tom coates -
sorry this morning was a bit thin on content but both alan and clay were awesome and the middle keynote was awful so I will ...
what happens when you tie web social software to precise physical locations? this is the question that tom is going to try and answer.
tom is just going through some of the background info on ums - stuff we all know and love...que to visit ums while you still can.
tom also has to explain the differences between the UK postcode and US zipcode.
the ums ethos is about encouraging local civil engagement.
using area profiling (backing into data sources such as acorn) then ums identified that neighbours were quite similar folks. In order to facilitate the ethos they wanted to get neighbours talking to each other.
what is ums conversations?
- geocoded message board
what kinds of conversations are people having?
organising real world scoial events
infomration gathering about other areas
organising and debating local politics
debating national interests with their local communities
why now?
the online discussion or real world stuff is not new...there are loads of implementations of discussions that serve these purposes...
the concept of location -aware content or geocoded content isn't new either, although it is coming inot its own now...
but in order to pull those two things together you need ubiquity
tom makes the interesting point that discussions started around genre because their wasn't enough folks online to sustain local discussions...this has changed.
issues:
privacy - local discussions mean that people are able to be "found"... this means that ums have really tried to find a balance. if there was not a risk inherent in physical location then they would love to be as specific as possible about where folks live. in deference to the privacy issues they have pulled out a little to an area rather than a 14 house zone.
location can be used as part of a reputation model - if asked for an opinion relevant to an area then your proximity to that area is a useful piece of validation for your response or opinion.
all sites that geocode user generated content have to think long and hard about how to protect their users from realworld abuse.
Time:
most filtering of posts relies on timeliness within genre, when you add in location then you need to decide how to filter.
geocoded filtering alone ends up being a very boring discussion.
in order to compensate ums offers thread tracking - ie. you can subscribe to an interesting thread and have it surface in a private management environment.
they heavily flag time and replies
and they added time as a vector - therefore you can choose to see conversations located within x distance from y location that have been posted within the last z time. this becomes the here/now axis
moderation:
there's no default view which a moderator can share with all teh site's users as the users are by definition contained to a location view. this makes it hard to prioritise problems on the board.
the message board is potentially vast - because of the local view even though their may be a vast number of posts overall they don't necessarily overwhelm the local areas.
...more moderation issues...later
local solutions to moderation -
rely on local people to surface problems
help people set their own LOCAL standards around behaviour and governance. the moderation team is localised...so you find you nearest moderator.
what's next:
what else can be done with kind of messageboard
- political activism
- network fans
- mother and babies
what else can we do beyond message boards:
local calendars
add local landmarks that are geocoded such as schools
and he concludes with the profound reminder to ensure digital projects are enmeshed in the real world and...
to get building.!
good stuff folks...
Posted by paula at April 24, 2003 09:30 PM