Exploring the Dynamics of Blog Communities: the Case of Metafilter Leiser Silva, Lakshmi Goel† & Elham Mousavidin‡ C

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2575.2008.00304.x

Info Systems J (2008) 19, 55–81 55

Exploring the dynamics of blog communities: the case of MetaFilter Leiser Silva*, Lakshmi Goel† & Elham Mousavidin‡ *C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, USA, email: [email protected], †C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, USA, email: [email protected], and ‡[email protected]

Abstract. This paper explores the social processes and mechanisms that give form to a prominent type of online community: community blogs. We conducted an interpretive study that examines a particular community blog, MetaFilter, by drawing on the concepts of communities of practice as a theoretical lens. Theo- retically, we contribute to the body of knowledge of online communities by identifying the structures of an emergent type of community that is brought together by blog technology. Our findings suggest that cohesion in a community blog is brought about by the following practices: (a) explicit ground rules regarding membership, (b) presence of moderators, (c) availability of profile information, (d) ‘net etiquette’, (e) tacit warrants for discerning pertinent posts, and (f) the deployment of specific techniques of discipline.

Keywords: blogs, communities of practice, knowledge management, Web 2.0, virtual communities, interpretive research

INTRODUCTION

The advent of the internet has created new venues for communication and social exchanges. These venues, such as forums and newsgroups, are the focal point for the creation of new types of interactions among individuals that take the form of virtual communities (Komito, 1998; Etzioni & Etzioni, 1999; Bakardjieva & Feenberg, 2002; Wilson & Peterson, 2002). Yet, despite the fact that the total number of these electronically enabled communities grows almost exponentially, little is known about the mechanisms and processes that shape them (Ridings et al., 2002). Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the social dynamics that provide identity and cohesion to a prominent new type of online community: a blog community. A weblog (or blog) is a self-publishing website that is updated on a regular basis. The word ‘blog’ has been defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as ‘a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks’ and has been identified as the most looked-up word in the year 2004 (BBCNews, 2004). Approximately 70 million blogs were being tracked in March 2007 by Technorati, a real-time search engine that

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 56 L Silva et al. maintains updated information on blogs, with 120 000 new blogs being created every day. Contents of a blog are written in a casual manner and are archived reverse chronologically (Blood, 2002). The posts are usually brief, with links to other blogs or websites on the internet. The particular style of writing and publishing in blogs can be classified as a communication genre (Orlikowski & Yates, 1994; Herring et al., 2005). A genre in this sense is constituted by typified acts of communication. Herring et al. (2005) distinguish weblogs from other internet- related genres such as webpages and chat rooms. Weblogs are different given that their communication acts are asynchronous and asymmetrical. They are asynchronous because communications do not occur in real time as with instant messaging (IM) and chat rooms. They are asymmetrical because communications do not occur in dyads as in IM but take place among more than two individuals. Hence, weblogs, because of their unique way of being written, updated and linked to, constitute a unique communication genre. In addition to these attributes, Herring et al. (2005) claim that the proliferation of weblogs is the result of two main technological features. One is the capability of weblog software of not requiring users to know HTML programming to own and publish a weblog. The other is the capability of the software to allow publishing comments instantaneously. Furthermore, the popularity of weblogs can be explained by the fact that, unlike chat rooms and IM, web pages are indexed in search engines, which allows any internet user to access them directly. Blogs have been classified in different ways, for example, as diaries, journals, and community columns (Blood, 2000; 2004; Krishnamurthy, 2002; Miller et al., 2004; Hartelius, 2005; Herring et al., 2005; Nowson & Oberlander, 2007). While the terminologies of the typologies differ, all of them recognize the difference between individual- and community-based blogs. For our study, we focus on community blogs. The essence of a blog of this type is that its content is defined collectively (Krishnamurthy, 2002; Hartelius, 2005; Herring et al., 2005). The collective nature of community blogs raises interesting social dynamics such as the establishing of rules of membership, the negotiation of identities, and the struggles to distinguish what is worth publishing from what is not. Hence, the objective of this research is to make sense of those dynamics. Concretely, this paper aims at exploring the rules of membership, the constitutive practices, as well as the mechanisms for negotiating meanings and identities that configure a blog community. The identification of those social processes will provide us with an initial theoretical account of how these communities are structured and are able to remain cohesive. This will be of value not only for researchers who focus on the relationship between technology and society, but also for organizations interested in applying these types of technologies to bolster the generation and the sharing of knowledge. To achieve our research objective, we examine a specific blog – MetaFilter – that has been characterized as a community blog (Krishnamurthy, 2002; Herring et al., 2005). Accordingly, the empiric basis of this research is the posts available in the archives of the blog. As our main research question concerns the exploration of social processes, we decided to adopt an interpretivist research strategy (Taylor, 1971; Sanders, 1982; Walsham, 1993). For the organization and analysis of the data, we use a theoretical lens that draws on the literature of communities of practice (CoPs) (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998); Lave, 1991; Lave & Wenger,

1991; Wenger, 1998; 2000; Wenger & Snyder, 2002; Wenger et al., 2002), which has also been widely acknowledged and applied by researchers in the information systems ﬁeld (Wasko & Faraj, 2000; Markus, 2001; Mathiassen & Purao, 2002; Butler, 2003; Pan & Leidner, 2003; Gallivan et al., 2005). Thus, given the emphasis CoPs lay on knowledge sharing, identity and membership, we believe that this theoretical lens is appropriate for the purpose of interpreting the phenomenon of blogging. The results of the study are presented through analytical generalizations (Walsham, 1993; Lee & Baskerville, 2003), and their implications are discussed in the context of organizations that may be interested in adopting blog technology for enabling CoPs.

THEORETICAL LENS

In this section, we present our theoretical lens that, as indicated above, is derived from the CoPs literature (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Lave, 1991; Wenger, 1998; 2000; Wenger & Snyder, 2002; Wenger et al., 2002). The term ‘community of practice’ is difficult to define; however, Wenger (1998) offers a clear formulation. Wenger (1998, p. 72) indicates that CoPs can be identified because of a distin- guished practice that is more salient than other attributes, such as activity, culture or structure. A CoP is not a network, team or group. It is different from a network because a CoP is not defined by established relationships. Likewise, it is defined neither by membership of a group nor by proximity. Instead, the source of coherence of a community is its practice. Wenger illustrates the concept through a community of claim processors in an insurance company, who, in addition to sharing a practice, are interested in improving their working conditions. While we do not claim that blog communities are CoPs – in the precise sense described by Wenger and his colleagues – we posit that they are communities defined and kept together by specific practices. CoPs as a theory has been subjected to critiques. In particular, researchers have argued that it ignores issues concerning trust (Roberts, 2006), power (Blackler & McDonald, 2000; Fox, 2000; Contu & Willmott, 2003; Walsham, 2005), predispositions (Mutch, 2003), size and spatial reach (Coe & Bunnell, 2003; Roberts, 2006). While these are valid concerns, we have discussed our findings with the awareness of these issues and maintain that CoPs is an appropriate theoretical lens for the purposes of our study for two reasons. First, the emerging nature of blog communities fits with the informal and non-canonical nature of CoPs (Wenger, 1998). Prior research has recognized the existence of blog communities among other types of blogs. Table 1 summarizes blog typologies in existing literature. Second, the body of knowledge of CoPs provides us with a detailed conceptual account of how communities learn, how the identities of their members are negotiated, and how newcomers become old-timers. As mentioned above, those are the phenomena that are the subject of our study. In this sense, we found that the literature of CoPs explains such phenomena as the result of the combination of four forces that are conceptualized as follows (Wenger, 1998): (a) identity, (b) knowledge sharing, (c) warrant mechanisms and (d) legitimate

