A Group is its own worst enemy

http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

I found this by accident, simply by Googling “online community dynamics”. It’s not often that I get something this interesting and useful in the first few hits.

As I read it, all sorts of things roared through my mind. Usenet groups I’ve known. Building villages in Ultima Online. Defending those villages from griefers. The relatively large number of online groups I’ve belonged to for years without ever meeting more than a handful of the other members in person.

As I approached the end of the article, my head was spinning – we’ve been witnessing a remarkable evolution in how humans interact without really thinking much about that evolution. It’s not revolutionary. It’s evolutionary because we’re only doing what we’ve always done. The internet has simply compressed and sped up those interactions. Groups exist now which would never have existed in the past, and those groups are experiencing a cycle of birth-growth-stasis-death that is much faster than ever before. For the same reason labs use fruit flies for experiments due to their accelerated life cycles, we can see patterns in online groups that would take decades - generations - without the internet.

Shirky makes some interesting comments here, and while he wanders afield slightly he does get down to some observations that I believe are very germaine to Second Life. This paper comes from a presentation he did on Social Software. He refers to usegroups, MMRPGs, Yahoo and Wikis. He doesn’t specifically mention Second Life, but if you read it you’ll see that he IS talking about us.



Some points I took from his piece, and why I think it relates to SL:



* One of the typical group patterns he noted was “The identification and vilification of external enemies”. This improves group cohesion and makes members feel good about themselves. In SL, “external enemies” are variously griefers, the FIC, TSO refugees or the Lindens themselves (more on that later) depending on who is talking.



* Free speech can have too much freedom. Says Shirky:

From: someone

Communitree was founded on the principles of open access and free dialogue. "Communitree" -- the name just says "California in the Seventies." And the notion was, effectively, throw off structure and new and beautiful patterns will arise.

And then, as time sets in, difficulties emerge. In this case, one of the difficulties was occasioned by the fact that one of the institutions that got hold of some modems was a high school. And who, in 1978, was hanging out in the room with the computer and the modems in it, but the boys of that high school. And the boys weren't terribly interested in sophisticated adult conversation. They were interested in fart jokes. They were interested in salacious talk. They were interested in running amok and posting four-letter words and nyah-nyah-nyah, all over the bulletin board.

And the adults who had set up Communitree were horrified, and overrun by these students. The place that was founded on open access had too much open access, too much openness. They couldn't defend themselves against their own users. The place that was founded on free speech had too much freedom. They had no way of saying "No, that's not the kind of free speech we meant."

But that was a requirement. In order to defend themselves against being overrun, that was something that they needed to have that they didn't have, and as a result, they simply shut the site down.

As he says in the next few paragraphs: “Communitree wasn't shut down by people trying to crash or syn-flood the server. It was shut down by people logging in and posting, which is what the system was designed to allow.” All of which leads me to make inevitable comparisons to SL – in one way, it’s not a valid comparison because LL does have published standards of behavior. They do enforce those standards to one degree or another while they also allow for an unheard-of level of expressive freedom. (Good luck walking THAT fine line, Lindens!)

But it is valid insofar as some of us may not see those standards as being consistently enforced. Would it be possible for members to “shut SL down” simply by logging in and doing things that the system allows? Right now I’d have to say that, yes, it is possible. It may require bad decision-making on the part of LL, but it’s still possible. Some forms of “expressive freedom” might be destructive to the community, either in terms of member cohesiveness or simply in the overall cultural ambience of SL. If you allow destructive or unpleasant content to begin dominating the productive/creative stuff, you end up losing customers. Your world ends up being a niche product and doomed to failure. As I said, a fine line but one the Lindens choose to walk.

Fast forward to the latter part of his document. Here’s where he begins his summary, and we’re back to drawing parallels to SL – “Three Things to Accept”

1. You cannot completely separate technical and social issues. Earlier in his piece he told of the wizards of LambdaMOO (Pavel Curtis's Xerox PARC experiment in building a MUD world). The wizards had built the world and then just went off to do techie stuff, leaving the social side to fend for itself. It did not work. It won’t work in Second Life, either.

