Preece presents an introduction to the concept of online communities. She raises a clearly important point for both the remainder of her book and the focus of this class-- how does one define an online community? Her introduction seems to present the challenge of answering this question by giving an overview of the things that a community could connote. The first concept presented is that online communities involve people, purposes, policies, and technology to bridge these people, purposes, and policies.

She reinforces this through a brief analysis of a CHI conference working group's brainstorming session on online community, which came to the consensus that online communities don't just happen-- they aren't random encounters in cyberspace. They are deliberate and people come together for a purpose, and consequently stay together for a purpose (though in my view, this purpose clearly may and will change over time). There are rules, and there is a deep level of communication and reciprocation. That is, people don't just ping each other when they need something or when they have one random thing to say. Communication occurs for a longer-term goal, such as to answer a question, solve a problem, or have fun.

 One difficulty in defining online community, Preece notes, is that we don't yet know just how much interaction is required between participants for it to move from a random encounter to a full community. Initially, her reasoning is that interaction is contextually-based. In an online game community (such as Everquest or World of Warcraft), interaction is expected to last for hours at a time, and over months or even years of participation. In a text-based discussion forum, however, interaction may be more scattered with only a few regular, active participants at any given time. I think the point here is again bringing in what Preece mentions at the beginning-- online communities have rules and expectations, and these rules and expectations dictate how much interaction is required to become a full-fledged member of a community.

Finally, the author mentions a few examples of how or why an online community may be harnessed. E-commerce is presented as an up-and-coming beneficiary of online communities. People tend to place a lot of value in each others’ opinions about products and services; as a result, e-commerce companies are looking to harness this as a way to spread the word about their work and to create a community around it. Further, physical and geographic spheres such as neighborhoods are using online communities as a way to break down physical or perceived barriers. The author presents the highly ambitious claim that technology can/should be used to promote democracy, equity, culture, and other social values within these physical and geographic communities.

Critique
Instead of critiquing the many points brought up in this reading, I’d like to focus on one in particular. I’m interested in the concept of social deviance and how this impacts real-time communities versus online communities. Certainly deviant acts will occur to break or challenge the policies and purposes of a community. As developers and mediators of future online spaces, what do we need to know about this, both psychologically and technologically? The author alludes to it, stating that the policies and purposes define how people behave, but I’m wondering in more specific terms whether this means deviance can be stopped or controlled to some degree by specific governing methods or social bonds.

Connections
Preece outlines a few issues that are raised in more detail in the readings from Wellman and Powazek. For instance, Wellman discusses more fluidly the concept of online communities breaking down the barriers of physical and geographic community space by allowing people to get to know one another in their neighborhood better, and eventually unite socially and politically. At first I was hesitant to believe in this power (honestly, it just seems a bit cliche that online community would be oh-so-grand), but after reading Oldenberg's description of "third place" I began to understand how online community can serve as a rich grounds for deeper, possibly emotional connection with people that we may otherwise pass on the street and never notice.

Further, Powazek discusses the concept of online community as a marketing and ecommerce tool with a finer level of detail, discussing how and why one would want to attempt this venture (and conversely, when to run the hell away from the idea). Preece merely mentions that it is a possibility, while Powazek goes into the dos and don'ts, although as Trek points out in his assessment of Powazek, none of these are particularly groundbreaking. It's just good to know that marketing folk out there can read Powazek's piece and will maybe think twice before investing so much in the power of e-community.

Definitions and applications of community and online community
Community involves:
People
Policies
Purposes

Online community adds in technology to bridge these people, policies, and purposes.

Communities are deliberate; people come together for a reason, not just for a random encounter. Communities evolve over time. The thing(s) that brought them together may be changed or redefined. Online communities may help this evolution, especially when in a physical or geographic community such evolution is not possible.

A one-time response to a blog entry does not indicate an online community; however, a group of friends who collectively choose to read, respond to, and link to each others’ blogs may be considered an online community. In the case of this course’s forum, it is not an online community if I just post my thoughts on the readings and other students post their thoughts as well. We must have a mutual agreement to engage in each others’ work. This would also be an example of an online space overcoming barriers presented in a physical community (the real-time class environment)—wallflowers may perk up more in an online community, and the process of providing opinions may be more equally distributed in a longitudinal, online sphere than within a time-constrained lecture period.
 

