The article we were to read for todays class is called Managing the Virtual Commons: Cooperation and Conflict in Computer Communities by Peter Kollock and Marc Smith. The article starts off by describing communications systems and how they effect the relationships we have with others. Computer-mediated interactions are a relatively new thing, that have become more common recently because of the many blogging sites, networking sites, etc. Often times, though, there is the issue of whether or not individual success and achievement is more or less important than group achievement. An example I thought was really interesting that was described in the article was one that I had not heard of before, but seems to be something that occurs often in daily life. This would be the "tragedy of the commons". Basically what it means is that there is an issue of whether individual or collective rationality is more important. If someone told you that you could get an A in a class but everybody else would get a D, would you accept that offer? Contrary, if the teacher said that together you guys can collectively take a C and there will be no Fs or As, would you choose that option to benefit not just yourself but all of your classmates? The issue is also known as the free-rider problem. The free-rider problem means that people often times want to enjoy the benefits of a group-effort but without putting in the work themself. In other words, enjoy the end result thanks to others hard work but not do any of it yourself. I agree that this is a serious problem on sites like Usenet, which I will explain in a little bit. Free-riding is an issue because it is not fair that people are contributing based on what other people believe. People should post their own individual thoughts and not anything based on what others have to say. However, on sites like Usenet, there probably is not much that can be done to avoid free-riding, since it is a public site that is accessed by anyone and everybody can see what was written before them. So what exactly is Usenet, anyway?
The Usenet is made up of many discussion groups. Developed in 1981 as an alternative to APRANET, it is a large computer-mediated communication system. It is similar to email and sites like Facebook, in that it allows members to communicate with one another. Things that are blogged on the site are saved forever, so one must be careful as to what they say because there will always be a transcript of it in the computer system. There are current events newsgroups, sports, arts, movies, etc., almost anything you can think of, there is a discussion group for it on Usenet. Contributing to the group is easy, all one must do is type their response to a previous writing, and post, similar to how you would send an email- the only difference is that everyone can view it, instead of just one person. There are rules that apply on the Usenet. For example, members are strongly encouraged to stick to the topic in the group and not go off on un-related tangents, to avoid clutter and spam. Also, groups are attempted to be kept as small as possible. Reason being, as a group gets larger, there is more of a likelihood for free-riding. People can see what others have to say and copy off them instead of posting their own individual beliefs and opinions. Usenet tries to prevent this from happening by making a kill file. Kill files are used in order to prevent certain people from posting if members feel they are violating the rules in any way or manner.
The Usenet is made up of many discussion groups. Developed in 1981 as an alternative to APRANET, it is a large computer-mediated communication system. It is similar to email and sites like Facebook, in that it allows members to communicate with one another. Things that are blogged on the site are saved forever, so one must be careful as to what they say because there will always be a transcript of it in the computer system. There are current events newsgroups, sports, arts, movies, etc., almost anything you can think of, there is a discussion group for it on Usenet. Contributing to the group is easy, all one must do is type their response to a previous writing, and post, similar to how you would send an email- the only difference is that everyone can view it, instead of just one person. There are rules that apply on the Usenet. For example, members are strongly encouraged to stick to the topic in the group and not go off on un-related tangents, to avoid clutter and spam. Also, groups are attempted to be kept as small as possible. Reason being, as a group gets larger, there is more of a likelihood for free-riding. People can see what others have to say and copy off them instead of posting their own individual beliefs and opinions. Usenet tries to prevent this from happening by making a kill file. Kill files are used in order to prevent certain people from posting if members feel they are violating the rules in any way or manner.
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