Computer-Mediated Communication

Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 21, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Information Pools II

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CMC PD Tournament 2007!

Held in second half of class on Tuesday

Round-robin: play each strategy once

Each game will have n turns

Using IPDLX open-source PD software Used for tournaments by PD “professionals”

Works with Java 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, any platform

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Software details…

public class CMCSample extends Strategy {

private final static String _abbrName = "CMCS";

private final static String _name = "CMC Sample Strategy";

private final static String _description = "Not a proper strategy..."; ...

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Software details…

public double getMoveDecision() { // Default move double move = COOPERATE;

// Do some magic ... // ... end magic.

// Return your move for this round return move;}

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“… [we] note that administrative and coordinating elements seem to be growing at a faster pace than the bulk of articles in the encyclopedia [Wikipedia]”

Viégas et al. 2007

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“Talk” Pages on Wikipedia

(Viégas et al. 2007)

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“Emergent” Order and Coordination

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What about Motivations?

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If only 2% of the participants in any given Internet system contribute, why do they do so?

Other incentives besides the content value of the digital goods?

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Information Pool

Revisiting Information Pools as Types of Exchange

Information Pool

Generalized Exchange

Productive Exchange

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Information Pool

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Intrinsic Motivations for Contributing to Wikipedia (Zhang and Zhu 2006)

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Zhang and Zhu 2006

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Altruism?

Rational Zealotry?

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Selective Incentives and Public Goods

Public Good

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Social Psychological Selective Incentives

Social psychological processes could give small, positive feelings to contributors

Social psychological processes may be small, but they can have a relatively powerful effect if the costs of contribution are very small as well

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Two Other Selective Incentives…

Social Approval

Observational Cooperation

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Digital Goods Study: Experimental Conditions (Cheshire 2007)

Social Psychological Selective Incentive

Conditions

Social Approval High

Social Approval

Low

Social ApprovalObservational Cooperation

High Observational Cooperation

Low Observational Cooperation

None Control

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Results for All Conditions

1 2

block

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80 Experiment Condition

High Social Approval

Low Social Approval

High Observational Cooperation

Low Observational Cooperation

Control Condition

Estimated Marginal Means of Cooperation (Sharing) in All Experimental Conditions (Five Rounds per Block)

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But there’s more! (see: Ling et al. 2005) Uniqueness of contribution

Similarity/Homogeneity of the Group

Personal and community benefits (salience)

‘Reminders’ for intrinsic motivation

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Designing for Social Psychological Incentives

ContributionSize

MembershipDiversity ofContribution

Standardization

Outcomes for Collective Action

Social psychological incentives

BehaviorsBehaviors