Why blog in the first place? People either blog because they either have to (e.g. professionally), or because they have an interest to which they wish to share their views (E.g. blogspot (2008)).

Are people more ‘open’ during blog participation? This question I meant to apply to general online communities. Participants of certain communities I have found are more open than others. Having anonymity when interacting gives a sense freedom to expression as in is impersonal, unlike social networks where there is a greater chance of repercussion from a controversial view.   

Can an online community bring about change? Yes – as demonstrated in my ‘Online Community Business Models’ blog with the example on open-source collaboration. It is said that individual values don’t change things; but multiple collaboration online of people with shared values has been proven to work.

How safe is online community participation?  Participation is as safe as you make it. Education on these issues is two-fold; First that of posting sensitive information which could be used against oneself (e.g. an address) and also actions during participation, such as children being targeted by pedophiles.

Do people accept blog literature as truth? This was meant as a rhetorical question to me, as I initially assumed that people would question content posted by a blogger. In my blog on political communities I found myself posting inaccurate information. I followed up this with a post on online defamation, which altered my own naive perception of literature. 

What makes a good blog? Something worth reading and with a structure to it will help. No blog will appeal to all, but if it is of interest to its reader and thought provoking it can’t be bad.  

As the module has gone on, I have been able to apply the skills learnt in lectures and tutorials in my blogs; this I hope has shown progressively throughout the module. The most difficult aspect I have found is to show deep theoretical underpinning on topics within the module’s word count limit. I also recognize that there are many community aspects I didn’t have room to discuss.   

One aspect of the module I found helpful was the rapidly evolution of communities in general, giving plenty to discuss and write about.  

Overall I have enjoyed my participation in most communities during the module and in some cases, hope to continue.

Several dedicated fan sites have emerged; the award winning www.ateaseweb.com being one of the most popular (I’m a long term member). As well as providing much information on the band and its history, the site has message boards allowing its global community to discuss all aspects of the band and more. The site provides latest news on the band daily, to which a lot of content comes from its members (including myself on occasion) who report to the host news stories via email.   

www.youtube.com has been utilised by members posting music videos original or created by the members, self-covers of songs, and live clips.     

Radiohead have embraced the web with their website www.radiohead.com. The site has evolved into a blog where the band posts random general messages and pictures; nothing unusual here. Recently though the band split with their record company and decided to release their latest material initially via download directly online from themselves. Also the band’s new US record label has recently started a Radiohead Youtube channel, and put the band a profile on Facebook where they post videos, news and have over a million fans.  

Before the albums release the band posted cryptic messages on their blog, which whipped the message boards into frenzy. From these messages it was worked out that they were about the new album which had yet no release date.  

The band uses their site www.radiohead.tv on occasion to web-cast performances and other art. Most recently at 12am New Year’s Day they web-cast a performance of their latest album, amongst other things   

Comparing the two approaches it appears to me that the direct accessibility that the band gives its fans via its blog and web-casts, as well as the direct purchasing of music fuels the fans online activity. The cryptic messages were an example of the band making announcements to their fans directly, and not straight to the media.  

Discussed are two examples of online communities which have their uses in education – 

Wiki’s – Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) is a widely used online encyclopaedia. Its content is edited by its members, whilst this makes its content wide ranging and needing minimal resources, it also makes it open to users uploading false content. Unlike Wikipedia, Google is launching an online encyclopaedia in which it is inviting experts to create the content (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7144970.stm), this will ensure reliable content. Unlike Wikipedia it will use advertising as part of its funding, this will be used to fund its many authors.   

3D worlds – Second Life (see www.secondlife.com) is a community in which members can congregate and interact in a 3D environment, which makes it an ideal platform to stage lectures and discussions. Ohio University (see promo video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA) is one university to adopt second life by uploading a replica campus.  

 I believe that online communities will revolutionise educational practices as they have the tools to change the way people learn and interact with tutors. I would argue that communities such as Second Life will be used in parallel with traditional teaching practices allowing students to attend and take part in lectures and tutorials streamed online. Also this environment could be used to link to other trusted learning resources, creating a learning mesh.  

Advantages of such a system would be allowing students (who don’t need physical care) to save time travelling to a real-world campus, and would come in use with foreign students as it is a borderless model. Also this type of community model will impact on developing countries which have limited physical resources. 

