also a new member of 43T and your paper helped me better understand the community. Also I liked that you integrated the concepts from readings into your paper.

One thing I want to push is that you may want to explain part 3 (the community of practice) more in detail. Since you acknowledged you're a new member now, you'll find more about 43T that is not explicit to new users as you explore 43T. For example, you may find shared repertoires that are not technological affordances.  For example, what are the things and ways that newbies may not understand or even regulars may not be aware of?

I found 43T is a very interesting community - a new type of social networking site. If you keep examining it in addition to what you've described in this paper, a number of interesting stories are likely to come out.

Hi Ayça, thought I'd comment too:

I really enjoyed your paper. I might be biased (since I use 43T) but I think you did a really good job of describing the community.

I also think you're spot on with your understanding of the site's joint enterprise as listing and accomplishing your life's goals (even if our goals are not the same). I think this is an interesting (and newish) phenomenon: social sites that exist only to be social and not as connections to some other goal or real world group.

I look forward to reading the other parts of your paper because I think you'll really be pushing the readings for this class, especially the older ones; I don't know if those authors could anticipate this direction for eCommunties.

I think you may also want to examine 43T's "report a similar goal" feature as an additional way of solidifying a shared repertoire (in this case goal terms). This feature allows users to submit similarly termed goals and allows other users a simple way to swap one goal for the more "appropriate" terminology.

Does you think this aids in the creation of shared meaning for users on the site? Or does it kill finer shades of meaning as users attempt to conform to some 'standard' that is decided by group-think?

This seems like a pretty well thought out business plan and I think, really highlights some things we *haven't* covered in the course yet.

The course seems to accpet that you have an eCommunity already in place, or, that if you don't "providing content first" will be a magic bullet to solve the the problem of users. What I'm struck with when reading about Eventure is that we haven't really discussed how to get people to use your site.

Many of the readings come form the angle of a) studying existing communities or b) adding eCommunity features onto "regular" websities.

Paul may correct me, but I don'ts see this as the directio that eCommunities are heading. Most the eCommunities I run across these days are a lot like Eventure:

Web 2.0 sites that exist soley for the purpose of being a community. They seem to be cropping up daily. I'd love if we could study in the course how sites like these manage to get large user bases.

We know it can't be quality alone (otherwise, how could myspace exist) and it can't be cool features alone (because a lot of sites with neat features fail) and it can't be advertising alone (a lot of site heavily promoted also fail).

So, what makes users want to use sites? What possess a newbie to enter an eCommunity when there are no older generation? and what happens when these sites die?

My next comment is about RSS. XML, and data sharing. It seems that RSS is being used these days ONLY for news aggregators. This is cool in itself, but I'd love to see a site like this use RSS or another open API to share data in interesting ways. I think the coolest web 2.0 stuff is going to happen when sites start talking to each other and linking people together.

This is something I wish we would cover in class a bit more. We seem to be exploring online communities almost entirely apart from their affect on the "real world".

With no offense intended to the authors, I think this might reflect their status as immigrants to a digital world. For those who grew up or are growing up with online communities I think many of the articles in this class will seem a) really obvious or b) just plain flawed in some way.

I really think the chart on page 2 is a fantastic visual for the point you are trying to make.
I don't know if it is within the scope of your research, but you may want to explore communities like facebook or myspace where the impact user profile information can be huge (myspace has had several unfortunate homicide events lately and many schools are limited student access to it because they believe students lack the maturity to properly censor themselves. Are students really expecting privacy that their guardians know doesn't exist or are parents just behind the times and this kind of privacy simple has less value for teens? or do the benefits (whatever they may be) simply outweigh the costs for teenagers who are native citizens in this highly connected world?

I will reward your participation in this social endeavor with my positive feedback on your paper. 

Jina, I really enjoyed reading about Cyworld! One thing that kept crossing my mind was how similar (especially culturally) Cyworld is to American social networking sites like Myspace. One thing that hit me particularly was the concept of il-chon. In a place like Myspace, people have hundreds of "friends" and it seems as though they are really just collecting pretty people that make their profile look better-- more friends means I'm more popular, cooler, etc and that more people will stumble upon my profile through these connections. Although you didn't explicitly state it, it sounds as though il-chon is a bit different, in that people are much more selective of who gets to be il-chon. Is this the case? Maybe you could talk about this more in your future paper, especially in the sense of how people decide who gets to be il-chon and who doesn't. 

