user experience
Most discussions show a bit of information next to each user: What message does this send? * The only number you can control printed next to your name is post count. * Everyone who reads this will see your current post count. * The more you post, the bigger that number next to
software development
Occasionally, startups will ask me for advice. That’s a shame, because I am a terrible person to ask for advice. The conversation usually goes something like this: We’d love to get your expert advice on our thing. I probably don’t use your thing. Even if I tried
community management
In November, I delivered the keynote presentation at Øredev [http://oredev.org] 2011. It was the second and probably final presentation in the series I call Building Social Software for the Anti-Social. I've spent almost four years thinking about the Q&A format, and these two presentations
history
I've spent a significant part of my life online. Not just on the internet, I mean, but on modems and early, primitive online communities. Today's internet is everything we couldn't have possibly dared to imagine twenty-five years ago, but there is a real risk
forums
I was struck by the conclusion of Andy Oram's thoughtful piece on the next generation of online forums [http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/02/developing-an-i.html]. > People who want to learn more about computer technology and solve problems they encounter on their systems currently have a
community moderation
Clay Shirky’s classic articles on social software should be required reading for all software developers working on web applications. As near as I can tell, that’s pretty much every developer these days. But I somehow missed Joel Spolsky’s related 2003 article on social software, Building Communities With
community
Dare Obasanjo recently wrote about the failure of Kuro5hin, which was originally designed to address perceived problems with the slashdot model: [Kuro5hin allowed] all users to create stories, vote on the stories and to rate comments. There were a couple of other features that distinguished the K5 community such as