Literature Review
Online Community
There is significant debate in the literature as to what constitutes an 'online community'. Rheingold (1993) is widely credited with the first definition of the term. He states that virtual communities are:
"...social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on...public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace." (Rheingold, 1993)
Slabeva and Schmid (2001) argue that online communities are not by necessity dependent on the presence of personal relationships. They offer a contrasting and widely accepted definition that shifts focus to the mediated nature of online communication:
"we define online communities through their features as associations of agents, who share a common language, world, values and interests, obey a commonly defined organizational structure and who communicate and cooperate, ubiquitously connected by electronic media and possibly represented by avatars." (2001, p.2)
Preece suggests that, simply:
"an online community is a group of people who interact in a virtual environment. They have a purpose, are supported by technology, and are guided by norms and policies." (2004)
Character of Online Communities
Preece acknowledges that online communities vary greatly in their look and feel. The character of an online community is determined by the nature of the social interactions of its members and by the policies and regulations that inform them. Preece speaks of this interaction as a community's 'sociability.'
According to Preece, one of the major determinants of sociability is the software environment. The software environment (a web page, a standalone desktop application, a mobile phone application, etc.) determines the limitations of a community's social ability. Software design - in terms of the core functionality of the environment and its graphical user interface (GUI) - has therefore a significant impact on how, why and with what frequency community members interact with one another. Preece concludes:
"Attention to...software design is therefore an important component in community development and evolution." (2004)
This paper looks at how a software design feature - the social proxy - affects the development of an online community by measuring the impact of its presence and absence.
The Social Proxy
Erickson and Kellogg have defined 'social proxy' as "a minimalist graphical representation of users that depicts presence and activity" (2004). Examples of social proxies include small messages that indicate whether a user is online or not - such as the 'Online Now!' message on sites such as Facebook and iLike, or a message that indicates the number of readers or comments a topic has attracted on a forum or blog. Social proxies may also be graphical in nature, such as the animated visualizations of community activity on Digg.com. This paper asks whether the presence of a social proxy has the effect of increasing participation by visualising user activity.
Erickson (2003) has published a number of 'claims' based on six years of research into the design and implementation of online community tools. Four 'claims' are relevant to this research paper:
Everyone sees the same thingUsers may not opt out of having their activity publicly displayed. If they log in, for instance, the social proxy tool will display their 'online' status to the entire community without exception.
Portray actions, not interpretationsActions such as logging in or posting a message may be portrayed but should not be interpreted by supporting statistics. The speed at which someone types, for instance, should not be displayed, as it interprets user activity rather than merely expressing it. People are better interpreters than computers, and too much information can be confusing and unnecessary.
Allow deceptionFace-to-face communication involves deception (feigning interest through body language or tone of voice, for instance). Consequently, Erickson believes that being able to 'game' a social proxy tool is perfectly legitimate, i.e. posting blank messages to increase one's standing in a social proxy that ranks members in ascending order by number of posts.
Use a third-person point of viewSocial proxies should reflect a user's own activity back to him or herself in the same way that others see it. This creates a shared point of reference.
The social proxy developed for this study has taken the four above 'claims' into consideration. The proxy will indicate whether a participant is online or offline and indicate the number of messages he or she has posted. It will also indicate how long, as an aggregate total, the participant has been logged in and active. Participants will not be able to hide their own statistics from the group, and no attempt will be made to curtail the artificial inflation of activity levels. Participants will also be able to view their own statistics as they would any other member of the community.
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