2. Members are different than users. Quote: “A pattern will arise in which there is some group of users that cares more than average about the integrity and success of the group as a whole. And that becomes your core group, Art Kleiner's phrase for "the group within the group that matters most." Without starting yet another flame war over the FIC, I think his point is well taken. If the software doesn’t allow separate interaction among the core group, they will still arise and they will find other ways to communicate with each other. It’s inevitable. It’s human nature. It's also not necessarily a Bad Thing (tm).

3. Here’s the one that will probably start something, but I think it’s a genuine point whether we like it or not: “The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations” Why does he say that? His example of the fate of the Tibetan culture usegroup is poignant – in any group where your vote is simply a function of having logged in (or having many alts), democracy becomes a sham -- “absolute citizenship, with the idea that if you can log in, you are a citizen, is a harmful pattern, because it is the tyranny of the majority.” The sub-group with the group’s best interests at heart is very often that core group. I’m not making a judgement on that – simply acknowledging Shirky’s point that, conspiracy theories aside, every online community has its FIC. And more often than not, that FIC is a large reason why the community at large is attractive, creative, vital and growing.

He goes on to discuss social software design, but in our case the software has already been designed. (He does criticize reputation systems, and I’d toss SL’s into that bucket) The Lindens are part of that “software”. We are as well, on the social end of it. And if you have the time to digest his paper you begin to see what he means about groups being their own worst enemies. Human beings will always seek to bond into groups, but we also seek to retain our individuality. This dichotomy fights against itself and sometimes can result in schizophrenic group behaviors. There is no pat answer to how to make it work (his ultimate answer was “it depends”) but it will always be a fascinating subject to examine. Especially when you’re involved yourself in just such a group.

Sorry for the ramble, but this has been something I've been interested in for about 11 years now. My adventure in Second Life is the most pronounced, immediate encounter with the whole phenomenon. I'd love to hear your thoughts, even (or especially) if you disagree with me.

The URL you posted actually didn't go to his article. Here's the full piece for anyone who's interested:

http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

I've read all of Shirky's stuff. Highly recommended.

Thanks for taking the time to summarize and share how you think it applies to SL. As a Community Manager, naturally I'm also very interested in seeing what other people think about these ideas and issues.

Ouch. Thank you very much, Pathfinder. I hate it when that happens. I'll edit my link as well.


Me too - but before we go there, maybe you have some thoughts on the fine line LL must walk between creative freedom and maintaining longevity and cohesiveness in the SL community? As Shirky notes, the two are not necessarily compatible goals.

Good post, Cindy.

I have seen this happen to a few, smaller online communities as well. It starts with a grand idea and visions, but unfortunately, others come in with different visions or interpretations.

In a nutshell, someone creates a freedom of speech forum. It is a success with others coming in to share their ideas. They have a common sense approach to the way the forum is moderated. Unfortunately, common sense isn't so common anymore. Another group comes along and starts D R A M A, griefing, flame wars, attacks. They institute a TOS but the rest of the community has dampened their enthusiasm. Thus, they move on, the user base decreases and the forum falls into the black hole of cyberspace.

Worth noting that this kind of pattern - evolutionary changes in human interaction that Shirky describes - is several hundred years old. The internet is the latest iteration of a series of changes that begin with the mass-production of pamphlets and newspapers, and continued through various electronic communications and transportation revolutions in the last 200 years. "Compression" and "velocity" of these interactions are factors that sociologists, historians, and "futurologists" like Kahn, Toffler, and Vinge have been writing about for a generation.

Shirky relies W.R. Bion's research, which is fairly dated and deals with patient groups from the psychoanalytical Freudian approach. Personally, I don't think this approach yeilds an accurate depiction of SL group dynamics, which is far more diversified. In fact, I think that applying Freudian patient dynamics to SL yeilds simplistic POV's. These in turn can lead to generalized dualities, such as the idea that SL is divided between a monolithic FIC intentionally crushing competitors, and those who oppose the FIC. It's neither accurate nor useful. When thinking about social issues, simplifying is often not the best approach. Sometimes complexifying yeilds more accurate results.

More recent work has outlined the impact of concepts like generational exclusion, edge politics, and frontier ritualism. But all of it indicates that patterns of social development and interaction occur similar to what Shirky describes, in "frontier situations" where small groups of people with similar skills and perspective move in.