 I was also curious about the concept of stalking, since you mentioned it several times. This is an aspect of social deviance that I find particularly interesting, especially since I do use the internet to stalk some people from my past. From your paper it sounds as though stalking happens a lot at Cyworld, and that it's acceptable to some people and rude to others. Again, maybe this could be touched on a bit more, with examples of how people handle their profiles when they realize they are being stalked.

 Finally, I was wondering about the history of the word minihompy. Does it have a meaning in Korean or is it just a slang word that was created specifically for the site? How do members feel about this term?

I can't wait to read more!

Good paper overall.

I'm not sure about your statement of the joint enterprise in the MUD. Maybe that part of the paper just needs to be unpacked a little bit. But it's important because it's so fundamental. What does it mean to create "real-time fiction," and how is role-play understood (I suppose "negotiated" if we are using Wenger's terminology) by participants?

I don't have experience with this MUD, but it seems likely that -- based on your description of the guild system and different fantasy races -- there might be overlapping communities of practices in the MUD, each with their own enterprise, repertoire, and forms of engagement. When giving examples, you discuss membership in and boundary between these groups. It may make sense to highlight the existence groups right off the bat, and discuss basics like joint enterprise with respects both to DragonRealms as a whole, and the different guilds, species, etc. within it.

The paper had a several errors in grammar and usage, which should be pretty straightforward to clean up.

The specific examples you chose were well-placed in the paper, and given the right amount of explanation -- something which is not easy to do when writing about a text interface in this kind of context.

I didn't have any problems resulting from your word processing experiment, good luck with that (I'm a TeX holdout myself).

Matt, this is a great introduction for your paper. Your use
of concepts from Wenger and our other readings seem apt and illuminating. I
also thought your framing of the paper was effective at presenting the various
topics in a clear, understandable manner.  

I was pleasantly surprised by your description of the Cool
Running community. I don't know the world of runners very well, but I would
have expected them to be more competitive than they seem to be. I look forward
to reading more about them.

Reading your paper did raise a couple of questions I'm
hoping your paper will be able to address. I'm curious what the answers might
be and what they might tell us about the community.

 1) I notice that,  a)
most C25K postings do not receive comments (p.1), and  b) the running logs are apparently private,
unless a user gives out his password (p.6). Given the strength of the Cool
Running community in other respects, are these exceptions which need to be
accounted for?  Or are they just examples
of members 'competing against themselves'? 
I take your point about the community existing within a 'larger social
context,' yet these two examples seem to suggest a more solitary relationship:
the member and his own development as a runner. I guess I'm wondering, in
particular, why the running logs aren't just open (perhaps read-only, but
accessible) to the rest of the community. 

2) Is the lack of a technological affordance for recognizing
achievement (p.4) a necessary result of the Cool Running joint enterprise, to
be a place for "support and information, not distinction and
difference" (p. 5)? Or do you think the site would be able to introduce
such an affordance without endangering its supportive, relatively
non-competitive environment?

 3) I was glad to read about the positive responses the
community takes toward trolling, insults, and threads devoted to sensitive medical
issues. Is this supportive behavior maintained and consciously taught to newbies
by the 'regulars'? Or do the newbies usually pick up on it quickly on their
own? From your description of the Newbie Cafe (p. 7), it seems the former might
be the case, but it would be interesting to see some concrete examples of the
'legitimate peripheral participation' taking place in that forum.

I'll comment on this paper.

 - David

Overall, a well-written introduction to the WebHead community.  There were clear connections and references to many of the concepts in Wenger.  I was surprised to see such high levels of participation and the diversity of the community.  It seems like an exciting and interesting community and I look forward to hearing more about it.  Here are some questions I thinking about:

1.  Aside from being a moderator, how are visitors, regulars, leaders, and elders distinguished?  Is there anyway for someone to identify who is a long standing member of the community other than someone being a moderator?

 2.  Given that this is an international community, how was the community responded to that diversity.  Obviously since education systems are different, have you noticed any influece on workshops, curriculum, and discussions dealing with that?

