http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/design.htm
Here talks about work on cooperation and social dillemas As Kollock and Smith (1996, p. 109) state: “At the root of the problem of cooperation is the fact that there is often a tension between individual and collective rationality. This is to say that in many situations, behavior that is reasonable and justifiable for the individual leads to a poorer outcome for all. Such situations are termed social dilemmas and underlie many of the most serious social problems we face.”
The Bedrock of Cooperation
The simplest possible case of a social dilemma involves two people faced with the decision of whether to cooperate or behave selfishly. Both can gain by cooperating, but there is a temptation to be selfish. If both people behave selfishly, however, they are both worse off than they might have been otherwise. The most famous example of this two-person situation is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma and there is a huge amount of research devoted to it. One of the most important studies of the Prisoners Dilemma is Axelrod’s (1984) book on the Evolution of Cooperation. Axelrod identifies three conditions that are necessary for even the possibility of cooperation. In other words, without these three elements there is little or no hope that cooperative relationships will emerge and persist.
The first condition is that it must be likely that two individuals will meet again in the future. If this is the only time someone will be interacting with another person, or if this is the last time, there will be a great temptation to behave selfishly. Successful communities, in other words, must promote ongoing interaction. Godwin (1994) makes a similar point in his essay on principles for making virtual communities work when he stresses the importance of promoting continuity in online groups.
The second condition is that individuals must be able to identify each other. The third condition is that individuals must have information about how the other person has behaved in the past. If identity is unknown or unstable and if there is no recollection or record of past interactions, individuals will be motivated to behave selfishly because they will not be accountable for their actions. Knowing the identity and history of a person allows one to respond in an appropriate manner. If information about individuals and their actions is shared among the group, this also encourages the development of reputations, which can be a vital source of social information and control. This theme is echoed by Godwin (1994) when he suggests that online communities should provide institutional memory – durable records of the events and history of the group. Godwin (speaking here of asynchronous textual communication) also recommends designing systems that do not limit the length of a member’s posting and that encourages members to read what has been said in the past about the subject at hand. These features have the effect of increasing the amount of information about members and increasing the extent to which this information is distributed.
Design Principles of Successful Communities
Another very influential work in this general area is Ostrom’s (1990) book on Governing the Commons. Unlike Axelrod, she examines whole communities acting together rather than just two-person interactions. She analyzes a wide variety of face-to-face communities that have either succeeded or failed in managing collective resources and social dilemmas. Ostrom identifies a number of features that successful communities seem to have in common.
Ostrom’s first point is that group boundaries must be clearly defined so that there is a clear sense of who might make use of collective resources and in order to prevent individuals from entering the group, making use of its resources, and then departing without ever contributing to the group. Despite the importance of marking borders and group identity, there are relatively few tools available to members of online communities to create and maintain these boundaries (Kollock and Smith 1996).
She also found that in successful communities the rules governing the use of collective resources were well matched to the local needs and conditions. In other words, it was important for each group to customize the norms and rules that governed their behavior. Ostrom also found that in successful communities most of the individuals affected by these rules were able to participate in modifying them. Further, the rights of community members to devise their own rules was respected to some degree by external authorities. These features meant that those individuals most affected by community rules, and who possessed the local knowledge necessary to craft effective rules, were able to create and modify a set of rules that were well-matched to their goals and environment.
Ostrom also found that even the most successful community requires a system to monitor and sanctioned members’ behavior. However, she found this works best when the monitoring is carried out by the community members themselves rather than by an external authority. Godwin (1994) also recommends that users be allowed to resolve their own disputes without outside interference. Successful communities were also marked by the fact that they used a graduated system of sanctions – small sanctions for first offenses that escalated if the person continued to break the community rules. Ostrom also found that even with a well designed set of rules and an internal monitoring and sanctioning system, some conflict was inevitable. Thus, it was important that community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
Bringing the Physical into the Virtual
Neither Axelrod nor Ostrom were concerned with online communities. Thus, there are a variety of features of face-to-face interaction and the physical world that could simply be taken for granted in their analyses. As the online world is a wholly constructed environment, it is worth considering what features, constraints, and challenges of the physical world might be profitably introduced into virtual worlds. At first this may sound a bit odd – why introduce constraints and difficulties if one can design a world without them? But a vibrant community requires challenges.
Scarcity and risk are an inevitable part of the physical world. Should they be programmed into online worlds? The lesson of successful MUDs and WorldsAway is that scarcity and risk are crucial for an interesting and engaging world. And it is not simply a matter of keeping things lively. Moderate amounts of risk are required for the development of trust (Kollock 1994) and encourage the formation of groups and clubs as a way of managing that risk (or exploiting it, in the case of a guild of thieves).
Other features of physical communities that should be incorporated into online worlds include the ability to change and modify one’s environment and the ability to exchange objects and services in some sort of economic system. The popularity in WorldsAway of apartments (which can be decorated by the owner) and tokens supports this point.
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