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Viable online communities: references
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CiteULike: dartar's online_communities
- Life span in online communities
Physical Review E, Vol. 82, No. 6. (Dec 2010), 066108, doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.82.066108
Recently online communities have attracted great interest and have become an important medium of information exchange between users. The aim of this work is to introduce a simple model of the evolution of online communities. This model describes (a) the time evolution of users’ activity in a web service, e.g., the time evolution of the number of online friends or written posts, (b) the time evolution of the degree distribution of a social network, and (c) the time evolution of the number of active users of a web service. In the second part of the paper we investigate the influence of the users’ lifespan (i.e., the total time in which they are active in an online community) on the process of rumor propagation in evolving social networks. Viral marketing is an important application of such method of information propagation.
A Grabowski, RA Kosiński
- The role of argumentation in online epistemic communities: the anatomy of a conflict in Wikipedia
In Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (2010), pp. 91-98
This research aims to investigate the processes by which knowledge objects - in this case Wikipedia pages on astronomy - are elaborated, in online communities, focussing on the role of argumentative interactions.
Dominique Fréard, Alexandre Denis, Françoise Détienne, Michael Baker, Matthieu Quignard, Flore Barcellini
- An investigation of sociability measurements in online communities
International Journal of Web Based Communities, Vol. 1, No. 4. (2005), 400, doi:10.1504/IJWBC.2005.008106
Nelson Wright, Alison Varey, Thomas Chesney
- Asymmetries in Attachments to Groups and to their Members: Distinguishing between Common-Identity and Common-Bond Groups
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 5. (1 October 1994), pp. 484-493, doi:10.1177/0146167294205005
Two studies sought to validate the distinction between common-identity groups, which are based on direct attachments to the group identity, and common-bond groups, which are based on attachments among group members. Study 1 focused on members of selective and nonselective university eating clubs. Study 2 focused on members of a diverse sample of campus groups. Both studies revealed asymmetries in group and member attachments: Individuals in common-identity groups were more attached to their group than to its members, whereas individuals in common-bond groups were as attached to the members as to the group (or more so). Study 2 also demonstrated that attachment to the group was more strongly related to various evaluations of individual group members in common-bond than in common-identity groups. The authors discuss the implications of these results for the development of groups over time and speculate on how the dynamics of the two types of groups might differ.
Deborah Prentice, Dale Miller, Jenifer Lightdale
- Wikipedians are born, not made: a study of power editors on Wikipedia
In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (2009), pp. 51-60, doi:10.1145/1531674.1531682
Open content web sites depend on users to produce information of value. Wikipedia is the largest and most well-known such site. Previous work has shown that a small fraction of editors --Wikipedians -- do most of the work and produce most of the value. Other work has offered conjectures about how Wikipedians differ from other editors and how Wikipedians change over time. We quantify and test these conjectures. Our key findings include: Wikipedians' edits last longer; Wikipedians invoke community norms more often to justify their edits; on many dimensions of activity, Wikipedians start intensely, tail off a little, then maintain a relatively high level of activity over the course of their career. Finally, we show that the amount of work done by Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians differs significantly from their very first day. Our results suggest a design opportunity: customizing the initial user experience to improve retention and channel new users' intense energy.
Katherine Panciera, Aaron Halfaker, Loren Terveen
- Applying Common Identity and Bond Theory to Design of Online Communities
Organization Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3. (1 March 2007), pp. 377-408, doi:10.1177/0170840607076007
Online communities depend upon the commitment and voluntary participation of their members. Community design — site navigation, community structure and features, and organizational policies — is critical in this regard. Community design affects how people can interact, the information they receive about one another and the community, and how they can participate in community activities. We argue that the constraints and opportunities inherent in online community design influence how people become attached to the community and whether they are willing to expend effort on its behalf. We examine two theories of group attachment and link these theories with design decisions for online communities. Common identity theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people's attachment to the group as a whole. Common bond theory makes predictions about the causes and consequences of people's attachment to individual group members. We review causes of common identity and common bond, and show how they result in different kinds of attachment and group outcomes. We then show how design decisions, such as those focused on recruiting newcomers versus retaining existing members, constraining or promoting off-topic discussion, and limiting group size or allowing uncontrolled growth, can lead to common identity or interpersonal bonds among community members, and consequently to different levels and forms of community participation by those so motivated.
