Abundance of user contributions does not necessarily indicate sustainability of an online community. On the contrary, excessive contributions in the systems may result in “information overload” and user withdrawal. We propose an adaptive rewards mechanism aiming to restrict the quantity of the contributions, elicit contributions with higher quality and simultaneously inhibit inferior ones. The ...

Unmoderated electronic mailing lists suffer from the paradox that the more successful they are, the more difficult they are to use and administer because of the increasing number of users and discussions. Traditional solutions to this problem, such as creating static sublists or providing a Web interface, are not always desirable. We discuss the problems with traditional solutions and present d...

We present a study exploring learning in an informal online community (OC) for foodservice professionals according to three planes (i.e., community, interpersonal, and individual planes). Among these planes, this paper focuses on the interpersonal plane (i.e., how do participants interact with each other and what do they share through their interactions?) and highlight the importance of initiat...

In a digital society, people have access to all kinds of electronic information as online users. They have also contributed various content for exchanging ideas in the online community, which has not only extended the traditional knowledge sharing channels, but has also led to concerns about content quality and reliability. The literature suggests that user involvement in collaboratively evalua...

With the explosion of participation on the Internet, there is increasing interest and speculation in extending its uses to support diverse online communities, and particular interest in using the Internet to combat loneliness and isolation amongst senior citizens. For the past year, we have been investigating SeniorNet (SN), a 12 year old organization that attempts to bring seniors together via...

After a period of intense activity in preparation for the transition, Computing has been implemented in the curriculum in England for all children from ages 5-16. In this paper we investigate the aspects of professional development that Computing teachers are utilising. We conducted a survey of over 900 Computing teachers in England and use the results to reflect on the benefits of face-to-face...

The digital divide and exclusion from the knowledge society have become important subjects of government policy.This article compares online communities located in two UK housing estates. Both have relatively high levels of computer literacy but also significant numbers of novices and non-users. It is argued that one estate is achieving a higher level of inclusion because it combines teamwork w...

Web sites where users create and rate content display longtailed distributions in many aspects of behavior. Using one such community site, Essembly, we propose and evaluate mechanisms to explain these behaviors. Unlike purely descriptive models, these mechanisms rely on user behaviors based on information available to each user. For Essembly, we find the long-tails arise from large differences ...

This study examines how novel words originate in and disperse through online communities. It asks whether larger numbers of people or closer social ties are better environments to foster the adoption of new words. The data stem from Reddit, a large sample of web-mediated, asynchronous conversations. Reddit communities are divided by size in this study: larger communities are based on discussing...

In the discourses of the electronic commerce (e-commerce) industry, consumers are alleged to be empowered by the affective relations they establish in online communities. This article investigates this claim using a Foucauldian archaeological framework. It seeks to identify the key social and historical conditions that have enabled this representation to appear and to become a viable characteri...