Hansen ASIST '07

6/23/08 ASIST 2007, Social Computing and Information Science

Virtual Community Maintenance with a Collaborative Repository

Derek L. Hansen, Mark S. Ackerman, Paul J. Resnick, & Sean Munson

6/23/08Derek L. Hansen, UMD

Outline

Social challenges of virtual communityconversation

Site, data collection, & methods Wiki repository meets threaded conversation Conclusions


Backstory

Empirical study of technical support communityaddressing question: How is activity organized toleverage threaded conversation and a wiki repository?

How does the introduction of a wiki repositoryinfluence community maintenance?


Social Challenges of Virtual CommunityConversations


Environmental Conditions

Anonymity (or semi-anonymity) Loose boundaries Text-only Numerous participants Voluntary paticipation


Social Challenges

Meeting needs of newcomers & oldtimers Keeping discussion on-topic Motivating participation Encouraging “respectful” behavior (e.g.,

trimming quotes; checking archives for FAQs) Flaming, trolling & other hostile behaviors

Dery 1993; Kollock & Smith 1996; McLaughlin et al. 1995; Burnett & Buerkle 2004


Partial Solutions

Administrators & welcomers Netiquette & community policies Social norms Reputation systems FAQ documents

Butler et al. 2002; Preece 2000; Preece 2004; L-Soft, Inc. 2003; Kim 1999;Powazek 2002; Maloney-Krichmar & Preece 2005


A Different Perspective

How does a change in a community’sinformation environment affect the socialprocesses related to community maintenance?


Symbiotic Relationship

Hansen’s Dissertation 2007

Technical Feature Comparison

ThreadedConversation

Threads Permanent Single author Short, basic text

WikiRepository

Hyperlinked Editable Many authors Structured, formatted

text


Site, Data Collection, & Methods

CSS Code/* css-discuss Wiki Stylesheet */body { background-color: #fff; color: #000; font-size: small; font-family: georgia, serif;}a:link { color: blue; background: transparent;}a:visited { color: navy; background: transparent;}…


CSS-D Email List

Started Jan 2002 (1,000 → 7,000+ members) Focuses on practical use of CSS Over 50 messages a day Public, searchable list archive


CSS-D Wiki

Started 8 Months after email list Described as a “shared repository,” “user-defined

FAQ,” the “collective wisdom of this list,” and a“dumping ground for [CSS] tricks.”

Steady increase in popularity (15,000 unique hits in2004 to 70,000 in 2007)

Over 550 pages Has had consistent, slow growth


Administration

Formally recognized administrators In-depth community policies Friendly & professional tone Core members help enforce rules Emphatic about welcoming newcomers

“css-d is meant for beginning and experienced authorsboth, but I’m actually more interested in helping out thebeginners” - admin


Data

Email list messages (over 90,000 messages) Posts that reference the community wiki and

list archives Posts that include “ADMIN” in subject line

Interviews - 14 phone, 7 email Wiki page history Wiki server log reports


Methods

Content Analysis Grounded Theory approach Genre analysis Coded all wiki (1,511) & archive (302) messages Interviews conducted throughout process to inform preliminary findings

Quantitative analysis of participation Feedback from community on findings

Glaser & Strauss 1967; Giddens 1986; Eisenhardt 1989; Orlikowski 2000


Community Repository MeetsThreaded Conversation


Repository Contributions

Social maintenance “holy wars” off-topic discussion

Attracting & retaining members Saving face Saving time

Email 1 of 17 in ThreadSubject: Comments Requested on website.comI have recently launched the *beta* version of my new blog at website.com. Thereare no graphics yet, but the layout is in place. I'd like to get some public feedbackon the display. Do you notice any browser-specific quirks? Is the text too small?Special things you might want to look at:1) Contact page uses my CSS Forms code, which has been modified to work withMac IE 5. A BIG THANKS to Jason Park…

Shutting down a “holy war”

Email 16 of 17 in Thread (sent 23 hours later)

If there is one thing this list will never, ever make possible, it’s a final resolutionto the Font Sizing Holy War. This is why we established a Wiki page that givespeople a good jumping off point for reading up on various perspectives:http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=FontSize

The next time the war breaks out, let’s just refer each other to that page and moveon to discussions of a less religious nature. If there are non font sizing commentsto make about website.com, let’s get back to making those—otherwise, I thinkit’s time to move on. Thank you.--John Jones [personal URL], List Administrator


Preventing a “holy war”

Since I *know* this could turn into an opinion bashingspam hate-war argument flame arena...... Please do NOT respond to the list. Instead, pleaserespond to me directly and, as I said, I will be happyto include my findings in the Wiki.


Dealing with Off-Topic Discussions

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to call this thread to a close for being off-topic. Yes, it's true that choosing a standards-friendly CMS has bearing onCSS authoring... but so does writing standards-friendly PHP code,JavaScript, .Net code, etc. etc. If we walk down that road, traffic could quiteeasily double. We can't cover everything standards-related here; there simplyisn't room.

A great place to ask your question would be Webdesign-L. There's alsoevolt's thelist, and I'm sure there must be other venues whereCMS discussions are on topic. For a short list of forums, see [URL forOffTopic wiki page]. On the topic of CMS software, see the page others in thethread have brought up: [URL for CssFriendlyCms wiki page].

Thanks, and sorry to have to end the thread.[admin signature]


Social Maintenance Facilitators

Advanced page structure NPOV social norm Editability by everyone Use of wiki for off-topic (but related) content

permissible Wiki also helps focus discussion (e.g. IE7)

74 cases where wiki was used to help offload discussion because it was a“holy war” or off-topic vs. 3 cases where archives were used


Attracting New Members

10 times more visitors to wiki than communitymembers

Over half of visits are from search engines(44%) or other websites (18%), sources likelyto bring in new members

Visitors typically taken to wiki sub-page Persistent URLs with changeable content


Educating Newcomers

The penny dropped about why CSS was a good ideaonly last Friday, but since then, thanks to runningacross css-discuss Wiki site early on, I am learningquickly. I am bowled over by this excellent site -valuable information, clear presentation, helpfulpeople and I love the idea of Wiki... Thank you all forthe time you have already taken to share your hardwon knowledge with me.


Saving Face

So I don’t want to sound like I don’t knowwhat I’m talking about or I’m a stupidnewbie or something like that. So, yah, I tryto find the answer myself first, if I can, thenat least I try to be fairly knowledgeable onhow to ask the question without looking toostupid.

The wiki was referenced 4 times as often to help ask a question than the archives


Retaining Old-timers

Perception of reduction in FAQs Ease of answering questions Facilitates peripheral participation

The wiki was referenced 6 times as often to help answer questions than thearchives

The wiki was useful in “encouraging long-termmembers like me to stick around, since we canmove FAQs to the wiki and don’t have to be boredor frustrated by those threads as often.”


Facilitating Factors

Close association with the wiki and email list(e.g., referencing behavior)

Persistent URLs with editable content


Conclusions


Summary

“The art of community maintenance is, in part,a problem of designing information collectionsand information flows.”

A wiki repository can be helpful in dealing with “Holy wars” Off-topic content Attracting and welcoming newcomers Retaining oldtimers


The Current State of the Art


Thanks to…

Mark Ackerman, Paul Resnick, & SeanMunson

National Science Foundation

Technology

Hansen ASIST '07