The approach would have the disadvantage though of taking away the face-to face social side to campus life. Also advertising used on sites might be a concern. Such an approach would need piloting to iron out any unexpected flaws which may crop up.      

By taking more learning out of the classroom and online, students will find themselves researching topics individually and use mediums such as message boards for help from peers and tutors.  

3D Virtual Worlds – Second Life (www.secondlife.com) is a 3D virtual world which has its own economy, using its own currency the Linden Dollar which is bought and sold on its LindeX exchange. Members make money as they would in a real life environment with virtual products and services. Second Life has become such a success one member is reported as becoming the first Second Life millionaire (see http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2006/11/second_lifes_fi.html) by starting out in virtual real estate, to setting up a ‘real-life’ company creating 3D environments.    

Wikis – Goldcorp (www.goldcorp.com) is a traditional gold mining company which took a gamble by utilizing wiki technology to aid its mining strategy. It took an unusual step of posting its entire data one of its mines (Red Lake), and offered awards totalling $575,000 for anyone able to identify where 6million ounces of gold might be located. (See – http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/59/mcewen.html). The “open-source” gamble paid off when they literally struck gold from the idea; from producing 53,000 ounces in 1996, it was producing 504,000 ounces in 2001.   

Whilst both community types give a stage to entrepreneurial initiative (from anyone) they differ in their makeup, Second Life gives individual members an opportunity to setup on a small budget and create their own virtual business with minimum risk. The wiki approach lets a business attract and access untapped talent from across the globe, and where the model is applicable it has proven potential for success. Although such an approach is not without risk, posting before classified data online is available for all competitors to see.    

The mining wiki community was made up of members with an expertise in mining looking for a final solution to a problem, the Second Life community is a diverse ongoing and evolving community who’s members have differing aims. Both communities have the ability to turn the individual into the many to for real world action.     

Both community models are not confined to economics. Second life offers staggering potential of uses for its members, examples are staging real-life lectures, business conferencing and group meetings to name a few. Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is an example of using a wiki for educational purposes.

In a landmark case in 2000, Internet Service Provider Demon settled a libel case with a Dr Laurence Godfrey (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/695596.stm). The case was brought about when Demon refused to remove a defamatory message (of a personal nature) posted in 1997 on a newsgroup it hosted. Damon argued that it shouldn’t be their responsibility for the millions of items posted every day; as far as English Law is concerned an ISP is a ‘secondary publisher’.  Under section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 1996 (see – http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/docs/defamation2.pdf) “a secondary publisher has a defence if he took reasonable care in relation to its publication; and he did not know, and had no reason to believe, that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement”. 

More recently in 2006 UK Independence Party’s Michael Keith Smith successfully sued for libel Yahoo member Tracy Williams who posted persoanl defamatory (see – http://news.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029694,49259050,00.htm). In this case a court order was obtained by Mr Smith ordering Yahoo to reveal Tracy Williams identity, as she posted her comments under a psudonym name.  

Both cases highlighted show that as far as online defamation is concerned, a victim has rights to sue the publishers, and it is up to the law to decipher who that is. Also a user can’t hide behind a psudonym name and act lawlessly. The law is one of the few areas of online community life which is not so much subjective, but clear-cut, for a primary publisher (community member) each case will be examined on its merits, and for the secondary publisher, they are subject to the defamation act as mentioned. This raises a problem for secondary publishers who may have to handle, and keep up with many complaints. Having user’s self-moderate communities by reporting indecently published material is one method commonly used.

As there is potential for an ISP to be accountable for user remarks, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for a user to set-up its ISP and post defamatory remarks to themselves.

It is in both the online community members, and hosts interests to act responsibly online, and perhaps user education on participation should be made clearer, and not just in the terms and conditions (does anyone actually ever read them?)

