EXPERIENCES:
A text-based asynchronous virtual environment,
...and the people who've homesteaded it.
The key features may just be:
accountability
continuity
individuality
deliberate community building
1. Cultivate a sense of ownership and citizenship
Hosts and helpers
Key concepts:
Limited resources
what it is is up to us
Magic, madness, feuds, volunteer programmers, barnraisings,
parties, local jargon, the sense of virtual place
People pay to create fascinating content by telephone all the time.
People will co-create in a many-to-many community setting if:
it adds meaning
it gives the value of being known.
The producers of community and relationship are
the consumers and the heart of the product.
A "place" to find people and ideas, and to be found,
is the core service, and navigation or layout of the
commons is what makes this possible.
ONGOING CHALLENGES:
Expectations and perceptions:
Um, is this the Internet?;
Talking back to That's The Way It Is;
the Ant Farmers; or Get out of the Car!
where's the database;
are the hosts all shrinks?;
Won't the WELL throw that moron off for being verbally abusive, the
little %*@^...
The scenery is ignoring me.
Interaction is with changing, living people, not with a programmer's
expectation of your behavior.
Feedback shock: Mutual Judgement Day.
The self-marketing mechanism.
Editors as virtual assassins.
Making partitions. Buffering privacy.
Trafficking in information.
What does Information want?
There's a standard for sending English text, but not for culture, language
and trust transmitted between humans as that text is read.
ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES OF MULTIMEDIA COMMUNITY
Sense of common place preserved?
So far you can log in with your paperweight: Junkers in the slow lane add
value in the communications business.
Video/radio in combo with text is popular with users.
Audio visual dialog makes sampling more natural and/or problematic.
"You own your own ________ "
CONSTANTS UNRELATED TO INTERFACE:
Counterpoint as an antidote to control.
Dissent: a pain and an asset.