Socialization: forums, chat, games Socialization: Forums Chat Games

Socialization: Forums Chat Games Socialization: Forums, Chat, Games Julita Vassileva Social Computing Class 2009‐10 Social Computing Class 2009 10

History IM, 1965 MUD, 1975

Bulletin Boards, 1975

Usenet Newsgroups, 1979 – 1986 - 1995 IRC, 1988 MMPOG, 1990 Internet Disc. Forums, 2000 -

Chat rooms, 2000

Social Network Sites, 1985-

Chat

Chat and IRC Chat and IRC • Chat systems that enable one person to send  typed words directly to the screen of another typed words directly to the screen of another  person who is logged onto the same system  date back to the first time‐sharing computers  of the 1960s. Probably the oldest form of  f h 1960 b bl h ld f f CMC, predating electronic mail. • In 1988, Jarkko In 1988 Jarkko Oikarinen at the University of  at the University of Oulu, Finland, wrote the original IRC program,  a multi‐user, synchronous communications  , y tool designed to work over Internet. • Exponential growth in recent years of  telecommunication technologies has resulted  l i i h l i h l d in a new era of interpersonal communication

Chat rooms and IRC Chat rooms and IRC • Unlike mail list and message board, chat room is synchronous.  People on different physical location communicate at the same  l d ff h ll h time • It can be used for practical to playful communities‐ e.g. class  rooms, interviews and even meetings i t i d ti • When to use it  – To provide a sense of immediacy and presence unlike message  board and mailing  list that are good for Q&A – To hold scheduled events, it could work really well for real  time scheduled events – To offer real time support and guidance i.e. from community  staff • There are so many ways to incorporate chat into a community  depending on the needs of the community.

Types of Chat rooms and IRC Types of Chat rooms and IRC • Web‐based chat, they don't require separated download and  are easy to use • Free chat services, different IRC could be run on safe, free  hosted environment. – The owner of chat wont own the members database and information  and won't control the application appearance

• Licensed chat ‐ get software from vender and run – unlike free this gives the owner control over the users databases and  lik f thi i th t l th d t b d appearance of the chatting application

• Build your own‐ if you have the talent and resources – The The owner controls everything from design to functionality and  owner controls everything from design to functionality and appearance of the application

Chat Communication media Chat Communication media • Text based – mostly used, word based

• Graphics based – involves use of avatars involves use of avatars

• Voice based – It is becoming popular by the day as most computers  gp p y y p comes with built‐in audio ports, microphones & video  camera – Hearing someone is more revealing than seeing words  typed on a screen  – Lack of anonymity is a drawback for voice chat

Chat theories Chat theories • •

•

•

Despite the anonymity and ephemeral nature of their communications, IRC  habitués become addicted form close friendships fall in love habitués become addicted, form close friendships, fall in love. Note that most attempts to eliminate Spacewar from computer centers failed.  When administrators shut down Spacewar activities at their centers, they found  that programmer productivity went down instead of up. Spacewar lived on despite  bureaucratic opposition because its enthusiasts were also their research projects'  bureaucratic opposition because its enthusiasts were also their research projects best programmers. IRC does not fit well with conventional theories of human communication because  CMC technology makes possible something that human communicators could not  do previously, a geographically dispersed group of people now can use the written  p y, g g p y p g p p p word as a conversational medium. IRC is essentially a playground. Within its domain people are free to experiment  with different forms of communication and self‐representation."

Forums

Message boards Message boards • Like Like mail listing message boards are  mail listing message boards are asynchronous.  • People don People don'tt need to be in same virtual place  need to be in same virtual place to have a same conversation • Can foster conversations that happen over a  Can foster conversations that happen over a long period of time • Great for asking and answering questions Great for asking and answering questions

Types of message boards Types of message boards • Thread – The discussion starts from one topic that breaks  up into discussion groups up into discussion groups

• Linear – This provides separate topic for each conversation  This provides separate topic for each conversation group – This is good for getting in‐depth conversation This is good for getting in depth conversation

Power of message board Power of message board • Message board is a more powerful tool to build community  because it: – provides a sense of gathering place – can be integrated into a website g – offers visible context to the conversation by showing content of  previous message – encourages branching and sub grouping hence you can communicate  with people of you interest group – There is ability to express emotions by using images – There is ability record your community evolving history

Acquiring message board Acquiring message board  • Sign up for free g p – easy to use services which include some message board – problem is that members are required to register with the  service provider i id

• Get a contract with service providers e.g. RemarQ – you have control on the appearance and databases you have control on the appearance and databases

• built your own

What’ss going on on What going on on Forums? • Hazing Hazing as a process of boundary maintenance  as a process of boundary maintenance – by Courtney Honeycutt  • http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/honeyc http://jcmc indiana edu/vol10/issue2/honeyc utt.html

Lurker Demographics in Usenet  Forums: Counting the Silent • Based on CHI’2000 article by Blair Nonneke and Jenny Preece • The paper presents a demographic study of lurking in email‐based  discussion lists (DLs) with an emphasis on health and software‐ support DLs support DLs.  •

As of July 1999, there were more than 31,000 DLs using Listserv’s® server  software. The 69,000,000 members of these DLs receive in excess of  29 000 000 messages per day Lurkers are reported to make up over 90% of 29,000,000 messages per day. Lurkers are reported to make up over 90% of  several online groups.