Table 1. Blog typologies from existing literature

Author/s Typology Description

Blood (2000; Diaries, participatory media Blood traces the evolution of blogs from diary-like personal 2004) accounts to more interlinked, participatory media. Krishnamurthy Online diaries, support groups, Krishnamurthy classiﬁes blogs based on their content in (2002) enhanced columns, and four quadrants along the axes of Personal vs. Topical and collaborative content. Individual vs. Community. Herring et al. Bridging genre between Herring proposes a continuum between standard HTML (2005) standard HTML documents and documents and text-based CMCs and considers blogs as text-based CMCs a link between them. Miller & Shepherd Weblogs as analogous to logs, Miller and Shepherd study different attributes of weblogs (2004) books, media monitoring such as chronological documentation, collection of links, services, opinion columns, and information collection, and commentary nature and make journals analogies to other historical genres. Hartelius (2005) Weblog content as a continuum In the continuum proposed by Hartelius, topic-oriented from topic-oriented to blogs are further categorized as group and personal blogs. individual-oriented Personal blogs can be supplementary (serving as an extension of the blogger’s identity) or individualizing (revealing details of the blogger’s life). Nowson & Categorized based on Nowson and Oberlander focus on personal blogs and Oberlander personality of blogger. study the individual differences of the bloggers, which are (2007) revealed through the use of language in the blogs.

peripheral participation (LPP). We posit that the theoretical account of these four concepts can help us interpret the constitution of CoPs as well as unravel the social practices that give shape to a blog community. The remainder of this section concentrates on the concepts and their association with the speciﬁc research questions that we explore in our ﬁeldwork.

Identity

Participants in a CoP develop an identity insofar as they are members of the community (Lave, 1991; Wenger, 1998). This is an interesting notion, as it suggests that one of the motivations for joining and maintaining membership in a CoP is to be regarded as knowledgeable and skillful. Therefore, participating in a community provides two functions for individuals: learning by enacting and reproducing the practices of the community, and at the same time, forming and reinforcing the community’s identity. Therefore, the seeking of an identity and being regarded as knowledgeable will motivate individuals to move from the periphery to the centre of a community. In other words, learning and reputation would be the motives to transcend from a newcomer to an old-timer and, hence, become more a part of the community. While prior studies have looked at the role of individuals’ identities in communities, less emphasis has been placed on the identity of the community that emerges from the community’s practices.

Thus, in our study, we will depict the mechanisms that are in place for the formation of the identity of the community.

Knowledge sharing

According to Brown & Duguid (1998), the attribute that maintains cohesion of a CoP and ‘glues’ it together is knowledge. In this case, knowledge is understood as situated and socially constructed (Lave & Wenger, 1991); Berger and Luckman, 1967; Pentland (1995). This means that knowledge is embedded in the institutionalized practices of a community. These practices constitute the identity of the community and are the main source of it for its members (Wenger, 1998). Most of the knowledge transferred and generated in CoPs is tacit, as opposed to explicit or formal, canonical knowledge (Brown & Duguid, 1991; 1998; Lave, 1991). Tacit knowledge is unarticulated and is rooted in experience and dialogical actions (Polanyi, 1958; 1966) and is essential for making sense of explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). Hence, learning only occurs by participating. For Brown & Duguid (1998), it is this sharing of tacit knowledge through dialogical actions that constitutes and ‘glues’ a CoP. Brown & Duguid (1991) provide a clear example of how practices are linked to knowledge. Citing Orr (1990), they describe the manner by which two individuals, possessing different roles within a CoP, make sense of how to repair a machine through the construction of a narrative. In summary, in a CoP, knowledge is mainly tacit and embedded in practices. Consequently, for the purposes of our research, we focus on the process by which knowledge is generated and transferred by the members of a blog community. Speciﬁcally, we identify the practices that are linked to narratives and tacit knowledge.

Warrants

Given the tacit nature of knowledge in CoPs, it is plausible to assume that a newcomer would ﬁnd it difﬁcult to extract or distill the knowledge embedded in the practices of the community. This is what Brown & Duguid (1998) call the ‘stickiness’ of tacit knowledge (see also von Hippel, 1994). Brown and Duguid argue that to overcome this problem, members of the community gradually develop warrants that help them distinguish what is valuable from what is not. Brown and Duguid derive this concept from the work of Garud & Rappa (1994) who found that communities develop common sets of evaluation routines for distinguishing what is important and pertinent. This is also similar to the Kuhnian idea of a paradigm, in which researchers disregard as noise the information that does not conform to their evaluation routines (Kuhn, 1979). In the context of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP), the concept of warrants is fundamental because without warrants, the CoP as presented to a newcomer would lack legitimacy (Garud & Rappa, 1994). For example, in studying internet forums, Pan & Leidner (2003) found a case in which, shortly after creating a forum, managers of an organization had to appoint expert moderators with the purpose of imposing evaluation criteria for the different messages posted. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that without common evaluation

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 60 L Silva et al. routines, CoPs will neither attract newcomers nor maintain old-timers. Accordingly, for the purpose of our research, we assume that blog communities develop evaluation routines, or warrants, that assist them to ascertain relevant content and legitimate participation. In view of that, in our ﬁeldwork, we concentrate on depicting how these warrants are developed and implemented.

LPP

The concept of LPP is central in explaining the formation of CoPs. Brown & Duguid (1998) observe that learning and knowledge transfer occur when newcomers become old-timers by moving from the periphery to the core of a CoP. They illustrate this idea through the example of students new to academia learning initially by ‘lurking on the side of exchanges’ among graduate students and faculty until they gradually become old-timers. LPP, then, explains transfer of knowledge and practices across ‘different methods, different historical periods, and different social and physical environments’. (Brown & Duguid, 1998, p. 48) In the context of our research, we are interested in studying how LPP occurs in a blog community. We intend to identify the social mechanisms by which newcomers become legitimate participants and eventually old-timers. We understand that while LPP would require lurking, not all lurkers become members. One limitation of the concept of LPP is that it does not answer the question of whether or not lurkers are considered a part of the community (Thompson, 2005). However, in this study the concept of LPP is intended to serve as an explanatory mechanism of participation and not as a generalization of how lurkers become members. The idea of legitimacy is associated with the rules of meaning and membership of the CoP (Clegg, 1989) as well as with the perceived sincerity of the newcomer (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Grice, 1989). For example, in academia a new student would be considered a legitimate participant not only by being legally registered but also by exhibiting sincerity. Accordingly, in our research, we are interested in identifying mechanisms that distinguish legitimate from illegitimate participation. In the context of LPP, the term ‘periphery’ refers to the access that a newcomer has to a CoP resulting from an initial process of negotiations (Brown & Duguid, 1991). These negotiations are usually informal because permissions are negotiated tacitly: ‘A great deal of trust grows up around the ability to work with this sort of implicit negotiation. Direct requests and insistence of rights and duties do not work well’. (Brown & Duguid, 1998, p. 105) Therefore, formalizing and controlling peripheral participation would hinder the joining of newcomers, resulting in the stagnation of the CoP (Lave, 1991). Wenger (1998; 2000) also emphasizes the informal and pervasive nature of CoPs. It then follows that new modalities of communication facilitated by the internet such as forums, chats, or blogs – given their casual character and tacit negotiations for access – can yield opportunities for the formation of CoPs (Lave, 1991; Brown & Duguid, 1998). Thus, in our ﬁeldwork, we concentrate on depicting the informal mechanisms of negotiation that grant access to newcomers. Table 2 summarizes the theoretical assumptions and research issues associated with each attribute of our theoretical framework.

