TOPIC 4 HUMAN CENTRED COMPUTING: HUMAN INTERFACES

Exercise 4.2 Hosting good conversations: House Rules!
The cartoon image comes fromhttp://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/h/house_rules.asp

a) Three ways of providing users with more control in an online community.

1. Stop big corporations from taking over the online community base, because when big corporations take control and there is no profit to be made they shut them down. This was seen with the demise of GeoCities.


2. Like the real world communities, online communities tend to mirror the same short comings, "racism, exclusivity and class privilege" http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=neo_cities again resulting in the demise of the community. Users need to raise their awareness of these and strive to alienate them altogether.


3. Having a set of HOUSE RULES that all members know and agree too.

b) Howard Rheingolds, three good rules?

1. Make newcomers feel welcomed, contributors valued, recreational hasslers ignored.


2. Keep the rules simple and based on ordinary human courtesy.


3. Conversations about a variety of subjects.
   

The preceding points come from, http://www.rheingold.com/texts/artonlinehost.html I chose these because I feel they are important to the success of an online community and I have experienced these while online for this course.

c) Why do we need these rules? and are they the same with document sharing systems?

1. Without rules online communities can become just like high school with the cool kids and the nerds.


2. Do you feel you are being attacked personally, is it because the other party doesn't agree with your ideas? Let the conversation die, don't keep on about it. Your not in Primary School!


3. If you belong to a community you need to bend to their way of thinking sometimes, or leave if the direction of the group is altering.
   

http://www.newmedia.hhs.gov/images/sm101fig1.JPG

Yes! whether you are communicating on line via a chat or blogging, rules need to be followed. If a person is being a tool give them the thumbs down and report it to the hosting website. If you where given a document into your hand from a colleague and you weren't happy with its content you would do something about it. There are rules of social conduct which we follow, without such rules anarchy reigns.