Group
From P2P-Fusion
| Group
| |
|---|---|
| Depends on: | ..., ... |
| Metadata: | ... |
| Scenarios: | MySpace, ... |
| Communities: | MySpace, ... |
| Importance: | ... |
A group of people with a communication platform on internet.
Contents |
Description
Groups on the web are platforms for people to get together. People clustering in same group supposedly have something -e.g. interests, needs, opinions, enemies, hobbies, problems etc.- in common. By the name and description of groups people can find those they are interested in, they feel like joining as a part of their personal social-network. Members of a group might discuss different topics, communicate among each other, mostly by typing messages. Within the group all posts are public.
The purpose of Groups is to enable people to meet and have conversations in a potentially smaller and personal virtual environment. It aims at that people could delimit social circles, digestible in their extensions. First it might seem to be simple, however, social reactions have practically messed up this clear vision. Groups are far not as delimitable circles as one could think: it's unpredictable how popular a group will be, for how many people, for how long and how, in general. (And after all the "why" is the hardest to answer.) Statistics show that groups, in general, are predestinated to failure: just a few groups reach high popularity and/or become long-lived; a moderate number, not predictable which, becomes moderately populated and can be marked as moderately alive, but the very most of the groups, soon after being created, fall apart.
It's a matter of application whether groups are to be created:
- around specific topics that attract anyone to join, discuss, tell opinion;
- or by friends/people who already know each other and would like to have a private place to have conversations within themselves.
Every group usually has an owner who is, in most cases, its creator and owns administrator status (leader or head of group). His duty is to set accessibilities (and set "street practice") of the group: publicity, membership, rights (e.g. commenting, posting), restrictions, invitations, joining.
There are a numerous ways "grouping" is realized on Internet. Some examples to Groups are separate services the biggest internet service providers came up with around ten years ago.
- The first three group services, described below, are very similar, practially are each others' competitors. Three providers have enabled their users to communicate with each other, in many-to-many, using their platforms.
Google Groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups
- "a free groups and mailing list service from Google. Besides posting to the group through the GG web interface, users also can post to a group by sending an e-mail to the group's e-mail address."
Yahoo! Groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Groups
- it "is a service from Yahoo! that provides electronic mailing lists.… The basic mailing list nowadays is available only to Yahoo! IDs." There are two types of lists:
- announcement lists: only the Group moderators can post
- discussion lists: any member can post
"New users are required to register with Y!G for membership and can join groups by approval of the Group moderator." A Group has a web address and an e-mail address, and can be listed in one of the Y!G directory categories if desired.
MSN Groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Groups
- "Each group created comes with a default message board called 'General'. Other message boards can be created for other topics. Members can participate in the group by adding messages and replying; alternatively, an e-mail can be sent to the group's e-mail address and the message will appear on the General message board." To reduce spam, e-mails only from e-mail address specified in members’ profiles can be sent.
- There is a calendar on Calendar Page for organising events for the group.
Usenet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
Usenet (User Network) is a global, distributed bulletin board system (BBS).
- "Most modern newsreaders display the articles arranged into threads and sub-threads, making it easy to follow a single discussion in a high-volume newsgroup. (thread - set of articles traced to one single non-reply article)
- When a user posts an article, it is initially only available on that user's news server. Each news server, however, talks to one or more other servers (its "newsfeeds") and exchanges articles with them… The later peer-to-peer networks operate on a similar principle; but for Usenet it is normally the sender, rather than the receiver, who initiates transfers."
- "Today, almost all Usenet traffic is carried over the Internet. The current format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to that of emails, but Usenet articles are posted for general consumption; any Usenet user has access to all newsgroups, unlike email…
- The difference between Usenet and mailing lists, web forums or weblogs is that:
- Usenet requires no personal registration with the group concerned (subscription is necessary only to keep track of which articles one has already read, and that information need not be stored on a remote server),
- that archives are always available,
- and that reading the messages requires no mail or web client, but a news client (included in most modern e-mail clients).”
Technical details of Usenet
- "Usenet is a set of protocols for generating, storing and retrieving news "articles" (which resemble Internet mail messages) and for exchanging them among a readership which is potentially widely distributed. These protocols most commonly use a flooding algorithm which propagates copies throughout a network of participating servers. Whenever a message reaches a server, that server forwards the message to all its network neighbours that haven't yet seen the article. Only one copy of a message is stored per server, and each server makes it available on demand to the (typically local) readers able to access that server. Usenet was thus one of the first peer-to-peer applications, although in this case the "peers" are themselves servers that the users then access, rather than the users themselves being peers on the network."
Newsgroup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsgroup
- It is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users. In spite of the term Newsgroups are rather discussion groups. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums. Newsreader software is used to read newsgroups.
Group function applied in social network sites is an other way by which members can get together.
MySpace
- On MySpace members can create groups to gather around certain topics. The site has defined several categories to place new groups into. Within the groups forum topics can be posted and joined, either only by group members, or by any visitors (with MySpace account) – it depends on the publicity level, which is set by the head (or the creator), of the group.
- Beyond the category groups belong to, their name and description provide more detailed information on their profiles.
YouTube
- Group option on YouTube is handled very similarly to MySpace, since both are social network sites. Apart from discussions and posts, videos are the number one significant belongings of groups. So much so that groups can be listed also in order of the amount of videos they have.