Table 2. Theoretical assumptions and research issues

Theoretical assumptions and their Research issues (to be Attribute support in the literature explored in the ﬁeldwork)

Legitimate It explains how knowledge is transferred across Identify the mechanisms by which peripheral different methods, historical periods and geographic newcomers become both legitimate participation locations (Brown & Duguid, 1998). Newcomers are in participants and old-timers, as well as the periphery of the community and gradually become those mechanisms that distinguish old-timers. Legitimacy is associated with rules of legitimate from illegitimate meaning and membership and sincerity (Brown & participation.Identify the informal Duguid, 1991; 1998; Clegg, 1989; Searle, 1969; mechanisms of negotiation that grant Austin, 1962; Grice, 1989). access to newcomers. Knowledge It is situated, socially constructed and a capability to Depict the processes by which sharing perform a future action (Berger & Luckman, 1967; members of an electronic network of Pentland, 1995; Nonaka, 1994; Alavi & Leidner, 2001). practice generate and transfer Knowledge is mostly tacit and embedded in the knowledge.Establish the practices practices of the community (Lave, 1991; Brown & that are linked to narratives and tacit Duguid, 1998; 1991; Polanyi, 1958; 1966). knowledge. Warrants They make it possible for members of the community Identify the mechanisms by which to distinguish what is relevant from what is not (Brown warrants operate and are created. & Duguid, 1998; von Hippel, 1994). Warrants provide legitimacy to the practices of the community and are key in attracting newcomers and retaining old-timers (Garud & Rappa, 1994; Kuhn, 1979; Pan & Leidner, 2003). Identity One of the motivations for participating in communities Describe the mechanisms that of practices is to reinforce identity and enhance operate for reinforcement or creation reputation (Pan & Leidner, 2003).When acting, of the identity of the community. members of a community of practice not only transform or reinforce current practices but also develop or reinforce the identity of the community (Lave, 1991).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

For the purpose of our research, we conducted an interpretive analysis (Taylor, 1971; Sanders, 1982; Walsham, 1993) on the contents of MetaFilter. This section describes our research approach and in so doing we ﬁrst explain the selection of our case and then elucidate the different phases used to conduct our analysis.

Case selection: context of the blog

MetaFilter (or MeFi) is a blog with more than 30 000 registered members who can post a topic and/or comment on different posts. It is read by approximately 150 million people every day (MetaFilter Wiki, http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page). As an anonymous blog, it allows

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 62 L Silva et al. people to post using a ‘handle’ or a nickname. However, members have the option to maintain their profiles, where they can reveal their real names, email addresses, locations, and websites. Members post links to their topics of interest, which can range from technology to news. If the topic interests other members, they start leaving comments on the initial post and a discussion begins. Most of the time, the initial author of the post also gets engaged in posting follow-up comments. Depending on the topic and interest of members, each post can receive between zero to hundreds of comments. MetaFilter was founded by Matthew Haughey, known by the nickname mathowie, in July 1999. Matthew Haughey describes MetaFilter as a blog ‘to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members’ (MetaFilter, http://www.metafilter.com/about.mefi). Membership for MetaFilter was free in the beginning. However, members are now charged a one-time $5 membership fee. MetaFilter is maintained through donations from members and/or readers, the membership fees, and the sale of MetaFilter products. We chose MetaFilter for several reasons. It has been active for approximately nine years, with a continued high membership growth rate, and being one of the pioneers of community blogs (Krishnamurthy, 2002), has been repeatedly mentioned in the media (Carroll, 2003; NPR, 2004; Terdiman, 2004). It receives a high number of posts and comments, varying in topic from technology and internet to education and politics. Thus, MetaFilter constitutes an exemplary case (Yin, 2002) of community blogs.

Method

Our research methodology can be summarized in three major steps. The first step consisted in gathering data from the post archives in the blog website. Since the blog was created in 1999, we decided to examine all the posts and their related comments for that year. This was done with the purpose of obtaining an insight into the genesis of the blog. Given the rapid growth of the community and the high volume of exchanges (over 40 000 posts with zero to hundreds of comments for each), it was impossible to analyze all the posts and comments in subsequent years. To gain a manageable, yet representative subset of data, we decided to follow a stratified sampling approach (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Hence, we looked for trends in the topics of the posts, as well as the number of comments associated with each post. Based on our categorization of the data, we chose posts from the topics of technology, politics, education, entertainment, and news. The categorization was done by one author who scanned the titles of all posts and noted the different topics, and corroborated by a second author. Within each topic, in order to cover a large spectrum of interactions, posts that received very high, average, and very low number of comments were selected randomly. Our final data consisted of thirty eight threads (or posts) containing approximately 1300 comments, averag- ing 220 comments per year. In MetaFilter, a thread is defined as: ‘one of the main messages you see on the MetaFilter homepage. These are the starting points for discussions, and are ideally unique, interesting, valuable links accompanied by commentary that starts an engaging conversation’ (MetaFilter, http://www.metafilter.com/about.mefi).

The second step was organizing and coding the data. To accomplish this, we used a qualitative data analysis tool called NVivo. The software was fundamental for creating and maintaining a case study database that facilitated the analysis and the separation between data and this report (Yin, 2002). Yin recommends keeping a case study database as a measure to strengthen the validity of the study. Because our unit of analysis was a thread, we stored the complete thread (each thread consists of a primary post and all the comments and internet links associated with it). Each thread corresponded to one document in NVivo. Besides threads, documentation from MetaFilter such as the guidelines for posting from the founder, and policies for new users were also saved as NVivo documents. The documents were arranged based on the year and month, which helped us observe the data in a chronological way. In order to code our data, we drew on the four components of our theoretical framework – identity, knowledge, warrants, and LPP. In NVivo, these codes correspond to ‘nodes’. The third and final step was the analysis of our data. We used NVivo for this purpose, too. During our reading and interpretations of the text, new nodes (codes) also emerged. This was essentially a hermeneutic interpretation of the data (Taylor, 1971; Sanders, 1982). The process consisted of several rounds of evaluation to decide whether or not the interpretation made sense against the backdrop of our theoretical framework. The hermeneutical interpretation was first conducted by two researchers. A third researcher then conducted the interpretation independently and the findings were discussed and agreed upon by all three. Once all the data was classified in NVivo, we concentrated on identifying general patterns that depicted the mechanisms and processes we identified as our major research goals (Miles & Huberman, 1994). These mechanisms and processes are described in the next section. Once the mechanisms and processes were articulated, we closed the hermeneutic circle of our interpretations by comparing the meaning and relevance of our findings to our initial theoretical framework as well as to the current body of literature on CoPs. The implications of our findings are discussed in Section 5. To strengthen the validity, we asked a regular member, as opposed to a visitor or novice (Kim, 2000), of MetaFilter to read and comment upon our interpretations (Klein & Myers, 1999; Yin, 2002). He confirmed most of our analy- ses, and when in disagreement, we took his suggestions into account and reanalyzed our interpretations.

