The Alphaville Herald

Talking about Talking

by Alphaville Herald on 06/07/05 at 9:32 am

Cindy and Prok

As the flap over the board banning of Prokofy Neva degenerates into a series of thoughtful and productive discussions, you might think the Herald would lose interest. Well, ok, we have, but that doesn’t mean we stop posting (i.e., it’s a slow news day). Prok called upon Cindy Claveu to lead a discussion at the Gilded Cage, and there were many cyberlebrities in attendence. Prok has posted the transcript here.

Cindy Claveu

For my money the most interesting part of the discussion was when Cindy reminded me of Clay Shirky’s paper “A Group is its Own Worst Enemy,” which contains the following very interesting and timely passage.

The second thing you have to accept: Members are different than users. A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. And that becomes your core group, Art Kleiner’s phrase for “the group within the group that matters most.”

The core group on Communitree was undifferentiated from the group of random users that came in. They were separate in their own minds, because they knew what they wanted to do, but they couldn’t defend themselves against the other users. But in all successful online communities that I’ve looked at, a core group arises that cares about and gardens effectively. Gardens the environment, to keep it growing, to keep it healthy.

Now, the software does not always allow the core group to express itself, which is why I say you have to accept this. Because if the software doesn’t allow the core group to express itself, it will invent new ways of doing so.

Prok holds forth on Sparta and stuff.