Preece introduces the in an orderly fashion by first defining her terms: sociability, usability and online community. That sociability--the collective purpose, goals and roles of individuals, and policies to shape social interaction in a community--and usability—the technological support of rapid learning, high skill retention and low error rates—are the two key themes running through the discussion is understandable. Technology and human behavior are the two sides of the HCI coin. But what I find interesting about Preece’s take is her optimism: “sociability and usability form a bridge linking knowledge about human behavior to appropriate social planning, policies, and software design for successful online communities” she writes. Where Preece talks of bridges, Ackerman cautions us about social-technical gaps (cf. Ackerman’s “The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW”).

I think these gaps, or inadequacies of online community support, are important issues in the discussion of online communities, and would critique Preece for not mentioning these up front. In her defense, however, it looks like she might take these up in her “Bright and dark Sides of Online Communities” chapter. I imagine that looking at the shortcomings and failures of would-be online communities will be just as instructive and helpful to testing proposed definitions, if not more so, as looking at successful ones in this class.

An overview and generalized definition of online communities. Introduces two key themes:

• Sociability: Seems to be defined as the social interaction of the community? This casts a broad net, including a community's purpose, goals and policies of interaction. All these things "determine what [the community] is like" (p. 6). This seems to be as close as he comes to a definition of sociability.
• Usability: Used in the classic HCI sense to support "rapid learning, high skill retention, and low error rates" (p. 6).

Preece lays out a working definition of online communities, which we may (?) return to in class. She intentionally reduced constrictions on his definition, especially in comparison to the ACM core attributes list and in recognition of the commercialization of some online communities. His definition is made up of:

• People interacting socially to satisfy needs/perform roles
• Shared purpose
• Policies to guide interaction (may be loose or strong)
• Computer systems to support/mediate social interaction

Preece examines other perspectives of online communities:

• the multidisciplinary brainstorm from an ACM CHI conference
• the sociologists (social network theory, etc. "focus on social interaction...is a welcome counterbalance to the intense technological hype often [associated] with the Internet" [p. 10].)
• the technologists ("'Geek speak'...says little or nothing about social organization and interaction" [p. 10].)
• Virtual worlds (MOO/MUD)
• E-commerce ("Entrepreneurs take a very broad view of [online] community" [p. 10].).

Preece begins with two concepts to aid understanding of online communties: sociability, which refers to the goals and roles of individuals and the policies that shape their interaction, and usability, which as lrickard notes, is understood in the familiar HCI sense.

Preece also tries to nail down a definition for 'online community' that can speak to the many forms communities take on the net. He offers a combination of people (to interact), a shared purpose (that provides a reason for the site to exist), policies (to guide behavior), and computer systems (to support interaction and togetherness). He suggests the WELL as an example of such a community.

He also notes other suggested core attributes, including "repeated, active participation," which he notes, has begged the question of how much does participation does it take to qualify. But, he adds, few question the importance of a sense of "belonging over time" to the identity of a community.

Preece offers some useful cautions: that network analysis already exists as a sociological tool, so there is no need to reinvent it. And that a technological definition of a community (listserver, forum, etc.) really doesn't speak to what kind of social interaction might be taken place in it.

 He closes with a discussion of sociological distinctions between 'group,' 'network,' and 'community'; the concept of stickiness (discussed in previous blogs); and a look at two kinds of online communities: special interest groups and community networks.

Critique

I agree with the earlier posts saying Preece is somewhat basic, but discussions of definition, while necessary, tend to be that way. I do think his argument that a technological definition doesn't speak to a site's social interaction is important and worth keeping in mind. And the question of how much and what kind of interaction is sufficient and necessary to call a site a 'community' seems genuinely challenging.

Connections

Like Kim and Powazek, Preece calls attention to the importance of meeting people's goals and needs for a site to be a community and a successful venture.   

Kim and Powazek both present online communities as explicitly constructed, intentional things. (This is not something which comes up in the perspectives presented in Preece, excepting the "technology perspective".) Two possible reasons for this:

1. "No plan without a planner" -- a thing doesn't count as a community unless it has clearly identified owners, who designed it (see the Preece "technology perspective") and/or are invested in its success (see the Preece "ecommerce perspective").
2. Kim and Powazek have written how-to books for people who want to run communities.

I'm betting on #2. So what's a non-constructed community?

One helpful example for me thinking through this was del.icio.us.

Is del.icio.us in general a community? It doesn't really seem right, but del.icio.us fits the four high-level criteria in Preece's working definition. (If not, how about specific tags, inboxes, or groups or users? If not, how about the del.icio.us-discuss e-mail list? etc.)

I think the the breadth of Preece's working definition is due to the openness (or lack of precision) of the meanings of "social interaction" and "sociability." Computer systems are bound by practicality and the state of the art. Shared purposes and policies we can get at with 504 concepts: norms, routines, organizational memory, etc. But sociability seems like a bit of a free-for-all.