RESULTS

In this section, we present the results of our analysis. The ﬁndings are organized in four subsections, each corresponding to the components of our original theoretical framework: identity, knowledge, warrants and LPP. The quotes that we present in this section are those we considered to be the most representative of our data, as it was indicated above we coded all our data according to our theoretical concepts. A summary of our ﬁndings along with their relation to theory and data is presented in Table 3.

Theoretical Theme* Illustrative Data Analytical Generalizations Silva L The Identity MetaFilter is a weblog ...thatanyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical (1) The identity of a community blog is of MetaFilter weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they ﬁnd on the web. contingent to the goals and purposes

This website exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog established by their founders; their al. et

ora oplto 08BakelPbihn Ltd, Publishing Blackwell 2008 © compilation Journal beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members [. . .] MetaFilter: institutionalization depends on It’s shorthand for MetaFilter. The kind of site you can feel so comfy with, it gets a participants valuing its precepts and nickname [. . .] – Matt Haughey acting accordingly. Tacit Knowledge (1) Good Contributions: When the level of discourse here is high, conversations are (1) Attributes of valuable posts are: typiﬁed by good contributions from a variety of viewpoints and experiences. Be ‘intelligence’, ‘thoughtfulness’, respectful of others, bring your experiences and share them with everyone. If you ‘uniqueness’, ‘liveliness’, and ‘insight’; no make a statement of fact, show supporting evidence (hopefully as hyperlinks to matter how hard the community members other web resources). When everyone brings intelligent, thoughtful commentary to try in expounding these warrants, their a thread, MetaFilter is the best it can possibly be. If you have a unique perspective actual meaning only comes with practice. on a topic, by all means contribute. If you’d like to express an opposing viewpoint (2) Participants need to develop the ability to in a respectful way, by all means contribute. If you’d like to add supporting facts foresee that a link or a post is going to and statistics or stories from others you’ve found elsewhere on the web, by all be intriguing for other members; these means contribute. One of the things that makes MetaFilter valuable to its members skills are learnt by trial and error. is the contributions of the community. This means that a comment is appreciated (3) The enactment of warrants and for the value that it adds to the discussion [. . .] The most valuable posts present associated practices is fundamental to new information, new perspectives, and new ideas that challenge each of us to maintain the community as a cohesive nomto ytm Journal Systems Information consider not just what we believe, but why we believe it. unit. (2) A good post is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven’t seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others. (General Guidelines of MetaFilter) (3) I am also reminded of Usenet in 1993. I was an active poster to a particular group

08TeAuthors The 2008 © that will go unnamed. There were only a few posts a day, and the great majority of them were well thought-out and fairly well written. Then, in September of 1993, a number of new voices began to be heard in the newsgroup. They were university

19 students with no knowledge of net culture and little knowledge of what they were

55–81 , writing about. There was much flaming, and many of the new posters left. – Posted by tranquileye at 12:53 PM PST on February 28 ora oplto 08BakelPbihn Ltd, Publishing Blackwell 2008 © compilation Journal Authors The 2008 © Warrants (1) I think [. . .] a mistake that’s sometimes made is to take the humor as *being* the (1) The establishment of warrants for noise. It’s not. You can build a [. . .] facility for exchanging pure information, but distinguishing valuable from invaluable that’s not a community. In a community, people approach each other first as posts is problematic; hence, some degree people. Maybe they value the information that’s being exchanged, maybe that’s of self or imposed moderateness is even their primary motivation for coming back, but all that information exchange is required. mediated by the social life of the community. People in communities laugh, tease, (2) In cases of self moderation participants flirt, chide, cheer, mope, nag, preen, gang up, sulk, jeer, fart loudly in church, the draw on the identity of the poster as a whole bit. You have wise elders, candidates for mayor, whippersnappers, yobbos warrant to evaluate the value of the and village idiots, you have legends, running gags, Oscar the Grouch and Crazy messages. Uncle Joe. From the standpoint of someone wanting to mine the site for information, it’s noise, but it’s not *just* noise. There’s no one recipe that says ‘the ideal site must be 80% pure data, 10% self-governance and 10% grooming rituals’. Everyone has his or her own idea of the way things should be, and none of them work all that well, thank god. – Posted by rodii at 8:41 PM PST on February 27Rodii: Maybe the community is the problem. Maybe to get rid of the noise you need to get rid of the community. Though, of course some people like the noise. nomto ytm Journal Systems Information Then again [. . .] who decides what’s signal and what’s noise? – Posted by davidgentle at 9:41 PM PST on February 27 (2) Since there is no (imposed) moderation in MetaFilter, I usually skim to see lgcmuiisadMetaFilter and communities Blog comments from people I know or know of. I might read someone else’s posts if someone I know refers to it. The rest I ignore. – Posted by Calebos at 8:13 PM PST on February 27 Enforcing of (1) [. . .] Then the idiots came in and ruined the discussions with too many stupid (1) There are two groups, new comers and the warrants (LPP) posts. Granted there are a few idiots who contribute a few too many stupid posts. old-timers. The latter feels responsible to 19 But if you let them ruin the conversation [. . .] I’m sorry [. . .] discussion, that’s your discipline the former on matters of 55–81 , problem. You tell them to shut up (either mentally or by posting it) and then move applying warrants. on to the next post that you deem acceptible. – Posted by crushed at 2:01 AM (2) Community members deploy three types PST on February 28 of techniques of discipline to enforce (2) Great conversation here, by the way. Thanks all. – Posted by LarryC at 6:53 AM warrants: (a) ignoring posts, (b) PST on October 3 congratulatory comments and (c) ridicule. (3) uncanny hengeman writes ‘I thought he was Jack the Ripper’. Awesome comment. Cheers, man. – Posted by mr_roboto at 10:45 PM PST on

October 5 65

*The text within parenthesis refers to the concept of the theoretical framework from which the theme is derived. 66 L Silva et al.

The identity of MetaFilter: a community of bloggers

The deﬁnition of MetaFilter as a community blog is stated in the general information part of its site:

MetaFilter is a weblog [. . .] that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they ﬁnd on the web. This website exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members [. . .] MeFi: It’s shorthand for MetaFilter. The kind of site you can feel so comfy with, it gets a nickname [. . .] – Matt Haughey

We can learn of the identity of MetaFilter through its objective (to break down barriers [. . .] and to extend blogs beyond individual using), its rules of participation (anyone can contribute [. . .]), the technology that enables it (weblogs), and its values (feeling comfortable). As they become active members, participants gradually learn the values and rules of the community. Making the identity explicit is interesting because the identities of real life (RL) CoPs are often tacit (Brown & Duguid, 1991), (Wenger, 1998). However, in a blog community, making the identity of the community explicit is fundamental, given that written text is the only resource that participants can draw on to make sense of the practices of their community. The above quote also helps us set the boundaries of our study because it is clear that not any blog would constitute a community (Krishnamurthy, 2002; Herring et. al., 2005). For us, a community enabled by a weblog would require the participation, interaction, and exchanges of several individuals. Moreover, they would have to identify themselves as a community. One of the key attributes of the identity of MetaFilter is its ‘openness’, not only explicitly expressed by the welcoming of different members, but also reﬂected in the content of the posts. The latter sentiment is summarized in the quote below, taken from a discussion about the identity of MetaFilter.

