Summary:

The article “Visualizing Email Content: Portraying Relationships from Conversational Histories”, written by Fernanda B. Viégas, Scott Golder, Judith Donath, is another look at the way we use email to communicate. The article focus around using Themail, a visualization that portrays relationships using the interaction histories preserved in email archives. The authors had participants use the visualization software to see how they would interact and analyze the data. They do this through analyzing a large dataset of the users emails and filter out unwanted email such as spam or one off emails until they have the relevant dataset of emails. They found that their were two main interaction modes with the visualization, exploration of “big picture” trends and themes (“haystack”) and more detail-oriented exploration (“needle”). They also found that the vast majority of people tended to stick with the haystack approach and would look at the connection to loved ones and family. Users that chose to analyze with the needle method were less focused on the relationships and were usually searching of a specific piece of information usually pertaining to work. While this method and the tool of Themail are interesting to users, the study found that most users would not usually utilize Themail or a similar application in their day to day lives. They would instead come back to it on occasion usually for the purpose of reminiscing and wanting to see the old connections and relationships they old with others.

Reflection:

Overall I really liked the article and the findings that the authors came to. I found it very intriguing to watch how users would use the system when it was provided to them with a proper dataset and could see an accurate representation of their connections. I understood that for the scope of their project why they filter out the spam and other areas they deemed unwanted but I also wish they had done some studies with it in so we could see the “fake” relationships that spam would cause the program to think the user has. I think it could be a very interesting experience to view the clutter that users get from spam and try to see its overall affect to the ecosystem. I found it curious that the two final groups, haystack and needle, were sections off the way they were. I feel like from the overall perspective of the app that all users would start out haystack and then utilize the needle function when searching for individual pieces of information. So I see them less as two distinct groups but more tools to use to comb through all the information as a whole.

Questions:

• What could leaving all the spam and one time emails in show us?
• Could a third group be added in that is an in-between stage? Not full stack but not quite needle.
• Should email services work this type of technology into themselves for all users benefit?
• Does this kind of technology create a worry for email privacy?
• Just how much information is too much to give away for the convenience of data analysis and prediction?

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Summary:

The article, “The Language that Gets People to Give: Phrases that Predict Success on Kickstarter” is a very interesting and intriguing article. It aims to look at what are the factors that lead to people who view a Kickstarter campaign, ultimately backing it in the long run. The authors took a sample of 45 thousand Kickstarted campaign and closely studied the effect that 20 thousand phrases had on the impact of a person either back or not backing the campaign. Kickstarter is a platform that allows companies or individuals to start and idea/product and share that idea with a goal in mind with the public. The creator sets a monetary goal of donations that must be reached before the money is then given to the creator to go and make the product they promised to make. If the monetary goal is not reached then the money is refunded to the contributors and the project is not funded. Because of this fact, it is very important that the creator(s) do a very good job in selling the contributors the idea of their product and make you want to buy it. Creators tend to use categories such as presentation of product and idea, goal amount, duration until goal would be reached, and a few others. But this paper focuses on the language used by creators that they hope will help sell their idea/product. The language used was broken up into six categories, authority, scarcity, reciprocity, social proof, liking, and social identity. Through the authors research and analysis they were surprised to find that language is not only a key player in getting a contributor to back a project but is one of the most influential and crucial parts. They hope that these findings will inspire others to research the field and figure out why this happens exactly.

 

Reflection:

Overall I really enjoyed this article and the ideas it talked about as well as the way it discussed the particular phrases that caused certain reactions from people, be them positive or negative. I think that researching how the human mind works and what specifically draws our eye and makes us confident in something is extremely important knowledge that we need to know. The authors hope that other researchers will continue this investigation into why exactly we feel more confident when certain language is used is something that I strongly want to see as well. If we can not only understand what already makes use confident but why it does, we may be able to find new ways of conveying messages with positive outcomes and be able to better understand ourselves.

 

Questions:

• What other factors could influence us to be confident in something in other scenarios with more/other influences?
• Is there a limit to the amount of confidence language can give us?
• If it stands that types of language can make us more confident, can it make us less confident to the same extent or maybe even more?
• Would the level that language can affect us change if it is being read versus spoken directly to you?

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Summary:

In the article “Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities” the authors discuss the topic os behavior on online communities where discussion between users is a fundamental or very large part of the site, specifically how behavior that can be categorized as antisocial or disruptive is handled and processed by the community. They also discuss what happens to the poster that posted the disruptive post. The authors look at the sites CNN.com, Breitbart.com, and IGN.com, all of which have forums and comment sections for all of the content the display on their sites. The study of users that went on to be permanently banned found that the users who were banned were given warnings or had their posts deleted by a moderator before they were banned but in the process they tended to post worse and worse posts and the community they were apart of became less and less tolerant of the banned users rants. This was a large finding of the study, that as time passed and the abusers were told to stop or removed they would continue to come back and get worse and worse creating a bigger and bigger problem until they were eventually banned. Their were some cases of users being banned for a set amount of time and then allowed to return but these cases were not studied in depth but this brings up a question of how effective the timed punishment ban was at deterring the bad behavior.

