Exercise 4.2 Hosting good conversations: House Rules!

a) Discuss three ways of providing users with more control in an online community.

1. Provide good learning support through site tours, knowledge banks and maps,
2. Include a chat facility as a back channel to a facilitator to answer questions during the session
3. Provide good context such as an agenda and an opportunity to try the application before a synchronous session.

b) Howard Rheingold wrote the The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online in 1998. What three rules or tips did you find interesting or have experienced so far in your online meetings or interaction?

1. Encourage people to hide long responses or big graphics.
2. Hosts catalyze, facilitate, nurture -- and get outta the way.
3. Let the community co-create its own dramas, shared language, founding myth. These all must precede discussion of creating a social contract -- dramas that all witness and participate in, shared language, rituals, myths, jokes, customs are how people get to know and value one another enough to want to go to the trouble of creating a social contract.

c) Read the ISPG policy for user behaviour in a MOO at http://ispg.csu.edu.au/subjects/cscw/moo/moo-policy.doc and compare it with the Community Guidelines at http://digg.com/guidelines. Why do collaborative social software systems with synchronous and asynchronous communications need to develop a set of “rules of engagement"? Is the need the same or less when using a document sharing systems only?

The ISPG document was far too technical for a newbie like me. I don't have a programming background so I could never do any of the sleazy identity thieving things it spoke of. This doc made MOOs seem very scary places to be. If that was the case, I wouldn't participate anyway.

A 'rules of engagement' is necessary in collaborative social software systems with synchronous and asynchronous communications because often participants are brought together without the community or host knowing too much about their offline personalities, prejudices and peccadillos. These differences can sometimes unwittingly cause conflict and high anxiety. Making the 'rules of engagement' a requirement of participation provides a way out if things get desperate. Understanding that hosts can block people who break the rules sometimes gets people to mitigate their behaviour before they get nasty.

The Digg document was far more friendly and positive but it seemed only to be a document sharing platform therefore asynchronous rather than MOO. With asynchronous platforms, the rules can be more relaxed because unlike MOOs, people can think about their communications far more, before they speak. Also, Digg is really just a referral service. It asks for minimal editorialising beyond the referral and therefore people are less open to disagreement than in the MOO.