Yuqing Ren, Robert Kraut, Sara Kiesler
- The Role of Status Seeking in Online Communities: Giving the Gift of Experience
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 12, No. 2. (2007), pp. 434-455, doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00332.x
This article examines online gift giving in the form of opinion, information, and advice that individuals post on websites. Research has highlighted altruism and reciprocity as the key motives behind such gift giving. We argue that informational gift giving is also strongly driven by status and status seeking, and that status sentiments are more likely to sustain virtual communities. Using theories of status seeking and self-presentation, we investigate the ways in which consumers construct status in online consumer communities. The data reveal insights into the strategies behind constructing a digital status and the rise of online systems to promote celebrity status within online communities.
Joseph Lampel, Ajay Bhalla
- Motivation of software developers in Open Source projects: an Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel
Research Policy In Open Source Software Development, Vol. 32, No. 7. (July 2003), pp. 1159-1177, doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00047-7
The motives of 141 contributors to a large Open Source Software (OSS) project (the Linux kernel) was explored with an Internet-based questionnaire study. Measured factors were both derived from discussions within the Linux community as well as from models from social sciences. Participants’ engagement was particularly determined by their identification as a Linux developer, by pragmatic motives to improve own software, and by their tolerance of time investments. Moreover, some of the software development was accomplished by teams. Activities in these teams were particularly determined by participants’ evaluation of the team goals as well as by their perceived indispensability and self-efficacy.
Guido Hertel, Sven Niedner, Stefanie Herrmann
- Social Status in an Open-Source Community
American Sociological Review, Vol. 70, No. 5. (1 October 2005), pp. 823-842, doi:10.1177/000312240507000505
Despite a fair amount of conjecture regarding the circumstances that lead to the generation of status orders, most of the previous literature in this area typically has studied the effects of social cues within a laboratory setting. This article analyzes the evolution of the status hierarchy within a large-scale, natural setting. The results of empirical analyses assessing a large online community of software developers show that in the process of status attainment, community members tend to evaluate a focal actor's reputation according to publicly available social references. Ironically, these same social references also work to constrain an actor's status mobility.
Daniel Stewart
- Predicting continuance in online communities: model development and empirical test
Behav. Inf. Technol., Vol. 29 (July 2010), pp. 383-394, doi:10.1080/01449290903398190
Popular interest in online communities has grown rapidly in recent years as a result of the widespread diffusion of Web 2.0 applications. However, the full values and potential of online communities cannot be realised without users' ongoing participation. Thus, this study aims at developing and empirically testing a research model to examine users' continuance intention to participate in an online community based on an extended information systems (IS) continuance model. Specifically, entertainment value and affective commitment are included in the IS continuance model and empirically examined in the context of online communities. A total of 240 returns collected from an online survey, which was conducted among users of a website bulletin board-based community in China, were analysed using partial least squares. The results reveal that users' continuance intention to participate in an online community is determined by both satisfaction and affective commitment. Satisfaction and affective commitment are, in turn, influenced by positive disconfirmations of purposive and entertainment values. The findings of this study contribute not only to theory building in online community continuance but also inform online community moderators in their effort to develop strategies for retaining their users.
Xiao Jin, Matthew Lee, Christy Cheung
- Increasing Commitment to Online Communities by Designing for Social Presence
In CSCW 2011 (submitted) (2011)
Rosta Farzan, Laura Dabbish, Robert Kraut, Tom Postmes
- Motivating Students through On-Line Competition: An Analysis of Satisfaction and Learning Styles
In Advances in Web Based Learning - ICWL 2008, Vol. 5145 (2008), pp. 167-177, doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85033-5_17
The Bologna model pursues to improve the quality of Higher Education and, in turn, human resources across Europe. One of the action lines of the Bologna Process is the promotion of the attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). In this context, motivated students are a key element. Motivation can be reached in a number of different ways, one of which is explored in this paper, and consists in the use of active e-learning methodologies to force students to compete among themselves during their learning process. The relationship between motivation and competition is analysed through a number of hypotheses focusing on elements such as the level of satisfaction of students with different learning styles (competitive, collaborative...) when using the competitive active e-learning tool called QUESTournament. This system has been used in several University courses belonging to different degrees and diplomas taught at the University of Valladolid (Spain). Data collected from these experiences are analysed and discussed.
