The Rhetoric of TrustPerceptions of Identity and Credibilityin an Online Community

Quinn Warnick(@warnick)

St. Edward’s University

IR 12.0 | October 12, 2011

three definitions3

one website1

four paradoxes4

ήθος

ethos

credibilitypersonality

character

spiritessence

credibilitypersonality

character

spiritessence

placeshabitats

hauntscustoms

habits

“Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.… This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of this character before he begins to speak.”

—Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

one

“The man who wishes to persuade people will not be negligent as to the matter of character; no, on the contrary, he will apply himself above all to establish a most honorable name among his fellow-citizens; for who does not know that words carry greater conviction when spoken by men of good repute than when spoken by men who live under a cloud, and that the argument which is made by a man’s life is more weight than that which is furnished by words?”

—Isocrates (Antidosis, 278)

“All this species of eloquence, however, requires the speaker to be a man of good character and of pleasing manners. The virtues which he ought to praise, if possible, in his client, he should possess or be thought to possess himself. Thus he will be a great support to the causes that he undertakes, to which he will bring credit by his own excellent qualities. But he who, while he speaks, is thought a bad man, must certainly speak ineffectively, for he will not be thought to speak sincerely; if he did, his ethos or character would appear.”

—Quintilian (Institutes of Oratory, VI.ii.18)

vir bonus

vir bonus

two

“Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.… This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of this character before he begins to speak.”

—Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

Aristotle “directs our attention away from an understanding of ethos as a person’s well-lived existence and toward an understanding of ethos as an artistic accomplishment.”

—Michael J. Hyde

textual element

three

“The most concrete meaning given for the term in the Greek lexicon is ‘a habitual gathering place,’ and I suspect that it is upon this image of people gathering together in a public place, sharing experiences and ideas, that its meaning as character rests. To have ethos is to manifest the virtues most valued by the culture to and for which one speaks.”

—S. Michael Halloran

gathering place

‣ “It’s like the core members of the debate team getting together after a meet in a bar somewhere to hash out what they did well, what they did poorly, why they responded in a particular manner, and to accuse their teammates of unsportsmanlike conduct at the event.”

‣ “MetaTalk is the place where you can walk around without your pants.”

‣ “It's the police blotter of the site.”‣ “It’s almost like the lunch table at work. People aren’t fully

removed from the business of things, but they are a bit less inhibited.”

‣ “MetaTalk is kind of like the back alley behind the bar, where people go after the bouncers tell them to take it outside. It’s much dirtier and more personal.”

‣ “...sort of a gathering place.”

14,861

9,019

12,219

3,906

9,337

2,295

8,500

813

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

All Sections Combined MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk

Dark columns indicate users making at least one comment. Light columns indicate users making at least one post.

User participation in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections for 2009

Bugs: 110 (7.47%)

Feature Requests: 177

(12.02%)

Etiquette/Policy: 269 (18.26%)

Uptime: 7 (1.22%)

MetaFilter-related: 568

(38.56%)

MetaFilter Gatherings: 324

(22%)

MeFi Podcast: 18 (1.22%)

MetaTalk posts by category for 2009

26.45

71.58

160.10

87.71 83.55

45.48 51.33

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Bugs Feature Requests

Etiquette/Policy

Uptime MetaFilter-related

MetaFilter Gatherings

MeFi Podcast

Average number of comments per post across all MetaTalk categories: 83.04

Average number of comments per post for each MetaTalk category

223.89

339.08

410.22

190.73

302.54

198.78

253.34

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Bugs Feature Requests

Etiquette/Policy

Uptime MetaFilter-related

MetaFilter Gatherings

MeFi Podcast

Average length of all MetaTalk comments: 328.9

Average length of MetaTalk comments for each MetaTalk category

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Number of comments per user for all users who made more than 100 MetaTalk comments

116

598

888

6 234

84

1,520

216 8

237 420

2,032

3,024

554

132

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

mathowie jessamyn cortex pb vacapinta

MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk

Number of comments made by moderators in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections

four paradoxes4

Ethos resides in the text—except when it

doesn’t.

Collective ethos is the work of a few.

The best dictators have no rules.

Serious communities are powered by

silliness.

“Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.”

—Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community

Questions? Comments?quinnwarnick@gmail.com | quinnwarnick.com | @warnick

The Rhetoric of TrustPerceptions of Identity and Credibilityin an Online Community