Impromptus

While you can’t entirely separate the technical from the social in online communities, I don’t think technical matters make the difference (between an active community and a moribund one) nearly as often as social matters. You might look into Malcolm Gladwell’s taxonomy of Mavens, Connectors, and something-else-ers for some insights. It boils down to, you have to have the right people.

And yet. There are technical decisions that promote and kill a sense of community. Imagine removing the catbox from e2 or adding one to wikipedia. Imagine that writeups could have conversations like this take place beneth them.

And what if those conversations were threaded? Unthreaded? Moderated? Slashdot-like? What if we did the same to wikipedia? What about a livejournal with no comment functionality? What about a flickr with one?

All of these have implications. They determine who will stay and who will go and how often people will check back. Slashdot emails you when someone replies to your comment, but you have to go to /. to read what they said.

What structures promote good factual technical discussions? Which ones promote creative works? Which ones promote community and keep people coming back?