3. How do the moderators and communicators deal with trolls or disruptive members?  Are there any policies or have you observed anything concerning that?  From your paper, it seemed like the community has never experienced any out of line behavior.

4.  What is the motivator for visitors or lurkers to do the Becoming WebHead workshop?  Are there any materials at the site or in the group that would motivate them?

These were just a few questions I was wondering about when I read your paper.  Otherwise, it is a great paper. 

This was a highly enjoyable paper to read, and I *finally* feel as though I have an understanding of Milliways (after almost 2 years of your trying to explain it to me!). I guess such a bizarre and parallel universe as Milliways requires a more systematic elucidation for the uninitiated like myself.

 It is interesting to see how well this community maps on to Wenger's notion of a community of practice as a history of shared learning. On the community level, Milliways is continually negotiating the meaning of what it itself is (both in terms of its physical and social spaces); and on the individual level,  muns, in collaboration with other muns, are continually negotiating the identity of their pups, as they encounter new situations and characters.

Offline, you have mentioned that participation in Milliways is a great way for writers (and aspiring writers) to practice developing characters and plotlines--to engage in informal learning, and later on, mentorship, of the craft of fiction writing. Not only that, but the way you describe the peripheral social structure of the community seems similar to a cluster of guilds, where there are groups of specialized craftsmen (and women and creatures etc) in the eleven different Role-Playing Communities whose efforts, though mostly invisible to the community at large, help to sustain its core social infrastructure.

I'd be curious to know if anyone in Milliways (muns, not pups, that is) ever explicitly talks about their writerly interests, or their "real life" goals and reasons for playing a certain pup (e.g., to explore a character type they are planning to use in their next short story). In other words, what are the norms around talking about learning, particularly when it is in service of individual goals outside of the community, rather than for further enrichment of the community itself?  I'm guessing it might be taboo to speak about alterior motives, because it would be taking participation in the beloved Milliways community as a means to an end, and not an end in itself.  Or are people more open and accepting about these things?

Since you're doing the coding assignment, I'm not sure exactly how to frame my comments, but I'll do my best.

I really like the approach you've taken, and the questions you're asking of sites like flickr and 43things. You've identified several important aspects of flickr and 43things' shared repertoire, insights that I'm sure will serve you well when you start coding. I specifically enjoyed the shared repertoire section in which you clearly link tagging and the development over time of a shared vocabulary, community norms, etc. in online communities.

I would like to know more about the critique of Wenger that you offer in the first paragraph. I understand that the overarching theme of your project is to explore how online commnities can better support rhythms and local responses through affordances like tagging. Perahps this is out of scope since you are coding, but I'm really curious to read a more specific argument about why Wenger doesn't work as well in these instances. Maybe this could be an area of the paper you develop as you get more in depth into coding and discover more areas where Wenger's joint enterprise theory could be better supported in online environments.

I enjoyed reading your paper; there are some really intruiging observations about tagging and the devleopment of a shared repertoire that I hadn't considered before (at least not in that way). It looks like you're off to a good start.

Youn Ah's paper gave me some great insights into Cyworld, an online community that we've talked about a lot in class, but which I still didn't have a good grasp of. One main component of the joint enterprise is to "enrich offline friendships." Given this foundation, it seems like those studying cyworld may encounter some interesting overlaps with those studying the interaction between online and offline behaviors. (Cool Runnings, Sun-Mi's user profiles.)

One big thing that jumped out at me was the strong hosting role that users take up. Cyworld users maintain 'Minihompy', which seems to be a cross between a blog and a friendster or myspace homepage. My impression is that a strong social norm exists to think of yourself as the host of this space, making specific choices to 'tend' the space for the benefit of your visitors. I wonder if this is somehow embedded into the incentives of the community, or if it is a cultural difference between Korean youth culture and the States. I have the sense that most friendster or myspace users setup their homepages as advertisements for themselves, rather than putting a lot of thought into how visiting friends will experience the space.

Two questions I had were related to legitimate peripheral participation and generational discontinuities. Cyworld has a 'What Friends Say' section, similar to friendster testimonials. I see leaving testimonials as a norm (possibly a ritual) associated with the membership trajectory. The paper addressed the role 'What Friends Say' in legitimate peripheral participation, citing the fact that these testimonials pave the way for new users entering the web of social relationships. Can it be both? What do you think?

