Friday 5 March 2010
Online communities don’t generally resemble small towns so much as hobo jungles. Members pick up and leave without warning. New users arrive knowing and caring nothing about the community’s history. Participants have different levels of commitment to the community, and different ideas of what they expect to get in return for participating. Social contracts don’t work online because nobody is compelled, in any meaningful sense, to comply with them. You can’t mandate your own authority online. You can’t demand that people trust you without giving them good reason to grant you that trust. Trust Falls ☀
