interactive design 2 - med m/522 - spring 2004
Philip van Allen - v a n a l l e n @ a r t c e n t e r . e d u
room 227, mon 2:00pm-6:00pm
all materials on this web site © copyright 2004, Philip van Allen
 
week 02b - assignment, interactive communities overview

interactive communities : 

The web started as a mostly one-way, static medium, dispite what its primary inventor (Tim Berners-Lee) had in mind--a flexible read/write publishing medium. But in the last few years, web publishers have been discovering the benefits of dynamic content that comes from the audience. With the advent of a variety of content management tools, creating sites with these features has become easier and more prevalent. In particular, sites that focus around a community have become very popular.

We'll look at three major approaches to content management for interactive communities:

  • forums/bulletin boards
  • WIKIs
  • blogs
forums/bulletin boards : 

A discussion site is one where any member of a community can create and reply to discussion topics. Once a topic is established, other community members can respond and extend the discussion. Features of forum software include:

  • topics with most recent postings float to the top
  • older topics with no postings are pruned off the forum
  • some bulletin boards show replys by indenting them when all postings are visible (see slashdot)
  • moderation can be enabled or not
  • users can select a variety of viewing modes
    • unread postings
    • recent postings (with a selected date range)
    • postings with a certain rating level or better (see slashdot)
  • some bulletin boards offer more levels of organization than others, enabling the administrator to create categories, and forums within those categories (see phpbb, used on the mdp site)
  • other bulletin boards show everything at the top (see phorum, used here)

Forum discussion topics:

  • What makes a forum successful? What is success?
  • What are forums good for, what are they bad for?
  • What do you think of moderation? Is it necessary?

Bulletin Board/Forum links:

 

  
WIKIs : 

Web sites that are modifiable by any member of the community. Unlike forums, WIKIs have pages devoted to topics rather than topic threads. Any member can add, change, or delete the contents of a page. In addition, any member can create new pages, simply by creating a new link. This may seem like a chaotic and anarchical, but it actually works. The philosophy is that the system is self regulating. If someone puts up dumb or bad content, someone else will remove it. If someone deletes good information, the information can be restored by going back to previous versions.

Some WIKI features:

  • the term comes from a Hawaiian word: WikiWiki - Fast, speedy; to hurry, hasten; quick, fast, swift
  • editing any page is accomplished by selecting the edit button on that page, and then changing the text in a web form
  • creating a new page happens automatically when a link is created. In traditional WIKIs, this is done be creating text with multiple capital letters. E.g. ThisIsAWikiLink. In the SnipSnap WIKI installed on the MDP server, put brackets around any text to make it a link. E.g. [This is a WIKI link]. Either way, a blank page is created. Anyone can then go to the blank page and create the content.
  • many wikis provide back links that show which pages were used to link to the current page
  • if you don't believe a WIKI can work in a public setting, check out a collaborative encyclopedia here: www.wikipedia.org

WIKI discussion topics

  • what kinds of topics are best and worst for a WIKI?
  • what do you think of the WIKI concept? Before and after using it?
  • what are some possible uses of a WIKI?

WIKI links:

 

  

(we)blogs : 

Web pages with a series of postings listed most recent first, often but not always by one person. Sometimes these are like a diary, othertimes they are more like a diatribe. Blogs are not quite as collaborative as Forums and WIKIs, but they do seem to form communities. There is certainly something social about them--a kind of sit around the campfire and listen to my story feel. Blogs have a simple interface that enables the blogger to enter each new entry through a simple web form--the rest of the formatting is accomplished by the software.

Some Blog features:

  • each posting is timestamped. This seems very important to the level of interest the blog generates
  • it's possible to go back and edit previous postings
  • it's possible to enter postings, but not publish them--like writing a letter, but sending it only after you've slept on it
  • some blog systems (like moveable type) allow comments for each posting, which pushes blogs more towards community
  • part of the blog culture seems to be linking to other "cool" blogs

Blog discussion topics:

  • who is the audience for a blog?
  • what are the differences between a single-author blog and a multi-author blog?
  • why are blogs so seductive to read?

Blog links

 

 

  

all materials on this web site © copyright 2004, Philip van Allen

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