W5 - Bruns (b): Do moderation functions on collaborative sites prevent a "free for all", and does this defeat the purpose?

A "collaborative website" is a broad term in itself. It can be an open publishing website such as Wikipedia, or a bulletin board/forum. The Bruns article concisely explains the way in which the Wikimedia Foundation have appointed groups of moderators. Looking from the perspective of a forum, an entirely unmoderated community would be a bleak one. Users could post whatever they liked and abuse each other to their hearts content. With moderators in place, such behaviour can be stopped, and inappropriate posts can be removed.

Where there is a free-for-all, there is no community because the users can run riot. Moderators tie a community together and keep everyone in check while not restricting freedom of speech. If there is an issue amongst the users, it can be nipped in the bud before it escalates. In a free-for-all, there is no opportunity for this. From personal experience, it is up the users to choose a group of people to moderate the community and it can be successful. However if a moderator goes on a power-trip and starts imposing restrictions on freedom of speech, this is where moderation becomes negative.

In short, moderation certainly does not defeat the purpose of a free-for-all. A moderated group of users can produce raise far more relevant points and achieve greater discussion than an unmoderated mob who will most likely be fighting with spambots, trolls and trashers.

W4 - Topic 1b: Sense of community (Blanchard)

I have definitely felt a sense of community through online interaction. I have been part of a Spice Girls community for nine years. The community started in one location in 2000, and then in 2002 most of the users moved to another location because of issues with the first community's owners. With nine years of history and many posters having 20,000+ posts (nearly all of which I've met IRL) you learn a lot about these people - and most people's online identities have been about the same as their offline ones. Over the years, I have met hundreds of the members at concerts and events, and most of my long-standing now IRL friendships originated online.

The "real life" models suggested by McMillan and Chavis very much match my experiences of online community. From my experience, I've felt "part of it" and a full member since the beginning. When I joined, it was rare to find Spice Girls fans apart from myself as their popularity had dwindled, and suddenly there were thousands of them. Many members, sometimes not with the most amount of posts are influential through their valued postings and ability to help each other. If someone needs a rare picture or file, it will usually be found regardless of if the user is new or old. There is little hierarchy beyond the moderators who make sure nothing gets out of hand.

The final model-point of "shared emotional connection" is perhaps the most important for this community, which was recently seen on the Spice Girls' reunion tour. The community was brought together much more than it had been previously. Many users arranged to go to the concerts together, and the offline concerts were not just a concert but a meeting place to meet old friends, and some members for the first time. In this sense, the community made memories and history together, and even though the tour was now a year ago, the community is still buzzing and sharing pictures, files and information from those times. While there is the odd flamer or spammer, there is otherwise a fantastic community spirit which I rarely seen elsewhere on the internet.

Therefore from my experience, the real-life model is entirely relevant - though for other forums and communities, this may not be so.

W4 - Topic 1a: Dangerous materials on the internet (Lister p.181)

It is hard to define "dangerous materials" on the internet as it very much depends on your age, race, class, gender or how easily offended you are. What is dangerous or frightening to one person may be overlooked by another. Looking at it this way, dangerous materials are everywhere. Pornography is one such example. If you intend to look at it or not, it is easily encountered. Even on some academic websites you see adverts such as "Hot busty babe 18+ available now" or on file-sharing websites such as zshare, adverts of scantily-clad women appear. Therefore in this case, dangerous materials are prominent. Dangerous materials are often masked as innocent pages or files. On Windows Live Messenger, several viruses send messages from contacts asking you to download their new pictures or check out a file, when in fact this is a virus or trojan horse.

As part of a community, you can also be exposed to dangerous materials. If someone shoots down your opinions or flames you down on a regular basis, leading to potentially serious consequences such as a story in which a man committed suicide on webcam (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23390052-details/British+man+commits+suicide+on+live+webcam/article.do). He joined a chatroom specifically designed for people to insult each other, and committed suicide - this may have been his intention, but surely people egging him on wouldn't have helped. Chat rooms and communities such as this are a danger on the internet and should be approached with caution.

If the "freedom" of the internet allows things like that to happen, then it certainly isn't always a positive thing. However this is a minority and for every flamer or "jerk" there are several valued internet users and members of communities. If used in a good way then freedom of information and speech can achieve many positive things.