Folksonomy - The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (7th Week)

First and foremost, I would like to emphasize that I personally have great faith in tagging as folksonomy has proven itself useful and efficient on numerous occasions. It's become such an intrinsic facet of the web architecture in recent years that imagining having to go without it is maddening as the amount of knowledge and time it would have taken an expert to built even the small fraction of the relations and collations is indeed unfathomable. Luckily enough, drawing significant amount of people to the task, while finding a sensible way to restrict the anarchy and ambiguity, can be extremely fruitful.

Elaborated on below are the cases when folksonomy either works extremely well, its efficiency is arguable or  ambiguity reaches disastrous levels, which is in direct correlation with folksonomy's quality.

The Good

One outstanding example of folksonomy's success is definitely Last.fm artist page tag clouds. The beauty of tag clouds is that they allow visual representation of characteristic's weight which is far more true to life than one-level labeling. It also appears that search results are sorted by the quantity of people who'd deemed the tag appropriate for an artist as well as by weight of the tag in aritist's personal tag cloud. It must be noted that expertise of the masses does work extremely well in this case - for instance, one wouldn't be able to discover splendid, but yet obscure performers hadn't it been for tags (or similar artists - but that's a whole other story). Some tags ARE quite unspecific or irrelevant ("seen live", for once), but thanks to visual weight representation they do not seem to be distracting.

The Bad

The opinion to follow is perhaps slightly biased, but apparently and quite naturally amazon.com tagging in music department doesn't seem to match the eloquence and scale of Last.fm. This, ostensibly, derives from amazon.com dealing in multitude of wares and subject types, being continent or/and country specific and, essentially, very commercial - it's main objective is to Sell, whereas Last.fm's, if to put it the noble way, to educate, to broaden one's awareness - at least that's how it's marketed and that what it genuinely is doing (as many do not really have aversion to piracy and don't go and buy discovered artist's records). Therefore, the number of people who condescend to tagging on amazon.com isn't really enough to secure viable folksonomy, because in folksonomy quantity does indeed tend to turn into quality.

The Ugly

Just a few months ago it would have been extremely easy to name an internet instance where tagging was awfully incompetent and insufficient, but, apparently, things have improved for 500px.com since then. But even now, it's quite possible to find photos by very general tags, like "tiger", "rain", whereas more complex concepts, such as "withering", "matador", "burlesque" leave much to be desired. This might partially be caused by people not anticipating others wanting to search such specific entities and to some extent by a the user/picture ratio, which leads to the situation when there's a lot fewer users willing to contribute to folksonomy than photos to be classified. It also must be noted that due to result's display limit and deficient tagging prominent photos depicting flowers may not be found by searching for "flowers".

Now, the last and the least, comes the google image labeler folksonomy game - The Labeler Game- even though diversity and exactness is encouraged (by prohibiting proposition of words used to describe the picture very often, by granting more points for complex concepts), oftentimes the matching pair is indeed far to general to be of any real usefulness. Surprisingly enough, google image search does nevertheless prove to be quite efficient - probably mostly due to the fact that it doesn't heavily rely on the results of the aforementioned game-camouflaged folksonomy.

WikiWorld (6th Week)

It would be most fitting to note that, truth be told, Wikipedia IS marvelous as it is... for what it is, or, at the very least, can be quite fairly defined as democracy was referred to by Winston Churchill “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” True enough, such statement of the matter leaves a seemingly vast space for improvement, but ostensibly, it will take not thorough analysis and planning, but serendipity to get there. So, naturally, no revolutionary suggestions are to follow - just a few tweaks here and there, which could possibly make Wikipedia even more user-friendly and helpful.

Interface

The claim, being as superficial as it is, really is the most desired enhancement I could name. Even though the recent redesign did significantly improve the overall look, there still remains ground to be covered until the eye can truly rest on Wikipedia pages - it doesn't have to be overly complex, of course, as it would detract from the main idea of the page, but Apple's website can be drawn as a good example of providing minimalistic, yet vastly enjoyable design. Wikipedia can still go even sleeker, more modern, more gradient and even less angular.