But I generally agree with Shirky's three conclusions. The social issues of building an online "world" are far more complex and difficult than the technical issues - and most social issues do not lend themselves to easy technical fixes, which is precisely what would be expected by people with a technical background. (There's been a huge amount research on this topic since the end of the Vietnam War.)

Core groups are critically important; however, the danger here is that a core group will create an inflexible process or pattern of interaction that will, as it matures, stifle creativity beyond its boundaries. And yet, as Shirky points out, the core group's integrity has to be preserved, or growth, vitality, and loyalty are lost.

I'm glad to hear that LL is giving thought to these matters.

Cindy, first thanks for starting this interesting topic. Your observation about moving at the speed of light verses generations is right on target. Years in real life may only equate to a few months in virtual life.

I would be interested in comparing the author's thoughts though to many of the system books out there that group leaders, such as church and other organization leaders use to understand group dynamics. The one that comes to mind for me is a book title "System Sensitive Leadership" that uses a number system to type group personalities.

In this book, your mention of the core group would be system four (4). The higher the number the more world and outward focused the mindset, the lower from this base number, the more "tribal." you might say.

In virutal worlds, the lower number would reflect the mob mentality, or circling the wagons to a threat, such as a percieved griefer. The higher system numbers may reflect the now infamously labeled "techi wikki" crowd that pushes for great technological enhancements. The ones that think beyond the box and have less thought to the underlying social.

At anyone time the individuals inside these base groups may find themselves shifting up or down in response to change, but the one trueism you will see is that equlibrium must be restored.

In practical forum terms, this means you will have a love fest in the forums for a few months, a change agent is introduced that causes a shift and you get "us verses them" friction which will often cause a split in the groups and a new forum will begin as a "haven" from the other group. Eventually though, equilibrium re establishes and you "wash and repeat."

It becomes the uneviable task of the moderator to see these shifts occur and work for consensus to maintain the balance of the group, lest it does become divided.

That is almost impossible in real life groups, seeing it happen in virutal at the accelerated pace it does, where there is little face to face and misunderstandings occur at the drop of an electron is even more daunting a task.

Pathfinder, I do not envy your job.

Excellent observation. The core group is the stabilizing influence of any group dynamic, but it can quickly become the problem if it shifts into a more protective mode. Again, this is were communicaiton becomes the main issue. Its hard enough in face to face groups, I've yet to see where it works effectively in text based groups

Right, and Shirky gave a very brief outline of how interaction has changed with the advent of new methods. As a demonstration of the speed of that change, look no further than the references you cite in your post. Bion's research is already dated (though in the Grand Scheme it is probably still in some college textbooks or cited in college theses). Kahn's and Toffler's early work, visionary as it was, became somewhat outdated in the space of 2 decades.


Wholeheartedly agreed. However, in the finite space of this board we have to engage in some simplifications or nobody ever reads the post, thus getting our point

Truth be told there are probably hundreds of SL Groups in world. Many of these are inactive or marginally active. Others overlap in terms of interest area (put most all club groups in that pot - they've become nothing more than a way for the club owner to publish last-minute ads to gain dwell). You could probably boil all the Groups down to 1/10th and come up with an idea of how diverse the interests of SL members are, and still not be accurate simply because there isn't a formal group for every viewpoint, outlook, and background.

That said, I cited the "FIC" because I think that, since it is a mythical group, it typifies what Shirky was saying in two ways. One, those we perceive as belonging to the Inner Core are the equivalents of Shirky's inner core. And, second, because the myth of the FIC or scripterati, etc., is a good example of another of his principles -- the construction of external enemies. Xenophobia writ small.


I was one of the early players in Ultima Online -- for those of you not familiar with it, or why I would compare an MMRPG to more social online worlds, it's because UOL was Raph Koster's own little rat maze for online social experimentation wrapped up in the packaging of a swords and sorcery game. The reputation system in UOL underwent at least half a dozen permutations before they arrived at something that might work -- meanwhile those who actually wanted to play at griefing prided themselves in the 'red names' and 'Dread' titles that resulted from their antisocial behavior.

Shirky's point was played out in very clear trends, there -- you cannot regulate social behavior with linear software metrics. It simply does not work. It's why I think the SL rating system is so lacking right now.