As to generational discontinuities, I just wanted to point out that generations can be much shorter in online communities. With this in mind, I wonder if Cyworld exhibits any 'old school - new school' conflict. Exactly how long has Cyworld been around (the paper mentions it's fairly young) and is there a distinct group of people who were around when Cyworld first started versus a second group of people who have joined since Cyworld became more popular?

Simple, clear framework based on two forces working on the “collections” at such sites: members reevaluate what is interesting and the outside world changes locations. I was thinknig other forces maybe changes in memberships or culture at such sites, or changes in the affordances of the technology used (ie SMS messages, eventual GPS on phones, etc). It would have been nice to see more of this framework come back in the rest of the paper.

The joint enterprise of such communities was well defined. Good connection between Wenger’s work (engaging current and prospective members in the community), with the idea of reflecting a user’s contributions in their profile.

Geocaching is a good opening example (I would have lost the big block quotes), but the idea of the logbook seems like a very important parallel to the meta-data enriched location markers this paper describes. The annotated screen shots are helpful.

The Yellow Arrow and Wayfaring descriptions were enough to give me the understanding I needed to read the paper, but it may be better to bracket them more thematically (tell me what is important across all of them before telling me why each is different from the other)

Going back through each of the three sites to explain shared repertoire works well, and I think, overall, you do an excellent job of linking broader class concepts to functionality in user profiles.

The discussion of how new members learn what is “cool enough” in each community from others’ profiles made a lot of sense. Im not sure that creating an account vs. not creating an account is a significant legitimator of participation… do you see any indication of this across the geocaching and wayfaring sites?

In conclusion, this is a very good paper. Given the page limit, all three of these communities are introduced very effectively (I found them so interesting, I could have used another page on each). You also do an excellent job of applying course concepts to user profiles, and balancing bringing out similarities and differences between the sites you survey.

Very cool... I can't resist reading smart people's papers. I especially liked the section on Learning Impact.

Fascinating, the tension between new people posting "cool enough" locations and oldies worrying about being repitious. I think it is especially import in communities like these where a significant amount of a person's offline time is spent pursuing places listed on the site.

How do you think this social pressure compares with other recommender systems like del.icio.us where only a moment might be wasted on a redundant link?

Does your description of the joint enterprise ("defining physical spaces, attributing value and emotion to them, and sharing them with the greater community") account for people who don't contribute new places but only like visiting ones listed?

Are these people community members?

I'll comment on this paper, since あたしも日本の文化に関心があるから。

To sum up:

Lev and Michael are planning to develop a program that will analyze the content of a MediaWiki installation, generate leaderboards and post them back to the wiki in an—I assume—automated way.

Altogether pretty straightforward, and a very cool feature, especially in communities that currently lack a reified reputation system. You two seem to have excellent engagement of the course topics, and have thought through the implications of your feature pretty deeply.

I'm going to push you here, though. From what it seems, you two plan to develop this feature, an enumerate many of its possible implications, but decidedly do not attempt to address those implications. For example, you mention that these scores, once posted, will be editable by other users “by the nature of wikis”. I'm of the opinion that if a system has the potential to be abused, than it should assume to have been abused. For myself and users like me, all of the benefits that you discuss later seem trumped by this problem. While there might not be a good solution, perhaps you could discuss changes to the MediaWiki software that would enable these values not to be editted, or other out-of-scope methods of protecting the score (my idea, for example, would be to post said score not through the text of the wiki, but in a server-side program that generates an image, not unlike a web-page counter. Users would then have the option of including their score or not on their profile pages, via something like <img src="leader.php?username=Ryan" … />).

In addition, you mention the possible abuses of this system, but don't detail your plans to protect against them (e.g. I could gain a high rank from changing all lists to include the Oxford comma).  Perhaps a solution to this problem is out-of-scope, but you delineate methods of solving the problem both through extensions to your project, and changes to MediaWiki in general.

I think this project looks fun. I already like the leaderboard on our site. It adds a nice flavor of (friendly) competition to an class requirement that at times makes my eyes roll. And as for your additions to shared reportoire your feature might add, “karma whore” immediately springs to mind.

I hope my comments have helped, good work and good luck!