Luisa Regueras, Elena Verdú, María Verdú, María Pérez, Juan de Castro, María Muñoz
- Structure, scoring and purpose of computing competitions
Informatics in education, Vol. 5 (January 2006), pp. 15-36
We identify aspects of computing competition formats as they relate to the purpose of these competitions, both stated and tacit. We consider the major international competitions - the International Olympiad for Informatics, the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, and top coder - and related contests whose format merits consideration. We consider the operational impact and possible outcomes of incorporating several of these aspects into scholastic competitions. We advocate, in particular, that contests be designed so as to provide a rewarding experience and opportunity for achievement for all competitors; not just the winners. Specific contest elements that should be considered are: (1) real-time scoring and feedback, (2) rewards for testing and test case creation, (3) tasks with graduated difficulty, (4) collaborative tasks, (5) practice contests and entry-level contests for novices, and (6) inclusion of spectators.
Gordon Cormack, Ian Munro, Troy Vasiga, Graeme Kemkes
- Motivational Factors in Educational MMORPGs: Some Implications for Education
In Transactions on Edutainment III, Vol. 5940 (2009), pp. 93-104, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-11245-4_9
Studies have shown that motivation is an important factor positively related to learning outcomes. Thus, educators have tried to combine digital games with teaching materials to motivate students participating in learning activities for the past two decades. However, most studies so far view games as universally motivating rather than acknowledging that several factors may be at work within games to influence motivation. We feel it is important to understand the various factors in educational games that motivate students. Twenty 5 th grade students in KaoHsiung, Taiwan participated in a study. Each participant completed a motivation and overall attitude questionnaire after playing educational MMORPGs. Results suggest that four factors motivated students to play the game provided, and allow extension to other educational MMORPGs: achievement (desire for competition with a standard of excellence), social (collaboration with others and building social networks), immersion, and the completeness of instructional mechanisms. Implications for both educators and educational game designers are provided.
Kuo-Hsun Hung, Charles Kinzer, Cheng-Ling Chen
- How oversight improves member-maintained communities
In CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (2005), pp. 11-20, doi:10.1145/1054972.1054975
Online communities need regular maintenance activities such as moderation and data input, tasks that typically fall to community owners. Communities that allow all members to participate in maintenance tasks have the potential to be more robust and valuable. A key challenge in creating member-maintained communities is building interfaces, algorithms, and social structures that encourage people to provide high-quality contributions. We use Karau and Williams' collective effort model to predict how peer and expert editorial oversight affect members' contributions to a movie recommendation website and test these predictions in a field experiment with 87 contributors. Oversight increased both the quantity and quality of contributions while reducing antisocial behavior, and peers were as effective at oversight as experts. We draw design guidelines and suggest avenues for future work from our results.
Dan Cosley, Dan Frankowski, Sara Kiesler, Loren Terveen, John Riedl
- The Effects of Group Composition on Decision Quality in a Social Production Community
In GROUP '10 (November 2010)
Shyong Lam, Jawed Karim, John Riedl
- Modeling the structure and evolution of discussion cascades
(2 Nov 2010)
We analyze the structure and evolution of discussion cascades in four popular websites: Slashdot, Barrapunto, Meneame and Wikipedia. Despite the big heterogeneities between these sites, a simple preferential attachment (PA) model with bias to the root can capture the temporal evolution of the observed trees and many of their statistical properties, namely, probability distributions of the branching factors (degrees), subtree sizes and certain correlations. The parameters of the model are learned efficiently using a novel maximum likelihood estimation scheme for PA and provide a figurative interpretation about the communication habits and the resulting discussion cascades on the four different websites.
Vicenç Gómez, Andreas Kaltenbrunner, Hibert Kappen
- Spontaneous emergence of social influence in online systems
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, No. 43. (26 October 2010), pp. 18375-18380, doi:10.1073/pnas.0914572107
Social influence drives both offline and online human behavior. It pervades cultural markets, and manifests itself in the adoption of scientific and technical innovations as well as the spread of social practices. Prior empirical work on the diffusion of innovations in spatial regions or social networks has largely focused on the spread of one particular technology among a subset of all potential adopters. Here we choose an online context that allows us to study social influence processes by tracking the popularity of a complete set of applications installed by the user population of a social networking site, thus capturing the behavior of all individuals who can influence each other in this context. By extending standard fluctuation scaling methods, we analyze the collective behavior induced by 100 million application installations, and show that two distinct regimes of behavior emerge in the system. Once applications cross a particular threshold of popularity, social influence processes induce highly correlated adoption behavior among the users, which propels some of the applications to extraordinary levels of popularity. Below this threshold, the collective effect of social influence appears to vanish almost entirely, in a manner that has not been observed in the offline world. Our results demonstrate that even when external signals are absent, social influence can spontaneously assume an on–off nature in a digital environment. It remains to be seen whether a similar outcome could be observed in the offline world if equivalent experimental conditions could be replicated.