[. . .] the neat thing about MetaFilter is that it is not centered on anything in particular other than discussing the web. There’s no rule saying it has to be philosophical in its quality (ie. Like plastic.com, kuro5hin.org) or in the ‘mainstream’ (whatever that is, ie /.). If someone ﬁnds something interesting, he posts it. – Posted by samsara

The data above also suggests that the ‘openness’ in membership and content distinguishes MetaFilter from other communities, and that its members are not only aware of these attributes but also value them. This twofold openness, we argue, helps increase the number of participants as well as the number of posts:

Online communities are no different from RL communities in that they need the inﬂux of new members/residents to remain vital and that they all carry some of the responsibility of keeping the community vibrant/safe/orderly/interesting [. . .] MetaFilter at its best reminds me of a college dormitory corridor at 1 a.m. where folks are hanging out, talking about whatever is on their minds, with a few die-hards hammering out a debate whilst others chime as they pass by. – Posted by Avogadro

The above quote re-emphasizes the informality of MetaFilter practices. However, this diversity could result in the development of different groups within the community. As will be discussed in depth in the following sections, the convergence of different groups in the same space may be a source of contention. In sum, the identity of a blog community is contingent on the goals and purposes of its founders. Its institutionalization depends on participants valuing its precepts and acting accordingly. In the case of blogs, because blogs are ‘owned’ by individuals (Herring et. al., 2005), they can deﬁne the contents and the dynamics they want for their blogs. Whether they become a community or not depends on whether the blog services an existent or latent community (Wenger, 1998). In this sense Wenger (1998, p. 229) says that CoPs as such cannot be designed: ‘Practice is not amenable to design.’ In other words, one can articulate patterns or deﬁne procedures, but neither the patterns nor the procedures produce the practice as it unfolds.

The core practices of MetaFilter – tacit knowledge

The core practices of MetaFilter are those of composing, posting and reading comments. Therefore, the tacit knowledge that glues their community blog lies in the enacting of these practices (Wenger, 1998). CoPs are organized around their shared practices. The members of CoPs engage in a practice jointly, through which they establish their identities in the community. The shared practice may develop more or less in a self-conscious way. According to Wenger (1998), a practice can be identiﬁed because it exhibits a shared repertoire of resources such as experiences, stories and ways for addressing recurring problems. In addition, a practice displays mutual engagement, and is purposeful. Though the practices in MetaFilter are not salient, the fact that MetaFilter has shared resources (the blog technology, links, posts), norms and rules, and mutual engagement of members helps argue that it is a community held together by a practice. The purpose of MetaFilter community is to, through blogging, ﬁlter information and discuss stories of interest. One skill that individuals have to develop is that of distinguishing ‘good’ posts from ‘bad’ ones. In a blog community, the development of this skill is supported by the articulation of warrants. As with the identity of the community, the main warrants for evaluating valuable knowledge cannot be totally tacit as they can in RL communities. Warrants have to be made explicit to some extent. Accordingly, in the New User page of MetaFilter, its founder, Matt Haughey, attempts to clarify what constitutes a ‘good’ thread:

Good Contributions: When the level of discourse here is high, conversations are typiﬁed by good contributions from a variety of viewpoints and experiences. Be respectful of others, bring your experiences and share them with everyone. If you make a statement of fact, show supporting evidence (hopefully as hyperlinks to other web resources). When everyone brings intelligent, thoughtful commentary to a thread, MetaFilter is the best it can possibly be. If you have a unique perspective on a topic, by all means contribute. If you’d like to express an opposing viewpoint in a respectful way, by all means contribute. If you’d like to add

supporting facts and statistics or stories from others you’ve found elsewhere on the web, by all means contribute. One of the things that makes MetaFilter valuable to its members is the contributions of the community. This means that a comment is appreciated for the value that it adds to the discussion [. . .] The most valuable posts present new information, new perspectives, and new ideas that challenge each of us to consider not just what we believe, but why we believe it. Therefore, the attributes for ‘good’ posts are: ‘intelligence’, ‘thoughtfulness’, ‘uniqueness’, ‘liveliness’, ‘insight’, and ‘factuality’. However, no matter how hard MetaFilter members try, the warrants cannot be made explicit enough; these are essentially tacit and can only be fully learnt by participating in the community. For example, there will always be questions about what is meant by intelligent messages. The impossibility of making tacit knowledge explicit has been discussed thoroughly by philosophers such as Wittgenstein (1968), Taylor (1992) and Polanyi (1966) and in the field of organization studies by Nonaka (1994). Hence, our findings suggest that no matter how diligently the owners and participants of a blog community attempt to make them explicit, warrants can only be learnt by actively engaging in the core practices of the community. Thus, as will be discussed below, what constitutes a ‘good’ post is often a matter of uncertainty for newcomers and debate for old-timers. In addition to the ability to distinguish ‘good’ posts from ‘bad’ ones, community members are required to be proficient in other practices. One relevant practice is the ability to find what other members would consider to be intriguing and intelligent internet links. Accordingly, participants share with other members what they consider to be interesting web pages. This is done through the posting of links to those web pages: [. . .] a good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven’t seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others. (General Guidelines of MetaFilter) Again, as with posts, we argue that learning to evaluate what a good link is only comes through practice. In the case of blog communities, this necessarily entails learning by trial and error. Furthermore, the possibility of including hyperlinks to other web pages, as well as to the profile of the person posting, is a key attribute of blogs (Herring et al., 2005). Our data also suggests that to be an effective community member, a participant in MetaFilter has to be a proficient writer. A skillful writer will bring wit and substance to his postings. The following quote contains thoughts of a member regarding the quality of posts in MetaFilter: I am also reminded of Usenet in 1993. I was an active poster to a particular group that will go unnamed. There were only a few posts a day, and the great majority of them were well thought-out and fairly well written. Then, in September of 1993, a number of new voices began to be heard in the newsgroup. They were university students with no knowledge of net culture and little knowledge of what they were writing about. There was much flaming, and many of the new posters left. – Posted by tranquileye As in the case of ‘good’ posts and links, there is no explicit definition of a well-written comment. Yet, we learn from our data that a substantive post conveys interesting and

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 Blog communities and MetaFilter 69 intelligent content. The writings also have to exhibit ‘net culture’, which means that the posts should be associated with appropriate internet etiquette; i.e. members should respect others’ opinions and should avoid posting messages as ‘baits’ for flames. In short, they should avoid trolling. Trolls are individuals who post hostile messages on the online discussions, such as on online forums, in order to upset other members and/or disrupt the discussions. Therefore, the capability of interpreting text and foreseeing favorable responses is a practice mastered by the veterans of the community. We argue that these skills, by virtue of their tacit nature, can only be learnt by practicing posting links, developing the ability to identify links that the community will find interesting, and by crafting messages demonstrating intelligence and ‘net etiquette’. Furthermore, we have made a case that these features are only possible because of the unique attributes of blogs. The question now at hand is: what are the specific techniques applied by community members to evaluate the value of postings?