More Links to Relevant Web Resources
One of the things Wikipedia's helpfulness could benefit from is encouragement of providing more links to relevant and trustworthy resources on the web on the subject matter that could provide more detailed, more frequently updated and more diverse information and richer means of interaction - for example, various fan community websites under a wiki article which implies having a fan society. Wikipedia policy strife to maintain the neutral and unbiased tone can often lead to such links being omitted or edited out.

Pop-up Links as Citations
As a matter of fact, should a wish occur to view citation's details or even follow the link to cited material one by all means has to navigate away from the read text, which can be potentially frustrating in case of long articles. One possible solution to that would be the introduction of a smooth smart pop-up with information on citation and a navigable link, which would open in the new tab and would leave the position of the current reading intact. The usefullness of such a feature may seem debatable, but, after all, the benefits of tabbed browsing wasn't apparent for a very, very, very long time.

Better Visualization of Contributors

Wikipedia now has a fairly serviceable change tracking view, though it's still not as self-evident as it presumably would benefit from being. As of now, it's virtually impossible to have a real overview of authorship - which author exactly is responsible for which section of text, whereas this could possibly be quite beneficial if combined with next suggestion. That would allow for better-founded skepticism and possibility heightened credibility of information encountered on Wikipedia. This could be realized either as another integrated smart pop-up section solution or as a separate view, similar to Edit and History tabs.

Assessment of Contributors and/or Diversified Accounts
Wikipedia, remaining open, could provide ground for establishment of more trustworthy accounts of varying "weight" - for example, simple verified accounts, where a person , though registered under some alias or pseudonym, does provide his/hers real data to the administration, through, perhaps, those smart identification cards which are getting widespread use and acclaim. A more persuasive level of such account would be a specialist status - providing proof of degree and/or other academic acclaims in certain field the user would be considered an expert at. However, this sounds like a troublesome procedure, but, as it would be optional, it seems that such an option could be explored. Another solution to diversifying validity of specified article data is rating the author - hence information entered by a submitter could be assessed by readers in regard to its trustworthiness on the account of submitters rating. It is worth noting that rating articles won't do as they are ever-changing and evolving.

Blogosphere (5th Week)

Entries pertaining to one and the same blog can be motivated by quite various stimuli, therefore handled hereinbelow are post instances rather than whole blogs themselves.

It would be somewhat more logical to start off with the most personal, inherent motivations as, first and foremost, blog phenomena granted every other person of no social relevance, connections, IT skills and whatnot a platform for being heard... or read/seen/perceived - whatever best suits one liking, media format and goals.

A lot of people, especially at the beginning of the blog-boom, tended to regard (and some still do) blog as a web version of personal diary where day-to day activities, streams of consciousness and emotions could be poured out, so as to be potentially discussed and marveled at (Maris Ojasuu). All this, as a consequence of eternal, ever growing, desire for attention, appreciation, compassion. As a rephrase of Lermontov's thoughts: "Even Rousseau's Confessions had the defect of being read to his friends which indicates that they were written with the vain desire to evoke compassion or to amaze". Truth be told, a great deal of other types of postings are made for this very reason, but the noted examples are the most... pure ones, so to speak, as it's implied that the attention will be directed at personality solely, as opposed to instances to be discussed later.
Under this very section may be mentioned the perception that one has to be active on the internet to fit in socially and not fall out of touch, which is also true in regard to blogging, even if micro-blogging it is (Kristel).

It so happens that previously mentioned motivation can be further surged with the wish to showcase a skill the author happens to possess - being either a photographer, or a painter, or a musician, or a programmer - whomever, the spoils of whose skill may be somehow perceived and given feedback to (Flamingo). Such stimuli is heavily influenced by a deep-rooted motivation factor, comprising one of the upper layer of Maslow's pyramid, esteem, which in this case would be the recognition of achievements by others.