 As the types of online communities have expanded with Web 2.0 programs such as Second Life, the scope for such cases has expanded, with one law firm even opening an office in Second Life (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d80834d0-2a08-11dc-9208-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=1d928f30-2984-11dc-a530-000b5df10621.html). With an increased potential for future cases it’s clear who are going to be the winners in the cyberspace   

The Conservative party website lists all relevant party blogs online (see http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.blogs.page). They range from the party leader David Cameron’s aptly named website www.webcameron.org.uk, to local MP’s and councillors. David Cameron’s website has video posts featuring himself, and a forum where members can discuss topics. One category in the forum is ‘David’s responses’ where topics that David Cameron has posted a response to get featured. Many local MP’s and councillors update their blogs regularly, but get few responses. (see http://davidnuttall.info/ for example)

Labour has a well organised section on its website called Labour Central. It allows members to upload blogs, videos and news stories. Labour also promotes two social network sites on its main website which are independently run from the Labour party – http://www.labourhome.org/, and http://www.bloggers4labour.org/. The former is a site for members to post blogs, the latter a blog, with links to other Labour related blogs. The Labourhome.org site states that it was setup in 2006 to ‘to reinvigorate the party’s base and grassroots’. The local MP blogs of which there are few don’t get very many comments on their own blogs (see http://www.edinburghnorthandleith.org.uk/blog/ for example).

Whilst the Conservative site links to a number of related MP and councillor blogs, Labour only links to a couple of related communities (which do provide MP and councillor blog links). None of these local issue blogs get much interaction with the public. This could be down to the fact that if MPs constituents wants to contact them, they can do via email or in a surgery which are more personal environments. The main difference in the parties approach is that the Conservatives are much more engaging, with their leader responding to some topics personally (or a close aide pretending to be him maybe). The Labour community doesn’t have any real bond from top to bottom. 

Been in power a government is often seen as on the back-foot, whilst in opposition it’s much easier to criticise. This might be the reason for the opposition party being more proactively engaged with its members.

Blog identity must be an issue with political blogging. In the 2005 election Labour were accused of ‘astroturfing’, which is a tactic originating from America, and used by George Bush after 9/11 to ‘drum up’ support (see http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,,1489797,00.html). The technique involves using party members and supporters to pose as ordinary members of the public in various environments, in a bid to promote their own agenda and criticise their opponents. Labour utilized email in the 2005 campaign, to get supporters to ‘astroturf’.

As participation in online communities is relatively simple, and anonymous, the temptation for activists of all parties to pose as neutral-minded people or even opposition followers in popular political blogs and forums must be tempting, especially during a general election when needing the electorates support.    

Nick posts – 

After Tuesdays tutorial i would liekt to know if anyone else has been invloved in on-line bullying, by either been the victim or the bully 

IPA 7.2 – Asks topic-related information.

 Dimitrios replies – bullying like ‘if i find you im gonna beat the (&(*^ out of ya?’ or like having your system shutdown – upon reboot receiving a blue screen? ;pI’ve been involved in both. Being a moderator in any online community, your actions may cause dislike. Although i never got a blue screen – im lucky i guess ;p IPA 7.2 – Asks topic-related information.

IPA 6.2 – Gives topic-related information.

IPA 2 – Shows tension release, jokes, laughs, shows satisfaction. 

David replies – I’ve been bullied on online communities before. The words used were very colourful to say the least. It happened 7 months ago & the strange thing is I saw the lad who gave me this abuse 2 weeks ago & he said hello to me. I was shocked to say the least and I told him I was shocked. I said to him, when last we spoke, you abused me. He just said, “oh well”. Well we had a good chat anyway. It just goes to show you that some people have more guts online than offline. 

IPA 6.1 – Gives personal information.

IPA 6.2 – Gives topic-related information. 

Nick posts again – maybe its not about having more guts on-line but about not realising the full extent to there actions. 

IPA 4 – Gives suggestions, directions implying autonomy for others. 

Dimitrios posts again – or maybe because some people don’t understand that their actions online have reactions offline. Although this is a good idea, it’s a false idea and sometimes it has negative outcome. 

IPA 5 – Gives opinion, information, repeats, clarifies, confirms.

IPA 10 – Disagrees, shows passive rejection, formality, withholds help. 

In the conversation, the analysis shows that a task oriented conversation is taking place, with personal experiences shared, and disagreement expressed about the behaviour of one experience. This might seem obvious, with nothing more than an ongoing commentary achieved from this singular conversation

 By categorising both social-emotive and task orientated statements, Bales analysis covers wide sphere of interaction. This enables an observer to gain a grasp of the type of conversation and possibly predict where a conversation is going if repetition occurs from other similar conversation. Bales analysis could be used to gain a psychological insight on a particular person when analysed over several conversations.          