Jukka-Pekka Onnela, Felix Reed-Tsochas
- thinkflickrthink: a case study on strategic tagging
Commun. ACM, Vol. 53, No. 8. (August 2010), pp. 141-145, doi:10.1145/1787234.1787270
Introduction The growth both in quantity and diversity of online communities across the World Wide Web, along with a number of new technologies that enhance both social interaction and content management, have bred an array of increasingly participatory practices. Users are engaged in bustling environments in which they can express themselves and interact with other users, creating and fostering all sorts of relationships, while uploading and sharing multimedia contents. Such environments turn into vital territories for many of their users, who can become extremely sensitive and protective of what they believe to be their rights. Thus even a small, unfavorable change in the structure of the site or in its usage policies can trigger discontent and active opposition. Actions performed by the site administrators, such as the deletion of content or the suspension of user accounts, can be perceived as abusive by the community and trigger outrage. In such situations, many uncoordinated forms of spontaneous protest and defense can emerge from the network of users. The creativity and effectiveness of these initiatives can vary greatly, with protests ranging from discussions on forums and blogs, to site-blocking boycotts. This research analyzes one particular protest strategy adopted by a number of users of Flickr, a popular image-sharing site: the use of anti-censorship tags to make the protest visible within the site itself. Many Web 2.0 sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us or Last.fm, offer their users the possibility of tagging online content. Tagging can be defined as the enrichment of digital contents with semantically meaningful information in the form of freely chosen text labels, or tags. The freedom implied in this activity comes from the fact that tagging does not rely on a controlled vocabulary or a predefined taxonomic structure, but is instead an essentially individual act of classification. Tagging is fundamentally about sense-making, and can be viewed as user-defined filtering. A reason that may explain why tagging has become such a popular way of on-line classification is its simplicity: a tagger must only select or upload content to a centralized database, and assign words (tags) to this material. Even though tagging can be considered mainly as an individual activity, the aggregation of tags produced by an online community evolves into a common vocabulary known as folksonomy. Cattuto et al. have noted that the emergence of a folksonomy exhibits aspects also observed in human languages, such as the crystallization of naming conventions, competitions between terms or the appearance of widely spread neologisms. Steels sees tagging as an example of distributed cognition, based on the argument that language should be viewed "as a complex adaptive system in which a distributed group of agents collectively invent and align shared symbol systems." Steels also points out that tags, in a web context, act more like future aids for navigation in large information sources, rather than being referential markers for describing and discriminating objects. Tagging, in general, can be described as a highly subjective naming activity. Golder and Huberman propose a general classification of tags by their function, organized by Zollers in Table 1. In Flickr, tagging is not mandatory, and unlike other resource sharing sites, deals exclusively with user generated context, which can only be tagged by its owner. Following the tag support typology proposed by Marlow et al., the tagging mode supported by Flickr is "viewable", implying that users can view each other's tags and thus share ways of naming. This mode can lead to the convergence of local folk-sonomies, or alignment of vocabularies. There is an expectation that such localized convergences can result in global semantic effects if large numbers of users are involved. Ontologies, thus, can become an emergent feature of the community, as opposed to a prefixed contract or "dictionary." Flickr shows this emergent dictionary in a format that has become quite popular along with tagging: the "tag cloud," a list of tags highlighted in a way that is proportional to different criteria, such as usage frequency. While this perspective appears quite promising, it presents some major and yet unsolved problems, such as synonymy, indistinct use of plurals or parts of speech or even conflicting morphological constructions and the use of upper or lower case letters or special characters to denote words. Because of these current limitations, there is a great probability that many desired items will never be retrieved by a query simply because they were tagged in ways which are different than expected. Moreover, the unstructured nature of tags makes it very hard to arrange them into categories, which could greatly enhance navigation through the tagged information.