Sometimes a wish to demonstrate/share expert knowledge (or opinion) is involved - either quintessentially, or as a constituting part of motivation cocktail - a travel report holding useful practical information, a review of a product, an instruction on how to do something, a link(s) to useful websites with optional commentary or something of the sort. Such posts generally have the nature of author having experienced/seen/gone through something, analyzed it (at least, to some extent), and shared the outcome of the whole - even if purely mental - venture. (Stocks)

Another large formation of motives is sharing information - it can range from a link to interesting (not really processed as is the case with expert knowledge) article, video or whatever one felt an inner surge to pass along as it succeeded leaving such a wholesome impression -good or horrid; informing audience on appearances (George R.R. Martin visits Estonia) (can be useful to the audience at times, or have a nature of annoying PR), making another type of announcements, like casting, for instance, or date of a release, prices and specifications of an upcoming gadget (which may be pertinent to PR section if done by someone having a direct connection with issued product); reports from conferences to sharing latest news, political agendas (politically inclined blogs) and such. 

At certain instances desire to get something done, which implies mass-participation, like organizing a flashmob, urging people to sign a petition/donate, or driving audience to vote. I'd say that the main difference of this motivation from informing or is wanting people to act on the information they receive (Make Up Artist's evening).On the other hand, of course, this one is often very closely intertwined with informative motivation streak.

Blog posts can also be inquisitive - in such cases the author seeks advice in dealing with a problem faced at the expense of audience's "expert knowledge". (Asking for Audiobook Recommendations - Last Paragraph)

It must be noted that blog-posting stimuli are rarely straightforward and artless - most of the time they're a quite complex combination of the above mentioned drives plus something more, something individual, something quite unique.

IDE Edit!

Social Networks (4th Week) - ModelMayhem and Matt Webb's Criteria

ModelMayhem is a networking community aimed at bringing models, photographers, make-up artists, designers and whomever-else-it-may-concern together. As far as representation of Estonian model photography related people is concerned, ModelMayhem has greater coverage than any of its competitors. It has been chosen as the subject study for this week's analysis as it will supposedly provide some diversity to the general flow of choices.

Identity.
Many users are encouraged to disclose their real names or their business names (e.g. Name Familyname Photography, Splendid Ideas Design) as their screen names by the fact that this provides the exposure general audience of the network is craving for. As far as persistence is concerned, ModelMayhem doesn't have an overly strict policy - one can change his/hers screen name up to 3 times (more with a paid account, naturally), though in the network at hand that doesn't appear to be of the uttermost importance as it utilizes an open (everyone's entitled to see others' code) numerical ID system to keep persistent references. I personally believe this to be a fair compromise between the overall usefulness of permanent displayed username and provision of the much needed freedom of self-expression and self definition, which happens to be time-dependent as individuals tend to evolve.

Presence.
ModelMayhem lacks any online presence representation whatsoever, unfortunately. It is impossible to know whether a given user, friend or not, is currently online - even the presence status of a user as a forum poster is not disclosed, even though such information is a available on the vast majority of forums by default.

Relationships.
The straightforward utilization of relationship representation encountered on MM is incredibly unsophisticated and simplistic - a network member may add friends, but no differentiation between friends is implemented. An owner of a paid account may mark favourite profiles, which are not visible for other members, but are an effective method of tracking individuals who are of significant interest. On the other hand, a crediting option is introduced as a particularly unusual method of establishing a relationship with another member - one can either have a list of people one has worked with on the main profile page (unclickable listing) or credit a person in under a portfolio image in a dedicated field(a click on such a credit would take you directly to the credited person's profile). Moreover, this functionality can also be regarded as a part of building a reputation, but more on that later. 

