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DESIGNING ONLINE COMMUNITIES: HOW DESIGNERS, DEVELOPERS, COMMUNITY MANAGERS, AND SOFTWARE STRUCTURE DISCOURSE AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION ON THE WEB by Trevor J. Owens A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of George Mason University in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Education Committee: ___________________________________________ Chair ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Program Director ___________________________________________ Dean, College of Education and Human Development Date: _____________________________________ Spring Semester 2014 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Designing Online Communities: How Designers, Developers, Community Managers, and Software Structure Discourse and Knowledge Production on the Web A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy at George Mason University By Trevor Owens Bachelor of Arts University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006 Master of Arts George Mason University, 2009 Director: Kimberly Sheridan College of Education and Human Development Spring Semester 2014 George Mason University Fairfax, VA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation represents the beginning of an end, the end of 23 years of school and education. Each of my committee members played a significant role in the design and development of the project. For the four years I worked at the Center for History and New Media Dan Cohen was both a great boss and a great mentor who helped me refine a lot of my ideas about online community in the practice of helping to grow the community of Zotero users. In his digital history course, I was also introduced too much of the new media studies work that shapes much of the framework of this study. Early in the doctoral program at George Mason University I reached out to Kim Sheridan about a study I wanted to do on the RPGmakerVX online community. I had seen from her CV that her dissertation involved Kantian notions of taste and film fan forums. She happily agreed to advise my project and over the last five years I have had the chance to deepen and refine my critical skills at research design and analytic interpretation under her guidance. When I first read Joe Maxwell’s book, Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, I was hooked. It remains rare and refreshing to find such clear, focused and accessible academic writing. Through his writings and experiences in courses, Joe’s approach to research has stuck with me as one of my key take-aways from the doctoral program. Aside from my committee, a range of other’s has played a key role in refining and developing the ideas and approach in this thesis. Kurt Squire’s ideas about studying forums for the game Civilization sparked much of my interest in the topic. Further, discussions about discourse analysis of online communities with Ben Devane have been critical. Historian of science Richard Staley, my undergraduate thesis advisor, who spent far more time than I imagine any other undergraduate thesis advisor has before or since advising a student, was instrumental in setting me up with the habits of writing and picking apart texts which I have made ample use of here. John Levi Martin’s seminar on culture and cognition provided me with a significant part of my sociological perspective. More recently, Matthew Kirshenbaum’s approach to studying theorizing and studying software helped to firm up my own thinking. My colleagues working on digital preservation at the Library of Congress have been similarly instrumental. Thanks to my mother who persisted in convincing me despite the expense, I should go to college instead of just hanging out in Milwaukee with the band. All of that aside, it’s most important that I acknowledge my wife and constant collaborator Marjee Chmiel. My very first foray into academic writing and the study of online community was a conference paper we wrote together about creationist teen web forums. I believe it was Marjee who first spotted the listing for the Zotero job at CHNM and sent it to me to apply for. Talking with Marjee about her work on World of Warcraft forums helped me refine my interest and idea in online communities. When it came time to work on this PhD, we did it together. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Locating Power, Control, and Autonomy in Collective Intelligence .............................. 5 Chapter 2: Conceptual Framework ................................................................................... 12 Theorizing Online Community Software ...................................................................... 15 Theorizing Software from Technology Studies ............................................................ 16 Cognitive Systems and Cognitive Niches ..................................................................... 22 How technologies distribute cognition ...................................................................... 23 Cognitive niche construction ..................................................................................... 24 Collective Intelligence in Action................................................................................... 25 Learning in online communities as participation in collective intelligence. ............. 27 Chapter 3: Research Questions ......................................................................................... 30 Values and Ideology ...................................................................................................... 31 Tactics ........................................................................................................................... 31 Looking for Difference.................................................................................................. 32 Chapter 4: Methods and Analytic Process ........................................................................ 33 Analyzing Texts as Discourse ...................................................................................... 33 The value of studying discourse in how-to guides as software studies. .................... 34 Book Selection .............................................................................................................. 37 Identifying books ....................................................................................................... 38 Including BBS books. ................................................................................................ 39 Analytic Focus............................................................................................................... 41 Visual design. ............................................................................................................ 41 Banning users and moderating user content. ............................................................. 41 iii Reputation systems. ................................................................................................... 42 The socio-cognitive theories of users these books draw on to explain users and community. ................................................................................................................ 42 Analytic Process ............................................................................................................ 43 Preliminary Analysis and Framework Development................................................. 43 Initial focused analysis of highly divergent books. ................................................... 44 Iterative theory/framework development. ................................................................. 44 Next set of focused book analyses ............................................................................. 46 Initial drafts of each section. ...................................................................................... 47 Reading sections against the remaining books. ......................................................... 47 Composing the discussion section and conclusions. ................................................. 48 Chapter 5: Responses to Validity threats and Inherent Limitations ................................. 49 Relationship to Actual Online Communities ................................................................ 49 The Stories in the Books are Rehearsed ........................................................................ 50 Authors of Books Aren’t Normal Designers/Developers ............................................. 51 Representing Distinct Authors’ Perspectives ................................................................ 51 Respecting the Diversity of Divergent Perspectives ..................................................... 52 Why Should I Trust your Interpretations of these Authors’ Ideas? .............................. 53 Chapter 6: Analysis and Results ....................................................................................... 55 Note on

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