Good point, and I think much of the solution is new blood. Even core groups can add and attrite -- I don't think most core groups are formal clubs with induction rules or exclusionary clauses. I think some members simply reach a level of involvement and creative contribution that automatically includes them in that group. And at the same time, other older members of the group burn out, leave, etc.


I have to admit, Pathfinder's post was a pleasant surprise. In most of the online worlds I've been in, the more philosophical thought processes of the driving company were revealed during beta and never discussed again in public.

a few notes:

1. this is like saying, "an individual can be criminal or saint."
   
2. groups like individuals act both in general and unique ways.
   
3. the lindens try to promote certain values central to sl and the residents influence which values are central to sl. this makes a "center".
   
4. some people and groups act in their own way such that their action fall or are near to that "center". and thus they appear to in the core. this is to reframe the issue from group access to one of control of ideas - what defines the "center".
   
5. come people adjust their behavior so it falls closer to the "center"
   
6. the lindens also try to prune certain behaviors (which is not quite the same as pruning certain values, but has largely the same effect) and again the residents affect how and which behaviors are pruned. this determines what is undesirable.
   
7. and again, some people and individual attempt to commit acts that are deemed undesirable.
   
8. to make a fine point, a community is simply the "warm bodies"; a community's culture are the mores, rules, traditions, conventions, ethics, morals, and ideas that mediate individuals between "warm bodies". the community culture is not something that exists independent of the "warm bodies" (see point about people falling near the "center".
   
9. cultures can be pleasant or unpleasant - which determines how people respond to them.
   
10. an internet forum that is just put up to people can talk is different than the sl forums, which exists to promote sl's business.
    

Cindy, thank you so much for starting this thread, for giving us the link, and for sumarizing so effectively. I think this is easily going to be one of the most interesting thread I'll have ever read about SL. You get best thread of the year for this one.

I have more to read and to think about before I weigh in, but I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time.

That may be the reason most game boards exist. It may even be the reason this board was created. But, just as we've already noted that group interaction with something can change the nature of that 'something' (think Schrödinger's Cat), it would also be true that the SL boards have grown way beyond just promoting LL's business or content creator businesses.

Speaking just for me, half of what I know about SL came from these boards. Half of my sense of "community" also comes from here... if not more. 70% of what I know about scripting and design comes from here, too. We may be a mere 1% to 5% of SL's membership, but for me it wouldn't be the same community without this board.

Enabran, thank you for the kind words Please post your thoughts when you get a chance.

i disagree. and ll makes an effort to keep the forums topical to sl. sl cover a very broad domain, but it's not simply an anything goes kind of place.

Yah, you might want to read something a bit more sophisticated and world wise.

Special interest groups are anti-evolutionary. They are elitist, cliquish, rarely transparent and very very destructive. Their interest is *rarely* the success of the whole group, but rather their exalted status within that group.

You want success, you create an environment which is

a) decentralized
b) inclusive
c) evolutionary

SIGs are not evolutionary. They fight for the status quo and if things change in a way that make them irrelevant they squeal like a stuck pig. And if they have any influence, they drag everyone down down down.

People, at least the useful ones, are rationally self interested. Groups especially so.

For example, if the best thing for SL was for Lindens to close up shop and give it away for free .. would they?

Maybe in some fantasy world.

If the best thing for SL would be for everyone in the FIC to completely relearn new technologies and techniques which the new people would be way better at then they are .. would they get all excited about it?

Again, maybe in some fantasy world.

The thing to do is rely on the people's selfish interests and find a way for that to contribute to the wealth of others.

Relying on some concept of an altruistic 'core group' of people is very fantastical and dangerously naive.

Great thread btw, I just happen to strongly disagree with many of the conclusions.

I do like the idea of realising there is a group here and it is very very relevant. However, this is interesting more because the Linden's were surprisingly ignorant of this until recently, not so much because the concept is particularly revolutionary.

I like the idea of giving people freedom until they prove they aren't mature enough to handle it. Some people like structure, and should be always given the option, but the people without maturity should not be given the freedom from the structure.

