Building Social Software for the Anti-Social

Jeff Atwoodstackexchange.com

1. Radically lower the bar for participation

2. Trusting (some of) your users

3. Life is the world’s biggest MMORPG

4. Bad stuff happens5. Love trumps money

Building Social Software for the Anti-Social

Part II

Jeff Atwoodstackexchange.com

Q:

How do you tell an introverted computer programmer from an extroverted computer programmer?

A:

An extroverted computer programmer looks at your shoes when he talks to you.

Q:

What do Computer Science students use for birth control?

A:

Their personalities.

“But the meek shall inherit the earth …”

Computers are simple.

People are complicated.

Introverts are writing software to control both. How can this possibly work?

Programmers move beyond merely playing the game

They create and design games.

Very, very complicated games.

Social interactions are scary because

THEY HAVE NO RULES

Can you define rules for social interactions?

Maybe.

… or maybe not.

But…why are social interactionsparticularlyscary for an introvert developer?

All teachers of programming find that their results display a 'double hump'. It is as if there are two populations: those who can, and those who cannot, each with its own independent bell curve.

“To write a computer program you have to … accept that whatever you might want the program to mean, the machine will blindly follow its meaningless rules and come to some meaningless conclusion.”

“The consistent group showed a pre-acceptance of this fact: they are capable of seeing mathematical calculation problems in terms of rules, and can follow those rules wheresoever they may lead.”

Facebook is exactly that: mapping rules to social relationships between people.

Taking what had been scary and unknown, and adding rules and structure.

Scary Idea #6

Rules can be fun and social.

Everyone loves games, and all games are built on rules. Guess what programmers are REALLY good at?

Tragic: The Garnering, from Fallout

To play the game, you must accept the rules.

The rules exist to protect the integrity of the game, and more importantly, to keep it fair for every player.

The rules are part of the common good.

But … what’s the goal of this game?

What is its purpose?

Scary Idea #7

All modern website design is game design.

Everything’s social, therefore, everything is now a game with rules.

Let’s play the Q&A game. You have a … question. A specific question that can be answered (see rules).

How do you get an answer to your question?

First you must figure out how to ask.

What is this number and how do I get it to go up?

What is this number and how do I get it to go up?

What is this number and how do I get it to go up?

“Stack Exchange is like a well-designed video game. When was the last time you had to read the documentation to play a video game? You don't.”

– Robert CartainoDirector of Community DevelopmentStack Exchange

You start by walking across the room. Then you learn to pick something up; and then jump. By time you need to, you're already strafing across a catwalk, jumping and spinning 360-degrees while simultaneously firing a beam rifle and throwing two plasma grenades through a window 40 feet away.

When you get up from the couch after a Halo or World of Warcraft session, what do you have to show for your efforts?

Whereas on Stack Exchange, you leave breadcrumb trails of your awesomeness for others to learn from and improve on.

Game: get an answer to your question, by any means necessary.

Metagame: reputation, badges, privileges, peer recognition.

Endgame: improve the internet for everyone.

The game works in service of both selfish (I need an answer!) and selfless (I need a better internet!) goals.

We’re creating an oasis of high quality, expert Q&A on the internet that can serve as a national park of information: a public resource for all to enjoy and benefit from.

Scary Idea #8

Thoughtful game design creates sustainable communities.

Government is a form of game design.

“It is an invariable principle of all play … that whoever plays, plays freely.

Whoever must play cannot play.”

Everything else is by definition Work with a big W.

The game never ends.

Actions in the game have consequences and history.

People will remember how you behaved in previous rounds.

Permanent death.

How can that be fun?

This is a horribly flawed game design!

1. You cannot win alone.

2. Individual skill, however great, is always inferior to teamwork.

3. Rash decisions are risky; patience and planning pays off.

The design of the game forces you to play as a team.

Whether you want to or not!

The rules make the game work, even with completely anonymous

internet players.

Brilliant.

“All my teammates are my friends”

It’s an infinite game.Any time, with anyone.

Counter-Strike54k players / day

Stack Exchangeis my

Counter-Strike

1. You cannot win without teaching.

2. Individual skill, however great, is always inferior to communication skill.

3. Discussion is risky; sharing research and experience pays off.

Teamwork:

Advance knowledge of a topic.

For everyone in the world who loves that topic as much as you do.

Scary Idea #9

The community isn’t always right.