• Studied 77 health forums and 21 software forums. Questions:  – how prevalent is lurking and do health and software‐support DLs differ? – how do lurking levels vary as the definition is broadened from zero posts in  12 weeks to 3 or fewer posts in 12 weeks?  – is there a relationship between lurking and the size of the DL? – is there a relationship between lurking and traffic level?

Views on Lurking Views on  Lurking • lurkers as free‐riders, i.e., noncontributing,  resource‐taking members • lurkers as an audience in the theatre, readers to  lurkers as an audience in the theatre, readers to an author, important participant in the “show” – “Maybe it's a sign of my own mild discomfort around being a lurker, but I  found it reassuring to recognize myself and my behaviour within the  continuum you describe, and to see lurking treated seriously, with both  acceptance and respect. As a lurker, I'm used to observing from the  sidelines and participating vicariously, and it's strangely gratifying to read  id li d i i i i i l di ' l if i d an article that speaks directly to that experience. It's almost like suddenly  feeling part of an (until‐now) invisible community of lurkers.”

• lurkers as potential customers and /or  contributors

How to define lurking? How to define lurking? • One One of the  of the ‘silent silent majority majority’ in a electronic  in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at  all but is known to read the group'ss postings  all but is known to read the group postings regularly. (Online Jargon Dictionary) • Quantitatively it is hard to define a threshold Quantitatively it is hard to define a threshold

Results Lurking levels vary significantly across the two forums. *lurking defined as no posts during the period of the study

Results  Results

Health and software forums behave similar when raising the post threshold for lurking, Lurking levels increase

No clear correlation between number of lurkers versus number of members in each DL, both for health and software

Results

Lurking levels for all DLs were negatively correlated with traffic (Pearson (Pearson’s s correlation coefficient of -.426 is significant at the .01 level). Figure 5 shows that for a given DL size, lists with highest traffic levels generally have the lowest lurking levels.

Discussion • Vast majority of members are lurkers. So how  d f do forums survive? i ? • Lurking is not free‐riding; but a form of participation that is both  acceptable and beneficial to online groups. Public posting is but one way  acceptable and beneficial to online groups Public posting is but one way in which an online group can benefit from its members. Members of a  group are part of a large social milieu.

• A resource‐constrained model may not apply  A resource constrained model may not apply to online groups  to online groups where the centralized cost of servicing 100 members isn’t much different  from that of serving 1000, or even 10,000. In large DLs the danger could  be in not having enough lurkers be in not having enough lurkers.

• Impact of traffic levels on participation • Difference Difference between email‐based forums (DL) here  between email based forums (DL) here and internet‐based discussion forums

Information Overload and Usenet  Discourse

• Based on Jones, Ravid & Rafaeli “An Empirical Exploration  of Mass Interaction System Dynamics “ – highlights the  methodology typically used 

• Hypothesis: Hypothesis: user information overload causes  user information overload causes impact on the discourse structure – User strategies for coping with Inf. Overload:   U i f i i hI f O l d change  the length of responses, the number of  unattended messages or lead to ending the user’ss  unattended messages, or lead to ending the user participation  – Usability of a computer Usability of a computer‐mediated mediated communication  communication technologies has to be examined at a group‐level  rather than just on an individual user level 

Group is not just a sum of  individuals

Coping strategies for cognitive  overload • Making Making an increased effort an increased effort • Learning new information management  techniques • Failing to respond or attend to certain  messages • Producing simpler responses; • Making erroneous responses Ending active participation in the group • Ending active participation in the group  communication

Methodology • Collecting Collecting data from 500 English Usenet  data from 500 English Usenet groups • Processing the data (using text analysis  Processing the data (using text analysis techniques) to identify replies to previous  posts and threads posts and threads  – Interesting facts: 90% of responses occurred in the  first 2 5 days 99% in the first 2 weeks; 78% of  first 2.5 days, 99% ‐ in the first 2 weeks; 78% of the study sample messages turned out to be  replies