I think this is one of the most thoughtful and insightful threads on the forums right now concerning group interaction and the culture of Second Life ever. I hope this thread continues and people continue putting in their insight, as we might come to some real helpful conclusions here.

Hiro, I agree that maturity plays into the equation, but keep in mind it is also an arbitrary one based on who is defining mature.

One can easily point to the "beavis and butthead" crowd as being "immature" but the truth is, this goes more fundamentally into the a group's way of dealing with their enviornment.

The "core group" for example is definately the group the wants and needs structure. They are the ones that will turn to the TOS, or CS for regress to problems as well as verification of their own actions. That is why they are the stablizing influence as they keep the extremes from occuring.

The culltural creative on the other hand is not going to do well within structure and find it completely stifling to their needs. This is the group that will defy and push the rules.

The core group might see this as "selfish and immature."

The cultural creative would see this response as selfish and stiffing and yes, "immature."

Both views will lead to tensions and divisions as witnessed here many times over in strongly heated disagreements between people we all would consider to be "mature."

Also, it is interesting that even in this specific environment that is mostly composed of cultural creatives, as say compared to more real world groups that are less interested in the internet let alone virtual worlds in general, there is still a shift to the same dynamic patterns you see in those real world groups. Equilbrium is a force that can not be avoided.

Understanding the nature of group diversity and how we can better identify that diversity and encourage it without creating the kind of 'them versus us" attitudes, but instead start to see it as "we" is where the solution to a stable long term community will exist.

As I stated before, these things are hard enough in face to face groups. Any text is subject to being "read" in the manner the reader wants. Miscommunication in forums is in fact the forums worst enemy.

Cindy, again I want to thank you for this interesting topic. Although my experience is more in real world group dyanmics, and having them fail more times then succeed, this is definately an interesting parrallel. Guess that makes me a virutal world dynamics n00b.

Take care,
Taylor

Actually, Clay Shirky is a well respected voice on the subject of today's internet culture and online sociological trends. I wouldn't call him unsophisticated in the least -- did you read the link?


Blaze, while we can discuss and agree to some extent on the desirability of cliques, that's not what "inner core" means in this context. Shirky wasn't promoting their value -- he was simply observing that (1) they always happen, (2) they arise from a group of players who care more about the direction and quality of that community than the average member, and (3) there is not a codified structure as to who is a member. You're talking about a completely different thing.


Shirky, at least in my mind, would disagree with (a) and (c). Decentralization means that you're sacrificing an authority structure. If you want to see what that's like, take a quick look at Sociolotron -- from reading about it, it's another case where the 'wizards' have built the thing and are turning it loose to the members (decentralization). Shirky's predictions are already coming true. Stories are spreading of gang wars taking over the game. It sounds like a rerun of Road Warrior. How does a culture like that "evolve" except into something that is unproductive, self-destructive and pointless? How does it avoid dying because so many members just leave?


Again, you're conflating 'special interest groups' with a community's natural inner core.

A group that wants to build clown prims in SL would be 'special interest'. So would a group that just wants to have avie sex. So would a group that is organized only to learn scripting from each other. Or Photoshop. Do those special interest groups fit your generalization?

And since every human community -- even one in a retirement home in RL -- is going to have a small group of people who are naturally gregarious, involved, energetic, and knowledgeable, would you dumb down the entire community by refusing to allow those central actors their role in forming and guiding the culture? I'm sorry, but it's inevitable and it's NOT always as bad as you seem to think.


And what exactly would that gain anyone - especially the community? It would be no different than the US government saying that nobody in this country is allowed to have more than $100,000 in their bank account. Everything else must be liquidated and used to make *everyone* rich. Except that, then nobody would be rich. The stock market would crash. Businesses would collapse and the unemployment rate would skyrocket. A well-intentioned effort to wipe out poverty would only create more poverty.


Nobody said the inner core was altruistic. They're human like everyone. But to rail against them as some nameless "star chamber" betrays a misunderstanding about how it all works. SL --- and any community -- would be *much* less rich and vital if not for those whose knowledge and concern for the group exceeded the rest.

I have rated this thread 5 stars. Although I have not studied the great authorities on group dynamics, I can see these mechanisms at work in SL, and on the forums (even more clearly).