Conversations.
MM, sadly, does not propose any platform for dedicated real-time conversing apart from a crippled chat equivalent where one has to refresh the page to see if any new "Shouts" appeared. Moreover, the issue of lacking presence is omnipresent, one cannot see who's currently "in the shouting distance", neither can one address a person by a "shout" privately... which, I guess, makes sense, albeit its ridiculousness. Even messaging options are limited as members of different subscription plans have diverging number of personal messages they can send per day. Luckily enough, unlike some communities that undertake draconian measures and abuse moderation in order to prevent their members from communication by any other means than ones provided by the network itself,  MM doesn't restrict sharing of links, e-mail addresses and other identificators.

Groups.
There is no way to have a group distribution of ones friends or contacts, other than adding an image from their portfolio to a certain list (it must be noted, that only users with payed subscriptions are allowed to have such lists), which may have a group-identifying title, like "Models I would like to work with", "Favourite MM designers", "MUAs I've worked with". Portfolio images, however, are not permanently present on the site - should the portfolio owner decide to delete or replace it, it will vanish from all the lists it had been added to too. Therefore, it's plain to see that MM has no direct grouping of contacts and the roundabout method of categorizing them is extremely unreliable.

Reputation.
Establishing a member's reputation is not the most artless task for the onlooker as properties that it could be determined by are arguable. For instance, as far as networks are concerned the prevailing preconception states that the greater the number of one's friends (e.g. connections) is, the more popular the person is. The ModelMayhem reality begs to differ - an overwhelming amount of friends usually indicates that an individual sends out a whole lot of friend requests, rather than the extreme popularity of the person in question. The other notion is that active members, especially the ones wearing subscription badges, are more actively seeking exposure, and, quite naturally, getting more of it than a neighbour brilliant photographer or model who just isn't showing off consciously. The number of credits (a list of MM members the user at hand has collaborated with allocated as a separate paragraph on the profile page) and references (crediting a participant of the shoot below the portfolio image), however, may show the real-world activeness and reliability. There's also daily and weekly contests running for members of the community and those titles are striking and quite objective reputation indicators. Positive feedback in tags (MM equivalent of profile comments) can also add up to member's reputation.


Sharing.
The whole community is, in fact, built around sharing, sharing the results of ones work to represent their skills, features and artistic inclinations in order to land a paying assignment or an advantageous collaboration. Other than that members are free to share one link as their primary link (most often it's a link to a full scale portfolio or a website with contacts and rates built around a professional portfolio). Furthermore, owners of paid accounts may share a additional pictures and links in the self-introduction section of their profile. This is, however, pretty much all the sharing the community is limited to.

Online Communities (3rd Week) - Board Game Geek as an Online Community

Human nature compels people to seek the company of like-minded individuals every once in a while as feeling welcome, accepted and understood is definitely one of the strongest psychological drives people are subjected to. Hence the attribute, trait or a feature which may pose as an alienating one to the vast majority of ones immediate milieu (a person's social environment) can have the strongest unifying potential. The phenomena of online communities provides nearly perfect means and principles for bringing together individuals, based on a mutially shared characteristic(s), who wouldn't have/have hardly ever encountered each other otherwise. This distinctive fact combined with the relative familiarity of the community soon-to-be-at-hand were the forcible arguments for selection of Board Game Geek as the analysis subject.

Technological Progress. 
All online communities of prominent scale are only made possible thanks to the advance of technological progress - the wide availability of internet access devices, the affordability of such and that of network connection (and options to get an either free internet access or use a computer in a commune utilization), and, as importantly, the opportunity to store and service massive amounts of information at reasonable expenses. BGG is no exception, of course, as its current "girth" (over a quarter of a million users and more than a 30 000 games) and form are only possible due the named technological delights. As the community enables storage of officially unlimited number of pictures and is in quite an extensive simultaneous use it is understandable that such delights are crucial to allow for a reasonable storage (database principles, continuously developed optimization technologies...) and retrieval of information.

Option to Choose Different Characteristics. 
Not being an alter-ego creation centric like IMVU or Second life, BGG does, in fact, provide known means for creation of an internet personality representation tailored to ones desires and ends. For once, one may have a list of his or hers musical, cinematic, literate, television and general preferences specified for everyone to see and make opinions of, board game preferences naturally, a whole un-moderated (in the narrower sense) gallery of photos, an avatar icon, badges, proclaiming beliefs, likes and other statements of character. All in all, BGG enables its registered users to build a community persona through customizable features. 