Warrants

A constant theme we found in our data was that of community members referring to ‘good’ posts as ‘signal’ and to ‘bad’ ones as ‘noise’. However, because the rules for distinguishing noise from signal cannot be made explicit, the differentiation between the two is not only a source of uncertainty but also a matter of contention for community members. The difﬁculty of applying this warrant is illustrated in the following extract from a discussion about the quality of posting in MetaFilter where davidgentle responds to a post by Rodii:

I think [. . .] a mistake that’s sometimes made is to take the humor as *being* the noise. It’s not. You can build a [. . .] facility for exchanging pure information, but that’s not a community. In a community, people approach each other ﬁrst as people. Maybe they value the information that’s being exchanged, maybe that’s even their primary motivation for coming back, but all that information exchange is mediated by the social life of the community. People in communities laugh, tease, ﬂirt, chide, cheer, mope, nag, preen, gang up, sulk, jeer, fart loudly in church, the whole bit. You have wise elders, candidates for mayor, whippersnappers, yobbos and village idiots, you have legends, running gags, Oscar the Grouch and Crazy Uncle Joe. From the standpoint of someone wanting to mine the site for information, it’s noise, but it’s not *just* noise. There’s no one recipe that says ‘the ideal site must be 80% pure data, 10% self-governance and 10% grooming rituals’. Everyone has his or her own idea of the way things should be, and none of them work all that well, thank god. – Posted by rodii at 8:41 PM PST on February 27

Rodii: Maybe the community is the problem. Maybe to get rid of the noise you need to get rid of the community. Though, of course some people like the noise. Then again ...who decides what’s signal and what’s noise? – Posted by davidgentle at 9:41 PM PST on February 27

The differentiation between noise and signal is a fundamental problem in online communities as has been already indicated by Pan & Leidner (2003). Given this challenge, some of these

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 70 L Silva et al. communities enforce this warrant by instituting moderation; that is the imposing of expert tutelage on the posts so that those considered as noise are removed (Ibid.). In the case of MetaFilter, whose owner opted for not having formal moderation, the choice of a criterion for distinguishing noise from signal is left to its members:

Since there is no moderation on MetaFilter, I usually skim to see comments from people I know or know of. I might read someone else’s posts if someone I know refers to it. The rest I ignore. – Posted by Calebos

Consequently, given the self-moderation modality adopted by MetaFilter, the reputation and identity of the participants becomes a key attribute of the post, which other members often draw upon to distinguish valuable posts. Accordingly, in MetaFilter each message is signed through the member’s nickname, which contains a link to the member’s profile. The information contained in the profile indicates how long the individual has been a member, as well as the total number of messages and links authored by the individual. In addition to that information, there are hyperlinks to the specific comments and links posted by the member. In this way, a reader can evaluate each post against the background of the author’s identity. The relevance of individual identities to dissociate noise from signal is illustrated in the following quote from a member’s (greyscale) post, in which the member suggests ways to improve the quality of comments in MetaFilter:

[. . .] it would be nice to have a vague notion of where ppl [people] are from (physically) to better understand where the ideas tend to come from. you could better hypothesize if weather, job market, and other factors influence ideas/ideals/logic reflected in MF posts. I’m talking State or country. As in Central CA usa = greyscale. Hey Matt (the founder of MetaFilter), can you incorporate this into the MF profile using ip address or volutarily? This could almost be more useful than your MF handle: if you knew that the post was from a 13y/o white male in SFO representing some fringe surfers against pollution or something you’d get a better picture of whether it was worth following the discussion or not....then you could flag all the content and have a feature where you pull up everything from ppl of similar background, locale, etc to see if you’re typical, or nuts, etc. – Posted by greyscale

We thus found that the identity and reputation of those posting are warrants on which participants draw to evaluate the value of posts. This is an interesting finding because the application of warrants to contributions in a RL community often occurs through oral narratives, gestures, reputation and even physical attributes of members (Wenger, 1998). Clearly, these resources are not available in an online community (Brown & Duguid, 1998) where members depend only on text. Hence, given the constraints of an online community, its participants must rely on text regarding other members’ location, experience, and seniority to understand the posts. In this sense, the hyperlink features of weblog software provide MetaFilter with this key facility. To summarize, our analysis suggests that community blogs may find it difficult to establish the warrants for distinguishing valuable posts. Because warrants are fundamental for the

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 Blog communities and MetaFilter 71 existence of a blog community and given that they cannot be developed by personal interaction as in the case of RL communities, we argue that some degree of moderation is required. This moderation may occur by either explicitly appointing individuals who are responsible for patrolling the site or, as with MetaFilter, by self-policing. Even though MetaFilter is an open community (i.e. anyone can post), it has disclaimers stating that antisocial behaviour and not following the rules may result in the member being banned from the site: ‘If you sign up an account to pimp your product, act like an ass, or generally just do things that break the guidelines you will be booted and there will be no refunded donations’ (MetaFilter, http:// www.metaﬁlter.com/newuser.MetaFilter). The challenge, then, for those posting messages is to learn what attributes in a message will provoke discussion, raise interest, and attract praise from other community members. That, we argue, will come only by constant practice and the continued effort of other members in enforcing the values of the community.

Legitimate peripheral participation: enforcing the warrants

The question at hand is how the community institutionalizes its warrants. Answering this question would allow us to identify an important mechanism by which the community remains cohesive. We argue that the distinction between signal and noise is a matter of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1977). We highlight the relevance of power in this context given that this is one of the limitations of CoPs. In a critical view of CoP, Fox (2000) and Blackler & McDonald (2000) argue that a speciﬁc weakness of the theory of CoP is that it neglects the role of power in the process of collective learning (c.f. Vygotsky, 1978; 1987). Power, in this case, operates in three dimensions: rules of meaning, rules of membership, and techniques of discipline (Clegg, 1989; Silva, 2007). Because the rules for distinguishing noise from signal are not explicit, they are a matter of debate and contention:

If MetaFilter suffers from stupid posts it’s its own fault. New users are instructed to watch things for a while to get a feel for what kind of links get posted. I watched a long time, and know what? There were no clear patterns in the types of links posted and no posted criteria for what links are appropriate. – Posted by ﬂeener

Data suggest that as conﬂicts arise between old-timers and newcomers, power is mani- fested in rules of membership, with the old-timers acting as gatekeepers. Seniority provides old-timers with a reputation that serves as social capital and provides them with authority to correct newcomers. One of the most common techniques old-timers use to discipline newcomers is to ridicule and even insult those who post messages that do not ﬁt their views of what constitutes valuable knowledge. The following quote illustrates that point:

[. . .] Then the idiots came in and ruined the discussions with too many stupid posts. Granted there are a few idiots who contribute a few too many stupid posts. But if you let them ruin the conversation [. . .] I’m sorry [. . .] discussion, that’s your problem. You tell them to shut up (either mentally or by posting it) and then move on to the next post that you deem acceptable. – Posted by crushed 20

In correcting newcomers, old-timers draw on different techniques of discipline to enforce their understanding of what is a valuable message. These types of comments discourage newcomers from posting especially if they are not certain about their skills: I had a really intelligent and insightful addition to make to this topic, but I’ve not been here very long and someone important might have thought it wasn’t, so I didn’t. – Posted by normy When newcomers read ridiculing comments, they are deterred from posting because they anticipate the insults. This is similar to what Bachrach & Baratz (1962) called the mobilization of bias, i.e., the exercise of power by deterring individuals from acting as a consequence of anticipating rejection. We found that in order to institutionalize the practices and values of the community, members would use three types of disciplinary techniques: (a) ignoring the posts, (b) making congratulatory comments, and (c) ridiculing. This separation is done with analytical purposes. As will be shown in the data below, messages may contain a combination of these techniques. The ignoring technique is used to single out uninteresting or repetitive posts. For example, a member, hortense, posted a link that showed live images of locations where orcas supposedly appear. This link received only two comments, both from old-timers: This reminds me of The Puppy Channel, featured on this episode of This American Life. – Posted by mosch at 12:20 AM PST on September 1

