Comments on Seb's Open Research: Stocks, Flows, and Upkeep in Social Media

(more experiments are needed)

2009-05-27T01:32:01.265-04:00

(more experiments are needed)

Interesting. I think more experiments are need, us...

2009-05-27T01:31:38.634-04:00

Interesting. I think more experiments are need, using different domains.

That said, however, disinterest reduces the size o...

2009-05-26T16:10:31.451-04:00

That said, however, disinterest reduces the size of the active community relative to the wiki size, which can feed into a death spiral.

Jen: by using the term "infection" you seem to sug...

2009-05-26T15:58:51.229-04:00

Jen: by using the term "infection" you seem to suggest that obsolete material could contribute to a broken window effect that encourages degradation elsewhere. From my experience, I think obsolete areas simply generate disinterest - people just move on elsewhere.

Your insight about blogs versus wikis is very inte...

2009-05-26T15:47:44.116-04:00

Your insight about blogs versus wikis is very interesting. Do you think that the large size of the active "turf" in wikis becomes a problem because even small areas of obsolescent material somehow infect a whole document with a sense that is degrading?

Thanks for chipping in, both in the experiment and...

2009-05-20T14:01:28.129-04:00

Thanks for chipping in, both in the experiment and here, Karl! Yes, your point about infinite space is really important. Finiteness is a defining characteristic of Drawball. It is hard to imagine the dynamics that would have arisen if the Web had had a predefined limit number of pages!

Fascinating and very interesting. I may add anothe...

2009-05-20T13:50:10.226-04:00

Fascinating and very interesting. I may add another law to your experiment, though it would have to be repeated again to see if it's working.

Law 3: A fractal pattern encourages participation.

A fractal pattern is simple enough that the gratification is direct. One can draw a small shape which already makes sense to the person. (I have participated!). But because of the self-structure of fractal pattern, one is participating to a bigger scheme. Sense of collective achievement with grand goals.

Once the structure is big enough, it becomes visible, organized and then it is an object of power, which in return is its weakness. (Colonial states versus Guerrilla/Terrorism). Wikipedia becomes so big that it fights for copyright or have editors censoring content.

Though I kind of disagree with the conclusion of blogs versus wikis. Blogs are indeed easier to maintain but would it be because wikis are not really object of the commons, aka, there is still someone owning the object, it is a property of someone in the end.

I wonder also if there is a density rule in action. A tribe in a large forest with free will to move as they please versus a piece of land with a lot of people. There is very little destruction when the space is infinite. Take the drawing above and imagine a space which is infinite (possible in digital space), would participant try to destroy the work of others or just go further away to do their own drawing?