Eugenio Tisselli
- Beyond notability. Collective deliberation on content inclusion in Wikipedia.
In Fourth IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems Workshops (SASOW 2010) (28 September 2010), doi:10.1109/SASOW.2010.26
In this study we analyse the structure of a particular form of collective decision-making in Wikipedia, i.e. decisions regarding content inclusion and deletion. Wikipedia's official guidelines require that only topics that meet "notability" standards be included with a dedicated article. Decisions as to whether a topic is "notable" are made by groups of selfappointed reviewers, who assess the alleged encyclopaedic nature of a topic via so called "Article for Deletion" discussions. We analyse the structure and dynamics of these discussions in order to identify possible biases affecting their outcome. We show in particular the effects of voter heterogeneity and herding behaviour on the functioning of these collective deliberation processes.
Dario Taraborelli, Giovanni Ciampaglia
- Talk Before You Type: Coordination in Wikipedia
System Sciences, 2007. HICSS 2007. 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on In System Sciences, 2007. HICSS 2007. 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on (January 2007), pp. 78-78, doi:10.1109/HICSS.2007.511
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has attracted attention both because of its popularity and its unconventional policy of letting anyone on the Internet edit its articles. This paper describes the results of an empirical analysis of Wikipedia and discusses ways in which the Wikipedia community has evolved as it has grown. We contrast our findings with an earlier study and present three main results. First, the community maintains a strong resilience to malicious editing, despite tremendous growth and high traffic. Second, the fastest growing areas of Wikipedia are devoted to coordination and organization. Finally, we focus on a particular set of pages used to coordinate work, the "Talk" pages. By manually coding the content of a subset of these pages, we find that these pages serve many purposes, notably supporting strategic planning of edits and enforcement of standard guidelines and conventions. Our results suggest that despite the potential for anarchy, the Wikipedia community places a strong emphasis on group coordination, policy, and process
Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, Jesse Kriss, Frank van Ham
- Viable Web communities: Two case studies
In Pattern Resilience (2010)
Online communities collaboratively generating content have been thriving since decades. The momentum produced by the so-called “Web 2.0” caused a dramatic explosion in the popularity and variety of such communities. Despite a large interest in the research community for online social networks, little has been done to characterise the viability of content-based online communities and identify factors that determine their survival. Studying how these communities evolve over time can help identify properties that drive their growth and assess their viability as a function of their internal structure and functioning. In this chapter, we discuss the problem of how to characterise the viability of online collaborative systems and how to measure it. We then present an overview of the dynamics of two distinct types of content-based online communities: communities in peer production systems and social media communities. We de- scribe a number of macroscopic regularities in how these communities evolve and suggest how these regularities can be harnessed in order to define strategies to control community dynamics.
Dario Taraborelli, Camille Roth
- Analyzing patterns of user content generation in online social networks
In KDD '09: Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining (2009), pp. 369-378, doi:10.1145/1557019.1557064
Various online social networks (OSNs) have been developed rapidly on the Internet. Researchers have analyzed different properties of such OSNs, mainly focusing on the formation and evolution of the networks as well as the information propagation over the networks. In knowledge-sharing OSNs, such as blogs and question answering systems, issues on how users participate in the network and how users "generate/contribute" knowledge are vital to the sustained and healthy growth of the networks. However, related discussions have not been reported in the research literature.
Lei Guo, Enhua Tan, Songqing Chen, Xiaodong Zhang, Yihong Zhao
- Governance in Social Media: A case study of the Wikipedia promotion process
In Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2010) (2010)
J Leskovec, D Huttenlocher, J Kleinberg
- Démographie des communautés en ligne. Le cas des wikis
Réseaux, Vol. 26, No. 152. (31 December 2008), pp. 205-240, doi:10.3166/reseaux.152.205-240
Les wikis et notamment la Wikipedia sont un des exemples les plus saillants de communautés en ligne de construction collective et collaborative de contenus. Si la Wikipedia a à cet égard jusqu’ici concentré l’essentiel des efforts de recherche, l’ensemble des wikis constitue cependant un écosystème d’une grande diversité de contenus, de populations, d’usages et de systèmes de gouvernance. De nombreux wikis luttent ainsi pour survivre et attirer contributeurs et articles de qualité. Notre étude constitue la première analyse quantitative et démographique d’un grand échantillon de wikis. Nous nous intéressons en particulier aux corrélations potentielles entre la dynamique démographique certaines propriétés liées à la structure au mode de gouvernance des wikis. Ceci nous permet finalement d’introduire et de discuter plusieurs axes d’étude de la viabilité des communautés en ligne. Wikis are the most prominent example of online communities of collaborative content creation, of which Wikipedia is the largest and most famous. The primacy of research on Wikipedia in the literature has eclipsed the study of the wiki ecosystem, which actually displays a wide variety of demographics, usage patterns, governance, content and population dynamics. Many wikis struggle to survive, competing against one another for quality and contributors, growing in content and population or, conversely, threatened by inactivity or vandalism. This paper is the first empirical assessment of a large sample of wikis, their structure and their evolution over time. We analyse the correlation of various macroscopic indicators, structural features and governance policies of wikis with specific growth patterns, and discuss possible future research on the viability of online communities.