Timeless Time
BGG is one great example of a community, which is always online as it is comprised of members from all over the globe, its inter nationality stressed out by a country flag always on display beside user avatar as well as by tolerance of the use of different posting languages (forums, reviews, personal profiles). Sure thing, it matters not whether it's the break of dawn or the death of the night where you are, there's always people online whom the day is in its prime for. Therefore, one wouldn't necessarily have to wait for certain conventional hours to get a an answer to a question, a feedback or reaction of any sort - timing essentially doesn't really matter - other factors come into play here (like the distribution of BGG members in different time zones).


The Ever-growing Unsatisfied Hunger for Communication
As it has already been mentioned, the differences evoking alienation from people in immediate surroundings can occur to be the similarities bringing individuals together, which is the case in BGG's instance. The community wears what once may have been a slightly offensive moniker with pride and affection, as a badge marking ones belonging to the group. And naturally, the members of the group have an understandable degree of predisposition towards each other, a positive prejudice that they're to be understood here, and - surprise, surprise - they generally are. Ostensibly, members of BGG community adore engaging in word-sparring and communication comes as a great delight to them, as number of individuals having something to say, more importantly, willing to say something just about anything is truly astonishing. Hence, it'd be righteous to state that community does exploit the opportunity to communicate with like-minded individuals to a great extent.

Educational Pursuits
BGG, though not having a vastly coherent educational potential, like, Wikipedia, for one, does have a few tricks up its imaginary sleeve, one only has to look closely. First and foremost, BGG's greatest value is its informativeness, which targets individuals knowledge of boardgames. Thereby it's effectively the best source of information on the subject, granting not only a multifaceted overview of a given game (community ratings, reviews, videos, pictures, rules breakdowns, session reports - instances of played games, providing one with better idea of the gameplay) but oftentimes in-depth strategy guidelines, contemplation and conscientious adoption of which exercises ones brains. Educational value of such exercise can hardly be overestimated. As a last resort, being a generally very mature (in the best sense of the word =)) and educated community, BGG often casually mentions things, investigation of which leads to enrichment of ones erudition.

An Opulence of Spare Time to Be Filled
As majority of people having enough leisure time and spare monetary resources to be invested in boardgaming hobby are bound to come from a relatively financially secure background it won't be a great stretch to assume members turn to BGG since they have the time resources to do so and desire to fill said time with something fascinating. Moreover, as a great number of people is now spending their workdays behind a computer "smoking pauses" tend to get filled with internet browsing. Individuals adopt a number of websites that are to be checked regularly, "regularly" being subject to different frequency interpretations. For instance, according to BGG polls, a significant portion of active users can visit the community page tenths of times per day.

The Need For Something Real, Even if Imaginary
As far as metaphysical and "intangible" matters are further concerned, BGG does offer a few options for self-establishment and public acclamation, as well as strict protection of humane values such as politeness, law-adherence and such. The former include a thumbing approval system, geek-of-the week "award" and an option to be tipped (with an imaginary Geek Gold currency) as a testament of great approval of one's actions. The latter manifest themselves through flagging system (aimed at exposure and subsequent penalties of inappropriate posts) and general tendencies of banishment copyright infringements - such accusations often being far-fetched. All in all, one indeed has a great ground for building up and/or tearing down one's alter-reputation, as well as adorning ones alter-self with friends, connections and, even foes? perhaps.

Occasional Altruism
Truth be told, the instance at hand is not the greatest showcase of altruism tendencies inherent in online communities, as the theme of the community does not provide the most fertile ground for this kind of selflessness. Though, compared to some other communities, especially to those  not united by common "weirdness",, member of BGG seem to have a greater flair for self-establishing through useful and goodnatured advice, whether one is or is not sought for. The described behavior can be observed all over BGG forum threads, comments and geeklists.