Data
There are public and private groups, and some more levels of publicity in between, depending on the application. A set of possible levels of publicity can be:
- public: anyone can read the archives; anyone can join, but only members can post messages
- announcement-only: anyone can read the archives; anyone can join, but only managers can post messages.
- restricted: people must be invited to join the group and post or read messages. Your group and its archives do not appear in public Google search results or the directory.
Input
Groups consist of members - people with identities (virtual, pseudonym or real). Nowadays providers might require at least an existing mailing address, or provider's account to join a group there. Groups can communicate via mailing lists (...threads), in discussion forums, comments, chat rooms...
When creating a group, most providers make the initiator placing his group into a proper category (or into the hierarchy of categories).
- The owner has complete control over all features and settings of the group and can delete the group.
- The moderator can change delivery and posting settings for individual members. Additional privileges can be granted as well if needed. These are (by Y!G):
- approve pending messages and photos
- add, remove, and change moderator privileges
- approve pending members
- set auto-send options for files
- invite and add members
- change group settings
- remove members and reset bouncing members
- delete the group
- ban members
Storage
Output
Dependencies
Tools used
- Id
- profile
- trust systems
- access management
- presence management
- synchronic communication
- asynchronic communication
- buddy list ?
- flag
- ...
Tools using this tool
- profile
- ...
Management
- by level of publicity
- rights of members/visitors
- democratic/hierarchical within group
...
Interface
Members receive other members’ posts in chronological or/and post-reply order. The format of posts received can be chosen by each member:
- individual e-mail': each message sent to member as posted
- daily digest: up to 25 full new messages bundled into a single email
- abridged email: get a summary of new activity each day
- special notices: get only important email notices from the group moderator
- web only / no email: no notifications of the latest happenings. read messages only on the web
The format of messages being sent can also be set:
- default
- fully featured
- traditional
The overview list of discussion topics of a group, for instance on Y!G, shows:
- topic,
- number of messages/posts sent,
- name of author of last post,
- number of authors participated in discussion,
- approximate time or date of last post
Prevalence
Search engines, internet service providers propose group building possibilities to internet users. Also grandiose social networks offer “grouping” option to their members.
Groups are widely created by users, since it’s done in a few steps which are well guided in each application, but are less easy to keep alive in long-term.
Technical aspects
Technical problems
- Spams are always problems, and can easily spoil a group’s functioning. To avoid receiving spams, joining members are mostly required to specify one e-mail address on profile (see description).
Social aspects
Community
The more transparent membership of a group, the more active its members and the more personal "atmosphere". Transparency depends on scale of group: more members, more mess...
Norms and rules
mostly unritten rules, members kicking over a group's norms will be outcast... wordreference.com!... rules >< sympathy... members with "power" and respect... influence others' reactions, opinions - hierarchy...
Incentives and sanctions
reputation, rewards, respect, positive feedback from others...
Techniques
blabla...
Social problems
- Group is one of the spt.-s with wide palette of "group" providers and with easy functioning, but with depending more on users’ activity than on technical capacity of utilization. It fails running when members stop being motivated. One of the factors is surely the member profile gathering in one group, and also the size of the group influences the interest of its users – some might feel impersonal in oversized groups, while other groups might fail right because of the opposite: lack of minimal interest will also put down a group
- As seen in examples, it's becoming clearer and clearer, due to lots of existing experiences, that long-lived groups have to be less opened to new joiners, to outsiders... groups have an optimal approximate number of members within which they can function well. Growth above certain scale does a disservice to the group in communication and efficiency of conversations. The "core group" of a groups might start dropping off if bothered by too many new comers.
Implementation
Groups are socially decentralized, in the way that “built-in” hierarchy is hardly ever present in groups, except for the moderator and owner. Maybe announcement.
On YouTube and MySpace, for example, where the main goal is to build contacts, add friends and have fun, being a member of groups is an extra data that can be seen on profile, thus might attract others’ attention. It is another way to make contacts, to outstand from the crowd. Well, there are hundreds and thousands of groups per categories…
Existing examples
Examples introduced in Description, are here only listed.
- Yahoo!Groups
- Google Groups: e.g. http://groups.google.com/group/yo_rap
- Newsgroup
- Usenet
- MySpace – groups around common interests, topics, projects…: public groups, private groups, hidden groups
- YouTube – public groups, protected groups, private groups,… all about videos
- http://couchsurfing.com – groups of “round the world” travellers (who offer/look for couches to sleep on when visiting a city), organizing by location or favourite cities, regions, countries.
- (iwiw – managing contacts in different folders (family, friends, mates, work…) – no social function, just for yourself)
An example with specific profile:
- http://forum.wordreference.com – it is an online dictionary with forum service.
- Threads about grammatical questions, problems in translations between new Latin and English languages. Discussion topics are restricted to grammar, and are result orientated: once the final answer to a question is made clean, the thread is closed. Users don’t have to sign up to read topics, but have to be members to post new question or answer.
Application in Fusion
A mailing list-like application would be a handy tool in the field of education. For example, in high schools, or even more in universities where same lectures are given each semester, repeatedly, but every time to new students, thus with potentially new thoughts and discussions between lecturer and students. Once a common knowledge has been previously archived, a mailing list would make it possible to collect useful materials on a “scientific” topic, and use them in the following semesters to make further steps. Of course, most of all this has social requirements: ambitions and cooperative partnership between the two parties (lecturer – students) with the intention of communication.
Related tools
…