Camille Roth, Dario Taraborelli, Nigel Gilbert
- Beyond Wikipedia: coordination and conflict in online production groups
In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (2010), pp. 215-224, doi:10.1145/1718918.1718959
Online production groups have the potential to transform the way that knowledge is produced and disseminated. One of the most widely used forms of online production is the wiki, which has been used in domains ranging from science to education to enterprise. We examined the development of and interactions between coordination and conflict in a sample of 6811 wiki production groups. We investigated the influence of four coordination mechanisms: intra-article communication, inter-user communication, concentration of workgroup structure, and policy and procedures. We also examined the growth of conflict, finding the density of users in an information space to be a significant predictor. Finally, we analyzed the effectiveness of the four coordination mechanisms on managing conflict, finding differences in how each scaled to large numbers of contributors. Our results suggest that coordination mechanisms effective for managing conflict are not always the same as those effective for managing task quality, and that designers must take into account the social benefits of coordination mechanisms in addition to their production benefits.
Aniket Kittur, Robert Kraut
- Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance
Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 26, No. 1. (1 July 2009), pp. 49-72, doi:10.2753/MIS0742-1222260103
How does "self-governance" happen in Wikipedia? Through in-depth interviews with 20 individuals who have held a variety of responsibilities in the English-language Wikipedia, we obtained rich descriptions of how various forces produce and regulate social structures on the site. Although Wikipedia is sometimes portrayed as lacking oversight, our analysis describes Wikipedia as an organization with highly refined policies, norms, and a technological architecture that supports organizational ideals of consensus building and discussion. We describe how governance on the site is becoming increasingly decentralized as the community grows and how this is predicted by theories of commons-based governance developed in offline contexts. We also briefly examine local governance structures called WikiProjects through the example of WikiProject Military History, one of the oldest and most prolific projects on the site.
Andrea Forte, Vanesa Larco, Amy Bruckman
- Cohesion and Membership Duration: Linking Groups, Relations and Individuals in an Ecology of Affiliation
In Group Cohesion Trust and Solidarity (2002)
Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin
- Social Cohesion
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 30, No. 1. (2004), pp. 409-425, doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110625
Investigators interested in developing a general theory of social cohesion are confronted with a complex body of work that involves various definitions of social cohesion, specialized literatures on particular dimensions of social cohesion (e.g., membership turnover, organizational commitment, categorical identifications, interpersonal attachments, network structures), and lines of inquiry focused on the social cohesion of specific types of groups (e.g., families, schools, military units, and sports teams). This review addresses the problem of integrating the individual and group levels at which social cohesion has been defined. It also develops a perspective on social cohesion as a domain of causally interrelated phenomena concerned with individuals' membership attitudes and behaviors, in which the major dimensions of social cohesion occupy different theoretical positions with respect to one another as antecedent, intervening, or outcome variables.
Noah Friedkin
- Recognition and participation in a virtual community
System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on (2004), 10 pp.
Although recognition counts among the numerous factors that contribute towards the success of virtual communities, it has received little attention in both academic and practitioner studies. Adopting the theory of information sharing as the conceptual foundation, this interpretive case study examines the effect of recognition on participation in a virtual community for academic dress. Results indicate that there exist three different forms of perceived recognition in a virtual community, namely identity, expertise and tangible recognition. The study also highlights that a link exists across these forms of recognition, their effects, and participation. Implications for community organizers and researchers are discussed.
CML Chan, M Bhandar, Lih-Bin Oh, Hock-Chuan Chan