Reflection:

I found this article as a good verification of the behavior and trends that I have experienced myself on online communities. I have seen first hand that the users who abuse a community message system and then are told to stop or get reactions out of the community that are angry or disgusted just encourages the original abuser to not only continue the behavior but even get worse. If a regular user has an incident where they went too far and are told to stop its usually a very quick apology and then things go back to normal but not for the trolls. They continue the behavior and only get worse because thats the reactions they thrive on and are seeking from the community. The issue of trying to get ride of these trolls is a tricky one because you have to give each user a fair chance at the beginning of that users account life. It wouldn’t be fair to just ban someone right out because of one thing, but that second/third chance is also what feeds the really bad posts and situations. I would also be very interested in a study of the cases where a timed ban actually helped the troll stop doing the bad behavior. Finding the best way of dealing with the abusers of the system to either lock them out or correct the behavior.

Questions:

• Is a permanent ban or a timed ban more effective in dealing with abusers?
• What would be the best way to discern the true trolls from a user that just got out of control for a time?
• What draws trolls to come post on the sites that they do? Just for fun?
• Could an effective bot be created to accurately moderate forums?

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Summary:

In the article “Social Translucence: An Approach to Designing Systems that Support Social Processes” the author discusses the action of communicating through digital interfaces. The author focuses on the areas of visibility, awareness, and accountability. They argue that the digital age has begun to diminish the effectiveness of the way that we communicate in our modern times because the systems we have set in place do not support social interaction as well as they should. We need to be visible to others and they visible to us, we need to be aware of where we are communicating and we need to be held accountable for what we say/do. Without these aspects of communication then the true meaning and essence of communication begins to break down. The author gives the great example of a door that opens too fast. If we add a sign to the door then people may read it and open it slowly, but they may also ignore it and accidentally hit someone when they open too fast. But if you put a window into the door then people can see if others are on the other side, are aware that they could hurt someone and that other people can see them, as well as knowing they are accountable for their actions in the eyes of the people who can see them.

In the article “The Chat Circles Series:Explorations in designing abstract graphical communication interfaces” the author writes about the new interesting ways that people are creating for people to communicate using new technologies. Some of the examples that the author gives for new ways of abstract communication are chat circles and then a more evolved form of chat circles 2. Both of these abstract communication techniques revolve around the idea that a user holds a circle that represents themselves. They can see what other users are saying if they are close enough to the other users circle but cannot if they are to far away. This allows for the users to remove themselves from seeing what is being said without leaving the conversation fully. Chat circles 2 builds on this idea and allows users to use photographs in the background that can help spark new conversations. This was found to help stimulate conversation even when there were only a few users in the chat space.

Reflection:

We hear often that body language and the perceptions we make from it make up a very large portion of our understanding of a conversation but these articles just reinforce that fact even more. They both show that the interactions we have with other people, aside from the actual words that are being spoken actually speak volumes as to the value, point, intensity, and meaning that we gleam from a conversation. This is not only true for how much we get from watching and interacting with somebody else but also from the way that we naturally act to convert information ourselves. Subconsciously the visibility, awareness, and accountability we feel when interacting with someone through more than just text makes us act and respond so vastly differently that it would truly be a waste to let those aspects slip away. These articles have really driven home the point that for communication to be truly effective we must have more that just words on a screen because the words make up so little of the total information we look for in a conversation.

Questions:

• How much information is lost when we take away the body language and interactions of a conversation?
• How would it be best to create a platform that does not require face too face interaction to convey a point as effectively as true face to face conversation?
• Can that true recreation of direct spoken conversation ever be captured by another median?
• Can a true sense of accountability be created for digital platforms?

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Summary:

In the paper “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” the author, Judith S. Donath, addresses the points of how modern culture has come to establish identity and use the ambiguous nature of virtual communities to create a community where identity amongst the virtual world is deceiving. The author focuses around a study of the virtual community Usenet, where users can post about news and events they find to be relevant and worth discussing. This online community provides users with a username, signature, email link, and unique writing style that can help other users track and know who an individual users is. This creates a sense of community because the anonymousness of each user is slightly taken away. Now the author shows how that even in a community where users accounts mean something and throwing away an account is an action with consequences, there are still those who abuse the system and deceive other users. Trolling is a major issue, where trolls create fake accounts and use them to spread lies or just be annoyances to others for their own enjoyment. Other users go as far as they can to conceal their identities in the hopes that they can post controversial ideas or incite issues where none are just for fun. The main point was to show that even very open and identify communities can be breached and trolls can hurt the communities sense of security.

The second paper “4chan and /b/: An Analysis of Anonymity and Ephemerality in a Large Online Community” focuses much more heavily on the side of the virtual world that rejoices in the anonymousness that all the users can have. 4chan is a site created so that users can post ideas, topics, and pictures using the identity of “anonymous” if they so should please. This is exactly what most of the users choose to do with over 90% of all posts for the entire site being posted as anonymous. 4chan works under the system that posts, when posted, are pushed to the top of the first page of topics but can only remain there or even remain active if other users comment and add to the post. This creates a system where the most “popular” posts are kept alive and near the top of the topic thread. This system was made to allow people to freely express opinions and ideas without any fear of backlash and retaliation in the hopes that new ideas and conversations would arise. This has worked some but has also allowed users to post very horrible topics and pictures that do not help anyone or incite any useful conversations.