Groups aren’t good at predicting the consequences of their collective actions.

1. You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

Why can’t we have discussions?

What’s your favorite bicycle?

I use spatulas to turn eggs, what do you use?

Bing is doomed. I’m curious if others feel as I do.

What if Canon merged with Nikon?

COBOL sucks, am I right?

Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other practical questions off the front page.

If you don’t like these questions, don’t look at them!

“Don’t look” doesn’t work in real life, either.

Broken windows: others will see, and use what they see as templates for future questions.

Opportunity cost: time spent on discussion is time that should have gone toward sharing actual research.

Protip: answer the damn question.

What research and evidence can you provide to support your answer?

Oh yeah? Prove it.

Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.

Why can’t we ask broad questions?

Q: First let me inform you: I am new to this type of enterprise and in a sense I am looking for all the help that I can get so that I will have a general idea where to start. I have a drawn out plan for the workings of an electronic communication application. Its not that complicated in terms of its usage and function. The impass that I am at has to do with me not knowing how to create this application because of my lack and understanding "how to write a program" using programming language. I have done my homework (undercover market research) and found that ten out of nine individuals would purchase this product if it were available. My second impass is that my funds are at an all time low. So any information woild be most appreciated. Thank You.

A: Begin by reading a book or two. Come back when you have specifics.

2. What research, if any, did you do before asking?

What have you tried? What happened when you tried that? How did you attempt to solve the problem?

You gotta do your homework.

It is unfair to ask others to do all the work.

If you want to play the game, meet us halfway.

Nobody should be more motivated to find an answer to your question than YOU.

“But this is such a great resource, why can’t I ask just this one question the way I want to?”

Did it ever occur to you that the site is a great resource precisely because we disallow discussions and drive-by no effort questions?

There are many kinds of games on the internet. We designed ours a certain way to achieve a certain result.

Perhaps you want to play a different game somewhere else on the internet?

“Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”

– Steve Jobs

Can you say NO to your users?

(in a nice, educational way of course.)

If not, then you have a problem.

Scary Idea #10

Some moderation required.

Someone has to protect the community from itself. Why can’t it be you?

The curse of popularity, aka Bikeshedding.

The more general interest your question is, the more people can see it and answer it – with their unique individual opinions.

“What is your solution to the FizzBuzz problem?”

“Best Keyboard for programmers?”

“What are some funny loading statements to keep users amused?”

“What easter eggs have you placed in code?”

“What single discovery has given you the biggest boost in productivity?”

If a question can have infinite answers …

… is it really a question?

… or is it something else entirely?

“Over on FriendFeed people are telling me ‘we have more conversations.’ That’s true, but the more conversations I got involved in the less I found I was learning.”

-- Robert Scoble

“How can you close / delete this question, it is hugely popular with the community!”

Popularity isn’t the only metric that matters.

“ever since the Open Beta the amount of image macros, memes, rage comics and generally low-quality content hitting the front page has grown to annoying proportions.”

“The problem with image macros and rage comics (besides generally lacking wit or anything genuinely insightful) is that they're quick and easy to digest, and thus tend to get upvoted faster than self posts and actual discussions which take thought and time before an appropriate response can meted out. If you're not careful you end up with something akin to /r/gaming, which is now a burbling, deformed wreck of its former self, with anything remotely resembling intelligent discussion being buried under a sea of vacuous meme-repetition.”

“This only way this is EVER stopped on reddit is through mod intervention, rule sets, and careful removal of content. So along with this post, please directly contact the mods and hope that they will act to save their subreddit.”

The goal of moderation is not to punish the community, but to

• Temporarily overrule

• Educate

• Refocus community exuberance on more substantive content

... in other words, to lead.

Our biggest mistake: not building a meta from day one.

“The place about the place” is where all governance forms and moderators are born.

Moderation requires power, the power to (sometimes) defy the community to lead it.

Moderation has to scale in proportion to the size of your community.

Therefore, you must give power to regular users: mini-moderators.

It’s a Democracy: moderators are elected by the community.

Moderators are yourPark Rangers

But elected community moderators are not infallible.

If you have an issue with moderation, bring it up on the meta. Citizens have input into government and the design of Stack Exchange itself.

6. Rules can be fun and social.7. All modern website design is

game design.8. Thoughtful game design

creates sustainable communities.

9. The community isn’t always right.

10. Some moderation required.

JOIN US!

Help build our park.

http://stackexchange.com