Preece regards sociability and usability as fundamental concepts to develop and evaluate online communities.  Well defined the social framework according to the purposes and policies of the communities provides the environments where members strive to pursue own goals and satisfy their needs. Meanwhile, the well designed online communities from the perspective of usability enable users to communicate with each other, find information, and navigate the community software without much difficulty.

Different groups have come up with different definitions of online communities. However, they have the following in common: Members have a shared goal, interest, and activity that provide the reason for belonging to the community.  I found that among the definitions of ACM CHI, the emphasis on “the reciprocity of information, support, and services among members” is rather interesting. How much reciprocity of information should be achieved for the online community to remain healthy? Because the power law distribution in the number of users and the amount of contribution seems to be very common in online communities.   

Online communities from the E-commerce perspectives make me think about some ethical issues.  Many e-commerce companies mine the consumer behaviors and tastes from the personal blogs and online communities. The one of the biggest difference from the online communities and the real world communities should be that all the activities on online communities can be watched and recorded and finally turn into data much more easily.  

Online communities are sometimes defined from a broader point of view such as community networks that link and support physically existing communities. Preecce also implies that technology can help to promote various social values via online communities. 

Description

The term online community is not really clear since it encapsulates many kinds of social interactions, and consequently it’s hard to agree to a single definition. Preece talks about the definition, meaning of online communities and the importance of sociability and usability for them. She also claims that despite the huge participation in online communities, fundamental questions remain unanswered.

There is no exact definition of an online community, instead there are common attributes.

High level criteria for online community are:
1. Social interaction
2. A shared purpose
3. Policies (tacit or explicit)
4. Infrastructure (e.g. computer systems)

Core attributes of communities as identified by ACM CHI workshop are:
1. Shared motivation
2. Repeated, active participation
3. Shared resources and policies on them
4. Exchange of information
5. Shared social context

Some of her arguments are:
- Communities are neither designed nor they just form.
- Software design affects community development.
- Concepts of sociability (social interaction in the community) and usability (findability, ease of use) helps developers understand the process of developing online communities. Community members also benefit from these concepts.
- Successful communication requires clear communication of purpose and policies.
- If an online community is usable, it means members easily find their way through conversation.
- Lack of physical presence is still a problem for online communities.
- Research made on communities by sociologists must be taken into account in order not to reinvent the wheel.
- Not any conversation on the web constitute an online community.
- Communities are different from groups or networks. A group has clear boundaries, defined in terms of its members. A network crosses boundaries of different groups. Community implies the strength of these relationships.

Critique

Every community is a network but the reverse is not necessarily true.
I’m not sure if repeated, active participation is really necessary. What is the interval of repeating? Does everyone have to repeatedly be active? We need to discuss on this more.

Connection

Kim also points out that a community must have clearly communicated purpose and goals. She groups communities using similar attributes discussed in Preece’s paper.

Preece briefly mentions a topic that I always wish was acknowledged more in business and e-communities: stickiness. Stickiness, Preece says, is what "draws people and holds them to a Website". I think stickiness is the term given to that special something that certian sites have and others don't.

I spent a long time thinking that stickiness had some strong correlation to quality (in that more nicely designed sites would would draw and keep more users). I still think that quality has something to do with it, but there are some wildly popular online communities that are, frankly, hideous, hard to use, and mildly confusing to navigate (see myspace.

I'm starting to think that stickiness is highly viral and more dependent on the sense of community that a site provide regardless of its quality.

So, is there really a way to determine if an online community will be successful? I'm starting to think that there really isn't. As I read through a few of Kim's examples of online communities I was struck that most of them started out with 1) no economic plans, 2) for a small specialized group and eventually grew into the larger communities slowly and organically.

I don't think you can plan for a large audience or have pretentious slogans about the size of your site ("The space on the internet for X"), but that these will just happen if your site draws a sufficient audience.

The key takeways from Preece (2000) are:

• What is an online community and how to study it
• Different perspectives shape study focus, research questions and research methods (multidisciplinary, sociology, technology, virtual worlds, e-commerce)
• Two key concepts for development and evaluation of online communities
• sociability - issues influencing social interaction in the community (collective purpose, goals and roles of individuals, policies generated to shape interaction)
• usability - established HCI definitions
• Need to take into account previous work in psychology and sociology, do not reinvent the wheel

Wellman and Oldenburg present the sociology perspective while Kim and Powazek present the e-commerce one.

