Hari's Corner

Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then

What is an online social network?

Filed under: Internet and Blogging by Hari
Posted on Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 20:15 IST (last updated: Wed, Jul 16, 2008 @ 20:22 IST)

Jeremy recently added a social network feature to the LinuxQuestions.org forums and I must say that I find it got me thinking about the phenomenon of online communities and social networks in general. I must say that when I first started my online forum journey with LinuxQuestions.org a couple of years ago I had no clue as to what an online community meant. Today, I am still confused and fascinated by it, although in a different way - namely what it takes to build one.

There are plenty of forums, mailing lists and groups out there, but very few of them actually succeed in building healthy, long-lasting and self-sustaining communities. People do join up to seek and share knowledge and interests, but very few of them stick on to become part of a community over the long haul. Take me for instance. I have joined plenty of internet boards since LQ.org, but I guess I hardly post at one or two of them nowadays. It's not as though I forgot their URL or something like that (I have most of them bookmarked) but it's just that I don't participate any longer. One reason is obviously lack of time, but I don't think lack of time can explain it all, especially considering that many people seem to find the time to stay connected with several online communities through their busy lives.

So why join a community and be a part of it? The answers are not easy. Giving and seeking help is only one reason for the existence of internet communities and there are so many non-technical communities that exist for entirely different reasons. But if a successful community administrator could ever universalize the reason why people flock to his particular forum in such large numbers, he could probably become rich by selling the formula. The truth is, ideas differ and reasons differ. In trying to find out one single reason why online communities thrive and survive, people often generalize to the extent of sounding unrealistic.

My own understanding is that a social network is built by like-minded people with similar levels of intelligence and emotional development, but not necessarily similar interests. Confusing? Not really. Having observed so many online communities I don't believe that similar interests or fields of knowledge can create sustainable social networks. Sure, these forums bring together people sharing similar interests, but then you rarely get a successful community built just out of that one factor. More than a common interest, what binds together people are mindsets, emotions and levels of intelligence. For instance, two people who are highly interested in Linux might be entirely different as far as their emotional wavelengths and maturity are concerned and their intelligence levels might conflict as well. Believe me, the online world does not hide such distinctions, although it's relatively harder to detect people's mindsets using their written words. Within a period of time, you do get to subconsciously "sense" people for what they really are and you gradually form your own set by identifying those who match your profile the best. Thus a social network is born. To really build a community, you need several such social networks within which there are enough number of individuals to sustain them. Sure, the common interest factor (namely the community's main focus) might still bring together people, but most of them won't form a social network unless they find enough individuals who identify with their own intelligence level and emotional seeking. I am a great believer in the theory that however much you hide behind a mask, you can never really hide your true self from the world. This goes for real-life interactions as well as interactions on the internet. However knowledgeable you might be, if you cannot find people who match your wavelength of thought and emotions, you will find it hard to live within an online community. Even where the pull of knowledge or shared interests is relatively strong, you still need emotional involvement to participate over a long period of time. Maybe that's why bloggers tend to form very powerful social networks with other people who don't necessarily blog about similar things or share similar fields of knowledge. While the network might be very informal, they tend to be quite strong and long-lasting. In fact, the very informality of such a network might be its biggest asset.

In essence, I think the online world is just a mirror of our society. Maybe not a perfect mirror, but it is just another medium - far more open and limitless perhaps - but a medium nonetheless. Even in a very large online community, you might hardly find four or five people who actually identify with you and build a genuine relationship over time. The medium might be open, but people's minds aren't going to change just because the medium is different. You cannot ever pull together ten people and tell them to be part of your community. They will either become part of a network within or stay out of it. It's hard to reason why. There's no logic or rationality behind it, but only a strange chemistry which cannot be dissected or understood except by social scientists or psychologists. To the layman I guess it makes sense: no friendship ever happened in life just because two individuals wanted to become friends for a reason. Business relationships are different, but they don't last long either. Online communities are no different and online social networks are just a reflection of that fact.

3 comment(s)

  1. My view of a successful online community (and I am not counting very specific communities - they would grow and succeed regardless) is that it should be relatively laid back but have a very specific line which must not be crossed. In much the same way that when talking IRL with friends, you know that while you can say just about anything, some things are going too far.The difficulty comes from setting the line at the correct place - too lenient and your members run amok and trash the place, to strict and everyone leaves because they can't say anything off topic or twice. There are probably only 3 places that I go to that I return to over and over and LQ is one of them. LQ has the mix "just right". It's probably something to do with the excellent mod team :)

    Comment by ray (visitor) on Wed, Feb 1, 2006 @ 02:50 IST #
  2. I believe that it takes a lot more than just "atmosphere" to build a community though and that was my point. Although the atmosphere is important, for people to stay on with the community for long periods, you need these invisible networks of individuals who form communities within communities. I guess my point was that even for a very large community, the core network of members has to be very strong for it to flourish in the long run.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Wed, Feb 1, 2006 @ 07:52 IST #
  3. i think it take time to make community but it make good with time

    Comment by mikel (visitor) on Tue, Dec 30, 2008 @ 06:44 IST #

Comments closed

The blog owner has closed further commenting on this entry.