Many group dynamics are simply yet tellingly listed. And the effects of these dynamics, working one against the other, sometimes more than one to one, are predictable from the presentation, and observable in practise.

Thank heavens that not EVERYTHING is predicted and analysed; but likewise, thank heavens that these core items have been so succintly presented.

Whether it is all perfectly true is actually irrelevant; it is workable and provides a handle with which the SL Community and SL Forum community can be better managed, and that is priceless...

In Physics, Newton's approximate laws of motion are still FAR more useful than the exactness of special and general relativity.

"A workable lie is more useful than an unworkable truth".

And in this vein, I find the article EXCELLENT! Not because of its truth, but because of its usefulness in making sense of what is happening in SL.

Thank You!

... once again you've been incredibly insightful, Cin.

Thinking of posting this anywhere else?

Stan

Or some of the core group might welcome out-of-the-box creativity while others among the group act to defend their perceived power.

Here, I think, is one of the 2 or 3 pertinent questions that Shirky's article raises. How much authority is too much? How much freedom is too much? He clearly notes that too much freedom of speech is not a good thing within the context of a harmonious community. Where that line between "enough" and "too much" is drawn is THE question. It dictates the level of authority exercised by the Lindens. It dictates what punitive measures are used on those who breach the community rules. It actually forms the atmosphere of the entire culture.

Note that I'm not claiming to know that answer Even Shirky 'shirked' on that one.


Seth mentioned "compression and velocity", and I honestly think that humans are always going to be humans, groups will be groups whether online or off -- but online, the compression and velocity probably exaggerate many of the normal behavioral phenomena.


Taylor hits a home run with this one.

For a while there will be the "Second Life" community. I came here a couple of years after this community got started and I think I already see the "them vs us" attitude corrupting the group-as-a-whole view. I submit that mass alone will diminish the cohesiveness of the community. SL is now up to about 30,000 accounts (probably less than 10k actual subscribers). The dynamics must naturally be different than they were with, say, 2k or 4k. The larger the membership, the more chaos is introduced and the more Blaze's special-interest groups cling together (which may or may not include the inner core).

Your suggestion, I think, is worth an entire thread all on its own. How do we diminish the effect of "us vs them"? Depends on who us and who them are, but it's a pertinent question. The nature of SL is that events and interests are so widely scattered -- and the software itself limited in bringing more than about 40 members together at one time -- that it may not be possible to create a 'mainstream'. Could it be that this forum is, in fact, the majority of that mainstream?


Thanks Taylor, I think by your insightful comments here you've already long passed the n00b state. And as I said, the difference between real world groups and online groups is only a matter of compression and velocity (thanks, Seth!).

Not really. My brain is tired already

And, some communities are never going to 'get it'. I think this community gets it, and then some.

I guess my problem with Shirky is that he doesn't cite much. It makes me wonder what he's basing his conclusions on.

Not that he's not interesting, he is, I just wouldn't cite him because he'd be the foundation of a rather shakey intellectual pyramid.

In terms of social software, I like to read wiki stuff. I find it endlessly fascinating with exceedingly high signal to noise ratios.

Here's a good start:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_sociology

I also hope we're restricting this conversation to the forums as a sort of SL wiki.

If we're arguing that SL is a wiki in itself, then I greatly fear that path. Until wiki business models become more clear, I think going down that path is a pretty risky thing to do for LindenLabs and therefor for all of us.

I'd hate to develop all this content just to have LL go out of business.

I've seen very similar patterns here and in Wikipedia actually. Group think seems compulsory for those who rise towards the top or think they have. Conformity seems to be rewarded. Enemies are created and required for cohesion. Attacking the outsider is common for the ambitious. People don't need to know what the outsider did - gossip is rife and its spreaders unthinking.

Panics get created - IRC is very good for this. The Wikipedia IRC channel is particularly noxious.

Wikipedia has a couple of Prok-style characters and is worse off for having banned them. It has a few more disruptive characters who haven't been banned but know how to play the game.

Reputation is everything and those at the top will choose to attack the reputation of those who challenge. This ensures stagnation.

im not insightful enough to really help this thread along. its very interesting and i am enjoying reading it. this is the sort of thing that belongs in the forums. so i am bumping it so that more people might get a chance to read it.

marilyn