Group conversation - dynamics of size
I was just reading "Is the Digg Community Its Own Worst Enemy?" (http://performancing.com/node/4206) -- and saw this paragraph, from another article (http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html). Seems it might apply to VS -- waddya'all think?
The downside of going for size and scale above all else is that the dense, interconnected pattern that drives group conversation and collaboration isn't supportable at any large scale. Less is different -- small groups of people can engage in kinds of interaction that large groups can't. And so we blew past that interesting scale of small groups. Larger than a dozen, smaller than a few hundred, where people can actually have these conversational forms that can't be supported when you're talking about tens of thousands or millions of users, at least in a single group.
The downside of going for size and scale above all else is that the dense, interconnected pattern that drives group conversation and collaboration isn't supportable at any large scale. Less is different -- small groups of people can engage in kinds of interaction that large groups can't. And so we blew past that interesting scale of small groups. Larger than a dozen, smaller than a few hundred, where people can actually have these conversational forms that can't be supported when you're talking about tens of thousands or millions of users, at least in a single group.
5 Comments
darksunYes and No. VS may have alot of members, but how many do you see making regular contributions? Every so often you may see a comment from a previously unheard of member, but the majority of comments seem to be from people in the Top 50 or so.
I say VS is going for Quality, not Quantity, where as Digg seems to be the other way. The way i see it, the comments made and videos posted, are very ethical.
James RoeYou are right in assuming that could become a problem for videosift. That is part of why we have shut down new user sign ups. When we reinstate them we have some novel ideas that we hope will help discourage this sort of thing from occurring.
http://www.metafilter.com has had a reasonable amount of success battling similar problems, and their user base is about 40,000 members, or 10 times that of the sift.
ockhamist says...I've been watching almost daily since February (found on google), but only recently started submitting because I really wanted to down-vote a few videos. Now, however, the bad ones usually get taken care of by the main members, so I doubt I'll use it much. (BTW, I do think we should have a neutral vote . . . often I watch through a post and just feel apathetic, but I did watch!)
You guys do a great job of finding and sifting good stuff to watch. This is the kind of internet we were all promised ten years ago: dynamic and visual yet participatory. Even though I have not contributed much, I feel a part of the community and feel welcome to jump in at any time.
James Roe's comment gives me faith it will stay that way. VS got a lot better over the summer, and I expect the good times to keep rolling!
KrupoFor some reason the "VS Population" issue reminds me about learning about Plato's Laws, and how the ideal city would have a population of 5040 (7!).
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PlatosNumbers.html
http://www.constitution.org/pla/laws.htm
Farhad2000I think most of VS's membership is people who come browsing through, watch a few videos then leave, after that is a lesser part of active submission... and finally at the end is the regular contributors. So I don't think VS would suffer from the same problem.
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