According to Preece an online community has the following components:

• People
• A shared purpose
• Policies
• Computer systems

Connections can be seen to Wenger's communities of practice. A community of practice has the following components:

• Mutual engagement
• Joint enterprise
• Shared repertoire

Joint enterprise is analogous to shared purpose, and similarly shared repertoire and policies. People are implied in mutual engagement, but being a more general model, computer systems are not considered separately. A question arises as to whether all online communities are communities of practice.
Another useful theoretical construct is that of information grounds. Fisher (1999) defines an information ground as an "environment temporarily created by the behavior of people who have come together to perform a given task, but from which emerges a social atmosphere that fosters the spontaneous and serendipitous sharing of information." Some of the key concepts are social interaction and informal and formal information sharing. Online communities may be seen as information grounds.

In the paper, Preece outlines the collective concepts of online communities and several major issues in defining them. In the beginning of the chapter, she introduces two concepts – sociability and usability – as frameworks for developing online communities. As she admits that defining the term online community is not easy, she first identifies four criteria that are general and broad enough to encompass a range of online communities: people, a shared purpose, policies, and computer systems.

The multidisciplinary brainstorm perspective seems to be an attempt to define online communities upon a consensus from different disciplines. The five core attributes generated from a CHI conference are quite obvious to me while she notes the controversy of repeated participation. I think that repeated, active participation is essential for maintaining communities and that is why online community websites try to pull out the members’ participation.

The definitions from each perspective are more specific. I thought that different perspectives from sociology, technology, virtual worlds, and E-commerce fall into two themes – utility and social interaction. My further interpretation is that those are two aspects in defining online communities. Utility aspect relates to the shared goal and purpose of a community and social interaction aspect focuses more on the relationship surrounding people in the community. I am not saying those two are separate. Rather, various perspectives of disciplines can be interwoven by what the goal is in terms of utility and how the social interaction is formed within a community.

Preece gives a working definition of what online communities are and then proceeds to describe what online communities mean to different interest groups (techies, entrepreneurs, special interest).

I really enjoyed Preece’s breakdown of the different perspectives. Never had I viewed it from “Tech-geeks” view of low-level codes / software structure. However I feel that he has missed a major component: The educational perspective.

As users are reading this blog entry, a community with a common purpose of learning is being formed. All of the students in this course adhere to Professor Resnick’s set of rules by submitting an entry per page. In addition, it’s run on a computer server (probably somewhere over at North Campus).

I understand that this is suppose to be a general introduction but some specific examples / case studies may have illustrated the different views better. For example the following segment was written about the digg (an popular rss news feed) community:

“There are the readers: an educated guess would be that probably ten to twenty percent of those ever click 'digg', they are mostly just there for the end product of the digg machine: an array of interesting news and links often presented before the other news sources."

"Finally there are the news publishers themselves, often bloggers who want to get readership for their content."

-More can be found at http://www.sourcelabs.com/blogs/ajb/2005/12/dynamics_of_digg_1.html  

Wellman’s article is a solid example of the technology perspective.

The working definition of an online community is extremely important to keep in mind when a successful online community. There have been many online communities that have failed because it did not develop one of the 4 major points listed. For example, Friendster’s member are getting spammed a lot more than Facebook members because Facebook puts on a much more stringent safeguard against spammers including a more thorough registration / authentication process and email addresses shown as a picture (so bots can’t click / select it).

On an unrelated note, I wish this editor had a spell check. I’m typing this up in word so I can see the red squigglies.

Preece states some clear definitions of what constitutes an online community in this article. Her working definition claims that an online community needs four elements: 1) People; 2) A shared purpose; 3) Policies; 4) Computer systems.

I agree that these are four essential ingredients. Preece's article does not discuss what proportions are important, whether some online communities can survive with less or more of one of these, or what factors most strongly contribute to sustaining the community. I'm sure the answer to those questions varies with the nature and purpose of the online community.

In citing Rheingold's early definition of an online community, Preece claims that "lack of a physical presence is still seen as a problem for community" (Preece, 4). I'm going to file this claim away in my head and revisit it throughout the semester. One of the more intruiging readings in the CSCW course last year challenged groupware developers to go "beyond being there" (Hollan and Stornetta?, 1992). The authors' thinking was that if groupware developers tried to emulate "real life" in their applications, they would likely not realize very wide adoption. It was those applications that went beyond trying to replicate a sense of being there that were truly successful. For example, IM software allows you to know when someone is away, busy, or available for chat. This information is provided by the technology and enriches the interaction one could have with someone not co-located.

As the internet matures and familiarity with online community technologies increases among users, does this question still reflect an important need? Or have the technologies provided a way for online communities to go beyond being there, where physical presence is no longer seen as a need?