Previously posted here. Posted by lobakgo at 11:48 AM PST on September 3 The link to the orcas’ site was received with indifference and sarcasm. The inexperience of the member who posted the link is made apparent by the old-timers, who make evident his inexperience and lack of awareness of the archives and posts of MetaFilter. Conversely, when a participant posts a comment that is regarded as substantial, he will be often complemented. For example, after an exchange discussing diet and behaviour in schools, an old-timer wrote the following: Great conversation here, by the way. Thanks all. – Posted by LarryC The congratulatory tone for approving messages also takes a dialogical form. For example, after reading each other’s message about how to ‘make poverty history in Africa’, two members, three blind mice and carmen exchanged complements. three blind mice: carmen, good points all. – Posted by three blind mice at 11:44 AM PST on January 3

carmen: [. . .] thanks, three blind mice [. . .] – Posted by carmen at 3:42 PM PST on January 31 By contrast, posts that are considered to contradict the values of the community receive inﬂammatory and even insulting replies. The following excerpt from a discussion about new research regarding the identity of Shakespeare received sarcastic remarks. uncanny hengeman writes ‘I thought he was Jack the Ripper’. Awesome comment. Cheers, man. – Posted by mr_roboto at 10:45 PM PST on October 5

A post like this, in which a previous comment receives sarcastic comments from an old-timer, is a common theme in threads. These techniques of discipline are effective in that they affect the reputation of individuals. The member receiving an insulting remark may see himself as being undermined, while the one posting it may see himself gaining more respect from other community members. Of course, this is not a strict rule because sometimes the opposite may occur when the community deems a message as coming from a troll. Whatever the case, techniques of discipline operate in the social construction of reputations and the group membership (consisting of newcomers and old-timers) grants rights and obligations. It is in this way that power operates through rules of meaning, rules of membership, and techniques of discipline; and, it is in this way that warrants and practices become institutionalized.

DISCUSSION

We have conducted an interpretive study of MetaFilter, a community blog. The summary of our main findings, and their relation to theory and data, are presented in Table 3. We have identified the core practices, values, and warrants that are constitutive of the community. Moreover, we found the techniques of discipline used by community members to enforce values, warrants, and the integrity of the practices. In this section, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, as well as the limitations and areas for further research.

Theoretical implications

The theoretical implications are presented in the form of analytical generalizations (Yin, 2002; Lee & Baskerville, 2003). The main purpose of these analytical generalizations is to present our ﬁndings in a parsimonious form and in no way do they pretend to be exact predictions. However, they could be the grounds for conducting conﬁrmatory studies. Analytical Generalization 1: Community blogs cannot exist without moderation. Informality is a vital quality of CoPs as it facilitates the creation and sharing of tacit knowledge. In this sense, the literature of CoPs (see Lave, 1991; Brown & Duguid, 1998) suggests that establishing formalism for membership, participation, and practices in a community hinders the creation and dissemination of knowledge. However, our study shows that MetaFilter could not exist without a degree of structure and formality. For example, the need to avoid trolls in MetaFilter prompted its founder to establish formal procedures for accessing and participating in the community. These procedures consisted of imposing a fee for participation, establishing a log-in for posting messages, and announcing that whoever behaves anti-socially will be banned from the community. Even though in MetaFilter the posting and reading of messages is obviously voluntary, the community is not totally open and self- organized. We found that the aforementioned levels of formality in membership and in regu-

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 74 L Silva et al. lating participation are required in order to maintain the cohesiveness of the community. Without those formalities we argue that the community would not exist. Analytical Generalization 2: The exercise of disciplinary power by old-timers is fundamental for the blog to have cohesion. Our study also contributes to the body of knowledge of blog communities by identifying specific techniques of discipline applied by old-timers to enact, and even enforce, the warrants that evaluate other members’ participation. We claim that this is a contribution given that the literature of online communities, although rich in discussions on cooperation and informality (see for example: Komito, 1998; Etzioni & Etzioni, 1999; Bakardjieva & Feenberg, 2002; Wilson & Peterson, 2002) seldom dwells on power. In this sense, we found that the structuring of membership is an exercise of power by the founder of the blog, and so is the application of techniques of discipline by the old-timers; i.e. the ignoring, complementing or ridiculing a post. Without those techniques, the readers of MetaFilter would have problems in differentiating noise from signal: the content will become incoherent. Thus, in a community such as Meta- Filter, power does not play an obstructive role, rather a facilitative one, because its exercise is fundamental for keeping the community united, and for maintaining a sense of purpose (Parsons, 1967; Clegg, 1989). The organizing of the community is, therefore, an achievement of power (Clegg, 1989). Analytical Generalization 3: In a community blog the profile and identity of the participant become warrants for the quality of the postings and links. Lave (1991) indicates that in CoPs, the need to be known is what moves a newcomer from the periphery of the community to the centre. Lave (1991) states that ‘developing an identity as a member of a community and becoming knowledgeably skillful are part of the same process, with the former motivating, shaping, and giving meaning to the latter, which it subsumes’ (p.65). In our case, we observed a similar process as old-timers often carried a reputation of being knowledgeable (which could also be a means of exercising power), while newcomers were usually insecure about how their posts would be received by other community members. Moreover, our data showed that the identity of the participants is symbiotically and physically linked to their posts by the hyperlink facilities provided by the software. In this way, the reputation of the individual becomes a warrant for the messages. Old-timers support their contributions and comments with their seniority which can be assessed by just clicking on the hyperlink attached to their handlers. This analytical generalization suggests that any community blog that wishes to help participants make sense of the quality of contributions should include a clear way of linking postings to individual profiles and sources, as in Meta- Filter. Furthermore, as in the case of MetaFilter, the system keeps count of the postings, length of time of membership, and even provides links to all the messages posted by one participant. Hence, we argue that without the facility of establishing the background of contributors, the evaluation of MetaFilter’s content would become virtually impossible. Analytical Generalization 4: Participants’ experiences recorded in the form of narratives are integrated into the individuals’ identities.

We propose that an individual’s decision to participate in a community blog is not completely based on a rational calculation, where he acts with the sole purpose of increasing his reputation. We argue that participation occurs because the reputation gained in the community is incorporated into the identity of the individual. Given the complexity inherent in the concept of identity, we limit the scope of our discussion to the boundaries established earlier in the theory section that touches on identity and that are centred on narratives. Giddens explains how identity is acquired through narratives:

A person’s identity is not to be found in behavior, nor – important though this is – in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. The individual’s biography, if she is to maintain regular interaction with others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly ﬁctive. It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing ‘story’ about the self (Giddens, 1991, p. 54).