The Corridor of Uncertainty site’s message board follows closely to Kat Nagel’s Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists (see http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/lifelist.html). Whilst the board isn’t an actual mailing list, it does have parallels. Discussed are the mailing list life cycle mentioned in regards to the fan website’s message boards – 

1) Initial enthusiasm – Viewing the initial message board posts, almost all were started by the site’s founder, and received few replies (around 1-5 each). Discussed mainly were match and club news. Whilst this follows Nagel’s first ideal, it is a predictable occurrence. I think where any new group meets, people are going to try to find common ground, and if people are meeting in a Yorkshire cricket message board then they already have it.    

2) Evangelism – Nagel says that people moan about how few folks post to the mailing list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies occur. In the message board this is exactly what happens. Its founder pleas on the board for more subscribers and says it’s a helpless task as he posts the most of the topics. At this stage the boards are in danger of failure due to a disproportionate effort in input. The cause is that there are too few members. A post is added asking for suggestions which ends up in members advertising the site on other cricket message boards. I think this part of Nagel’s mailing lifecycle should include an alternative option of failure. 

3) Growth – The message boards experience growth throughout the off season. This is helped because it coincides with England’s ashes tour and many high profile changes in the Yorkshire setup (lots of posts on these topics). In January 2007 the site reports 83,228 hits from 5,084 people. This indicates plenty of activity from users, although this isn’t reflected in the number of posts (about 60 in January, most with around 20 replies) suggesting plenty of people ‘lurking’. This isn’t such a problem as there are new posts daily which must be fuelling the lurking. This could have a ‘window shopping’ effect where someone who regularly reads the posts daily decides to start participating. 

4) Community – With certain members contributing daily friendships are formed. This is shown for example with regular members wishing each other a happy Christmas, and also by giving friendly advice on away game accommodation for the upcoming season. There is plenty of input with the founder and users managing to come up with ideas to raise money to sponsor players. Also the site (from December 2006) started to do regular player interviews, with questions coming from members through the message boards. This group behaviour is strong and positive. 

5) Discomfort with diversity– This is where the similarities with Nagel’s life cycle end. Should the site have reached its critical mass already then this stage may never happen, if it has then the site can probably be adjudged as a success.  

6) Smug Complacency and stagnation or Maturity – Maturity would apply here. The site seems to have levelled off with a few daily posts at the present time, indicating users are near stage 4. 

At first hand the article seems to stand up, with opinion backed up with respectably quoted sources. But further analysis shows that the article’s focus on the younger generation has a stereotypical bias. It discusses how the generation brought up on the internet are now using it more and more on many aspects of their life, from job hunting, to dating, to paying bills. Whilst there are many popular sites which support this argument, it doesn’t mean that the people using them are predominantly the younger generation.

Research has shown that social networking sites which might be perceived as a young persons quirk, is actually just as popular with older generations. (http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1019)

The article contradicts itself with a graph showing percentage of people with internet by age, and another which displays average minutes per month by age. The graph shows that there is little difference between the younger and older generations when it comes to internet access; and that with internet usage, there is an increase the amount of time spent online the older the generation is (with a steady drop off after 35-44 age group).

I would argue that whilst the younger generation has been brought up with the internet as a way of life, the older generation has embraced and familiarised themselves with it, and have always been the leading generation. A study back in 2001 by Jupiter MMXI shows this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1500668.stm). This could be down to a having a greater disposable income.

Whichever generation is perceived to incorporate the Internet into their daily lives the most, it will always be a platform used by all regardless.  

Any online environment can be manipulated to present ones identity inaccurately. The motivation for doing so is likely to be an unscrupulous one, so caution should always be applied when participating in an online community, especially by children who are vulnerable to the threat of paedophiles. Even when presenting ones identity truthfully, too much information can lead to the possibility of identity fraud.

Because of the motivations of these types of people discussed, enough emphasis on online awareness can’t be stressed enough, especially because there’s more of a lack of online familiarity by older generations not brought up with the Internet.

I recently joined Google Groups to view and participate in the forums on there. One concern over people’s identities I found was from people giving advice. Members have no real identity and can give any advice out which may need a professional’s opinion, e.g. electronic repair. This has the potential for someone seeking advice and taking someone’s response as truth, which may put them in danger.

Only where community members know each other in the ‘real world’ can they confirm their identity and be sure of each others member status. Where people don’t know each other in the ‘real world’, a strong, trustful bond can be formed where they have a strong common knowledgeable interest.