On-line vs Off-line Architecture as a Control Device
OnLineVsOffLineArchitectureAsAControlDevice:OnLineVsOffLineArchitectureAsAControlDevice
On-line vs Off-line Architecture as a Control Device
(Up to: Comms As An OOBE Society And Control Interfaces Proles And Technology Life Vs GUIDesign What Is Space )
Prompted by the appearance of, and snippets of discussion around Ship of Fools, an on-line Church, I'm wondering about the "moderation" properties of architecture and space, and how they differ in real world to in virtual environments. There's been some pointing out of people going into the Church with, say, Satanic names, and generally trolling the place, which has been met through "traditional" on-line moderation style practices.
Obviously, we don't have such techniques available to us in the real world. So what prevents real churches from being "trolled"? Certainly, you do get the odd person coming in and causing a bit of a stir, but it's nowhere near as commonplace as in electronic communities. Does it come down to the atmosphere created in either, and what does it mean for RL (real-life) and OL (on-line) communities?
For some reason, RL architecture demands reverence, whereas OL architecture is readily ignored, and people within such environments often feel less pressure on them to conform to the atmosphere "implied" by the space.
Reasons:
RL architectures have an association with
- time and durability
- effort in construction
These associations are part of a larger "construct" that has similarly taken more time and effort to construct
- Time and Effort in both cases = Power (or, at least, perceived power)
- Repercussion - getting kicked out of an anonymous space that is effectively a chat-room has fewer repercussions than being kicked out of a RL building. This - the separation between communication and physical space - is the whole point though of the Internet (and every other communications system, really). (New node wanted: Communication Becomes an OOBE)
And loads more...
What does this mean for communities in general? After all, all discussion takes place within a particular context, which shapes and dictates the nature of that discussion. Factors include:
- Who can speak (i.e. moderation)
- Feedback and response time (delayed vs instant)
- Expressibility (text-only vs graphics vs streamed video etc)
(This is by no means an extensive list - much work and research has been done into this over the last few decades, and I'm not about to repeat it all... :)
So what's involved in taking traditional values of discussion, which have been defined in traditional spaces and port them into OL environments? Is it necessary to understand the nature of discussion thus far in order to get the most out of communal on-line spaces going forwards? Can we improve the existing models with this in mind? Can OL discussion become more "relevant", "practical" or "user-friendly"? Can it even be genericised to abstract the information being discussed well away from the forum in which it is being discussed?
Questions going forwards...
- What are the aims of traditional discussion?
- How has RL architecture helped to achieve these aims?
- How has OL architecture helped to achieve these aims?
- What are the differences?
- What is lacking from OL architecture?
- Are there methods of discussion suitable to humans that have been unattainable (due to physical constraints) in the past, but that are now reachable (and currently non-existent)?
Perhaps a historical account of the telecommunications industry would be useful at this point (Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" and Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown" may have been of use).
