Now I’m reading a piece by Peter Kollock. I think it was a conference paper, as it’s quite short. He looks at theories of community which could be applied to internet communities.<\/p>\n
Looking at them, I think i shows that the theory was generally wrong – these aren’t guidelines for all types of community as they don’t fit virtual communities.<\/p>\n
So, communities and virtual communities are different. OK, nothing very surprising there.<\/p>\n
He looks at Axelrod’s requirements for the possibility of cooperation. I don’t know how widely cited these are – but I can pick holes in them after about 10 seconds’ thought, so I’ll ignore those.<\/p>\n
Then he looks at Ostrom’s design principles of successful communities:
\n* Group boundaries are clearly defined
\n* Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions
\n* Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules
\n* the right of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities
\n* A system for monitoring members’ behaviour exists; this monitoring is undertaken by the community members themselves
\n* A graduated system of sanctions is used
\n* Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
\nThese seem very democratic – I’m not sure a feudal community would work with this definition. In fact, I think ‘most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules’ is the most problematic. Would this work in a convent, a tyranny, a primary school..?<\/p>\n
They’re interesting considerations, but I don’t think I’d taken them as the basis for setting up a FirstClass conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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