Reflection:

I found the two articles to be very insightful in showing that the virtual space that we all flock to so regularly can be a breading ground for deceit and nastiness if we let it be. Its good that certain communities are trying their best to give people an identifiable username and person because that way people feel less free to go off on a whim and do or say things that they wouldn’t do/say normally. After reading both of these articles and from my own experience I feel that anonymity can be a very important and useful tool for people and I in no way feel that there shouldn’t be a place where people can go to get that true anonymous experience. It can have benefits for people in areas that aren’t friendly to their beliefs or rights. But I also feel that there should be areas of the virtual space that impose upon its users a more strict user face so that people feel the same social pressure they feel when they speak using their own mouths. Anonymity can be a very useful tool and a way for people in need to escape and be safe but I feel that it also needs its checks and balances. Creating a virtual space where every sector is anonymous would not be good for the virtual community that we are all a part of.

Questions:

• Are there any effective ways of controlling trolling or identity concealing?
• How much anonymity is good for people/ when does it go too far?
• What do people who abuse anonymity hope to gain from their actions?
• Would linking user accounts from virtual communities to much larger social communities(i.e. Facebook) have a positive impact on those communities?
• Is it healthy for us as virtual citizens for places such as 4chan to exist and flourish?

Read More

Akshay Java, Xiaodan Song, Tim Finin, Belle Tseng. “Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities”. http://aisl.umbc.edu/resources/369.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug. 2017.

Naaman, Mor, Jeffrey Boase, Chih-Hui Lai. “Is it really about me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams.” ACM Digital Library, ACM, dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1718953. Accessed 30 Aug. 2017.

Summary

In the paper “Why We Twitter” the authors look to understand the usage and connections amongst a set of users of twitter that range all around the world. They took a sample of 76,177 users from all around the world during the time frame of  April, 1st 2007 to May, 30th 2007. They want to look at the correlations of users between users that are closer to one another as opposed to farther apart. They also want to look at the behaviors of users that fall into the categories of “Information Source, Friend, or Information Seeker”. Information Source’s tend to have more followers but possibly not as many people they are following. They hold a sense of power because their words and posts reach a large group of people. Friends are users that use Twitter to keep up with their friends lives and their friends follow them back for similar reasons. Lastly Information Seekers tend to have fewer followers themselves but follow a large amount of users, seeking to know about a great many other users. The article also found that users posts fall into categories themselves, “Daily Chatter, Conversations, Sharing Information, and Reporting News”. Of these categories “Daily Chatter” by far outweighed the others in terms of post pertaining to it. Overall this article gives the reader a sense that Twitter users tend to follow other users closer to them and majority follow to learn about others lives. They will reciprocate and tell others about their lives as well.

In the paper “Is it really about me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams” the authors set out to look at and understand the main subject that twitter users tend to talk about with their posts. They split these subjects up into multiple categories that range from Information sharing to Anecdote(both for yourself and others). Specifically these categories look at if the information in the tweet is about yourself or others. Do you tend to share about yourself, your feelings, your life, your opinions. Or do you share information about others, events, world news, things that inform others about events that do not revolve around yourself. Through the observations and data analysis that the authors did they found that overwhelmingly most users tend to share things about themselves. Twitter users are predominately sharing events about their own lives. But this also shows that the few users that share about the events of the rest of the world tend to have more followers in total because they share information that a larger base of users want to hear about.

Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed both of these articles because they both bring forward the large glaring detail that people love to share their own lives. The largest category of user of twitter from both articles is the friend user. The friend user is someone who follows their close set of friends and wants to keep track of their lives and whats going on but more importantly they want to share their life and the events that have happened to them with the people they care about. It really brings to light just how much of a social creature humans are. We crave to share our lives, feelings, opinions, and beliefs with others. We also want to know, know about the people we care about and keep track of what is going on in the world so that we can contribute to conversations amongst those people. This thirst for knowledge, be it intellectual or just plain gossip, is one of the key wants for humans as a whole. Through this exercise I have come to an interesting question, do humans crave this thirst for knowledge and to share their own lives out of a want to help others or simply fulfill a need we all feel? It is glaringly apparent from the data that twitter users are very focused on themselves. Sharing details about their own lives and opinions instead of sharing about the world as a whole. Does this mean that these microblogs could be encouraging people to focus solely on themselves and the image they present to others? Or are they helping the spread of information and making people more aware of the big picture?

Questions

• Do humans crave this thirst for knowledge and to share their own lives out of a want to help others or simply fulfill a need we all feel?
• Are microblogs encouraging people to focus more solely on themselves and the image they present to others?
• Are they helping the spread of information and making people more aware of the big picture?
• How much effect do the large twitter accounts with the most followers truly have?
• How much are cross cultural and continental connections affect cultures around the world through Twitter?
• Is this amount of information sharing too much? Could it be damaging to users instead of helping?

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