Results • H1: H1: Generating Simpler Responses in  Generating Simpler Responses in Situations of Overloaded Mass Interaction – Observed a decrease in complexity of messages  Observed a decrease in complexity of messages (word count) as the size of the interactive group  increases approaching asymptote pp g y p – Observed a decrease in complexity of messages  (word count) as the number of discussion threads  in the newsgroup increases, but not approaching  asymptote

Results • H2: H2: Failing to respond or attend to certain  Failing to respond or attend to certain messages – On average, messages that seed discourse are  On average messages that seed discourse are shorter than those that fail to seed discourse

• H3: Ending active participation – The larger the number of individuals involved in  Th l th b f i di id l i l d i the discourse, the less stable the population of  active participants active participants.

Implications • It It is important to provide tools at a discourse  is important to provide tools at a discourse level to help decrease the information  overload – Focus attention to a manageable set of posts • Candidates: Candidates:  – – – – –

Most recent posts? Most highly rated posts? Posts with most replies/comments?  ?  How to avoid the “rich get richer” effect? 

Games

• Based on: ased o : – “The Life and Death of Online Gaming Communities: A  Look at Guilds in World of Warcraft” by Nicolas Ducheneaut, Nicholas Yee, Eric Nickell, Robert  J. Moore Background about WoW from  “Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of  g y f Warcraft”  by Bonnie Nardi and Justin Harris

Guilds in WoW Guilds in WoW • World of Warcraft ‐ the most popular MPOG in US in 2006 – For description, see paper by Nardi and Harris “Strangers and  Friends” 

• Guilds ‐ the main social unit in the game: in‐game roster showing who is currently logged on  a private chat channel Allow coordinating a large number of players to overcome obstacles g g p y Membership in a uber‐guild is a badge of honour, with trial period… Diverse: small tightly knit guilds and very large ones made of  strangers with military style of command  – Fragile – – – – –

Study of guilds demographics,  dynamics • Highly Highly skewed distribution of membership skewed distribution of membership • Frequency of “ungiuld” actions much higher  than “switch” than  switch  actions actions • Over time, established guilds attract more and  more members; those who join – stay. more members; those who join  • “The rich get richer” and tend to specialize in  certain kind of attacks certain kind of attacks • Collected a variety of group structure  measures  measures

Guilds and individual advancement Guilds and individual advancement • Players Players progress faster through the levels in  progress faster through the levels in smaller guilds • Players progress faster in guilds with larger  Players progress faster in guilds with larger subgroups • In guilds with many small cohesive subunits I ild i h ll h i b i • In guilds with good class balance • In guilds with a wide range of player levels

Implications • Small is beautiful – Dunbar suggested that there is a cognitive limit for  people to form groups Æ around 150 (village size) – Allen argued that for online groups to be creative and  Allen argued that for online groups to be creative and efficient, the number should be smaller Æ 45 – The authors claim the optimal guild in WOW is 35 – This is due to limitations in online interaction to do  the necessary “social grooming” – Unlike Usenet groups, in WoW g p, it is really hard to find  y people with similar interests. – Making guild roasters visible will help

Implications (2) Implications (2) • Tragedy of commons Tragedy of commons – “nothing prevents players from leaving a guild as  soon as their personal objectives are soon  as their personal objectives are  accomplished. To be  sure, high‐level players who  behave selfishly will tarnish their reputation and  news travels fast on a WoW server, decreasing  their chances of finding a new group. Still, no  mechanisms are in place to build up a player’s  h i i l b ild l ’ attachment to his/her guild, which probably  encourages churn ” encourages churn.

Implications (3) Implications (3) • Guilds entropy Gu ds e t opy – “Groups get larger and larger, monopolizing the most‐ needed players and concentrating the game’s most  coveted rewards in the hands of a few. This has the  t d d i th h d f f Thi h th potential to negatively impact playability over time, in  two opposite ways illustrated by our data: large guilds  can become “top‐heavy” and susceptible to burn‐out;  new  players can have a harder time progressing since  few groups are available to cater to their needs. The few groups are available to cater to their needs. The  difficult issue seems to be to encourage “healthy”  levels of churn that prevent guild stagnation yet do  not threaten their survival and growth “ not threaten their survival and growth. 

Results • Guilds Guilds with a better class balance survive  with a better class balance survive better  • Wider level spread contributes to survivability Wider level spread contributes to survivability • Larger guilds survive better  • Also:  – Guilds with smaller subgroup sizes – Groups that focus on more complex games – Better connected groups g p

Questions • How How surprising / or not surprising are these  surprising / or not surprising are these results?  • Can you think of examples in real life  Can you think of examples in real life communities or other games where the same  things happen? things happen?

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