Using technology to create positive norms

This is a draft of a fascinating paper on current methods of maintaining norms in online communities. One of the conclusions the author comes to is that more research needs to be done on how the different systems are affecting behavior. The differences between hierarchical and heterarchical management systems are described and several case studies shown.

The paper discusses how reputations of individual users are being used to rate content and guide other people's reading habits. An interesting subset of that is automatically giving more credit to opinions from your friends than from people you don't know. Social networking mixed with generalized ratings.

These systems are explicitly designed to increase the sociability and usability of collaborative sites that often have thousands of users. The designs are intended to control and encourage certain behaviors and fit under the category of influential technologies. Just as our laws determine whether we live in a dictatorship or a democracy, and affect whether our group behavior is ethical, so too will the design of these systems be inherently political and value laden.

Be sure to check out the (almost entirely public) references list at the end.

Norm Maintenance in Online Communities: A Review of Moderation Regimes (draft), 2003
Derek Lackaff
[Full-text pdf | html]