Accordingly, in the case of blog communities, the feedback received by a participant is incorporated into her or his identity. Hence, we propose that the likelihood of an individual returning to the community will be correlated with the degree of positive reception of his postings. The more encouraging the reception, the more likely the individual will return. Thus, the identity of the participant is constructed by posting messages, reflecting on the effect that those messages have on other members, and most importantly by keeping a narrative of his own biography in the community (in MetaFilter this takes place in the profile information of each participant). Therefore, the participation of individuals in a blog does not follow a cold or calculated thought process of how a message may increase their reputations; rather it can be a fundamental exercise in the formation of an individual’s identity. This is relevant because, as mentioned above, other studies (see Wasko & Faraj, 2005) found that the major reasons for individuals to contribute to an electronic forum was the enhancement of their reputations. Although we do not refute the possibility that in a professional forum reputation is a driver for posting, we argue that those studies do not explain participation in an anonymous blog community such as the one we studied. The question in this situation is how somebody concealing his identity can be concerned about his reputation. We argue that this is indeed the case because the exchanges and the reflections are so intense that what they mean to the individual is incorporated into his identity in a similar manner as proposed by Giddens (1991).

Implications for practitioners

The recommendations to practitioners are summarized in the form of design principles. These principles are intended for organizations or individuals interested in implementing blog communities supported by weblog technologies. We do not claim that these principles are exhaus- tive as clearly more research in this area is required. Yet, we adopt the form of principles given the impossibility of dictating speciﬁc designs. Speciﬁc designs will be contingent on the particular negotiations between designers and users. Thus, we propose these principles as a general guideline to mediate those negotiations.

Principle 1: Community blogs should not be imposed; they have to support either extant or latent practices.

The point here is that a practice cannot be imposed from one community on another. In this sense, Wenger (1998, p. 234) categorically states that: ‘No community can fully design the learning of another’. This is relevant for managers interested in applying blogs for fostering learning in their organizations as they cannot expect an automatic adoption. This principle suggests the impracticability of believing that, for example, a blog designed exclusively by IT people will automatically engender posts and comments by other organizational members. In the spirit of Wenger’s observation, we suggest that it is not the blog that finds the practice, but it is the practice that finds the blog. Hence, the application of weblogs will require establishing a dialogue between designers and users in which the practice to be supported by the blog is realized. In the case of implementing a community blog such as MetaFilter, organizations should support extant communities that are interested in the filtering of information. This is an opportunity for mutual learning as users can also learn what new opportunities are offered by applying blog technology. In fact, this principle of participative design has been known for a long time in the IS design literature (see for example: Mumford, 1987; Checkland & Scholes, 1990; Markus & Keil, 1994; Markus et al., 2002). What we are suggesting with this principle is that the application of technologies such as blogs should not be approached differently as the design of other types of systems.

Principle 2: Community blogs are appropriate to support extant working practices in which the ﬁltering of information and commenting on posts are fundamental.

In MetaFilter, the know-how and sense making shared by its members centre around information published on the internet. Hence, there are two core practices defining the community: the finding of intriguing links and the posting of interesting comments. We argue that MetaFilter’s popularity comes mainly from the value people assign to the links and posts brought by its members. The internet is an ocean of information and it is difficult to make sense of its content. Thus, blog community members help one another in filtering the internet by bringing interesting and fresh comments and links. Therefore, an organization who would like to apply blogs may consider situations in which there is a huge domain of information – for example in the internet or in a large intranet – in which members of a community would welcome being made aware of interesting links. Of course, managers need to take into account all the considerations pointed above in the theoretical implications section, particularly those regarding identity and moderation. Besides the aforementioned characteristics, although obvious, good and clear writing is an important attribute of blogging (Silva et al., 2006).

CONCLUSION

Our ﬁndings have allowed us to answer our main research question: what are the social processes that provide cohesion and give shape to a blog community. In sum, we found that

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 Blog communities and MetaFilter 77 the identity of MetaFilter is initially proposed by its founder. The defined identity is the carrier of values such as openness and wit. It also establishes the defining practice of the community blog, that of posting interesting links and intelligent comments. These values are enacted by members of the community who define their own warrants and their own techniques of discipline to enforce it. We found that the cohesion of the community depends on the effective enactment of the warrants and the techniques of discipline. It is through constant practice and compliance with the values of MetaFilter that a newcomer becomes an old-timer. We found that using the elements of (1) identity, (2) knowledge sharing, (3) warrant mechanisms, and (4) LPP of CoPs as our theoretical lens was instrumental in identifying these dynamics. The identification of these dynamics allowed us to draw practical and theoretical implications. In terms of practical implications, we have learnt that organizations considering the adoption of technologies for fostering the creation and dissemination of knowledge need to define clear rules of participation and membership. They will have to establish moderators, a way to link messages with the identities of the posters, and keep physical archives as a measure for safeguarding the memory of the community. In addition, our discussion on warrants suggests that training programs aimed at implementing these types of technologies should focus not only on the technical aspects of the software but also on the importance of writing compelling and unique narratives. Moreover, we suggest, based on our findings, that the design of a blog should be participative. Our study has contributed to the literature of blog communities, specifically by indicating that some degree of formality and structure are required to maintain the integrity of the community. Moreover, this study has identified particular techniques of discipline that are applied by old-timers to enforce the warrants of the community. Because blogs are a relatively new phenomenon, it is clear that there are still many aspects that warrant further research. One of the areas that call for further investigation is what makes an individual participate or not participate in a blog community; what makes him stay or leave. Furthermore, although we identified several attributes (such as the need for moderation and structure of the membership) that we consider essential for the cohesiveness of the community, we do not yet know the attributes that cause a community to be more attractive than others. A comparative study may help to answer such a question. This study benefited from the fact that all the exchanges among participants are documented in the text files that constitute the archives of the community. Focusing exclusively on text has advantages and disadvantages. It grants the researchers the certainty of having no influence on the subjects of study. This is an advantage, given that the possibility of researchers influencing the phenomenon they are studying is one of the most difficult challenges faced by qualitative researchers (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998). However, focusing exclusively on text is limiting in the sense that it does not allow the researchers to observe how participants produce and interpret the text. For this reason, an area of further research could be to conduct a qualitative study in which a researcher observes participants in the acts of producing and interpreting text. Likewise, a researcher can conduct a study in which he becomes a participant of the community. A study such as that, despite the ethical considerations that would have to be addressed, could provide an even deeper understanding of the application of techniques of

© 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 19, 55–81 78 L Silva et al. discipline and warrants to maintain the integrity of a community. Another limitation of our study is that we only collected data on a particular period in the life of MetaFilter. However, the dynamic nature of the blog would always produce that limitation. We also found that, as a theoretical lens, CoPs has limitations. In this sense, we conﬁrmed the criticisms of CoPs that point out that it leaves aside power. Our study found that without the exercise of power through the disciplinary techniques imposed by old-timers and the owner of the blog, the existence of the community would be jeopardized. Another limitation of our theoretical lens is that it does not account for lurkers. It is plausible to believe that lurkers learn from the blog without being participants. So the limitation in CoPs is to afﬁrm that learning can only occur through participation. Thus, as suggested in the theory section, CoPs would gain more explanatory power if it were to integrate concepts such as power and also allow the possibility of learning without participation. The exploration of these avenues could be grounds for justifying further research in these areas. All in all, this study has shown that communication technologies such as weblogs can be the media by which CoPs are constituted and also can be the media by which the identities of the individuals and the community as a whole are created and strengthened. Nevertheless, our understanding of the interplay between communication technologies and communities is still just beginning. This paper represents a modest contribution to the body of knowledge of such an emergent phenomenon.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge two colleagues, Jennifer González-Reinhart and Hesam Panahi for their constructive comments and feedback. We also would like to thank the associate editor and two anonymous reviewers. The editorial leadership of the associate editor facilitated the positive evolution of the manuscript.

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von Hippel, E. (1994) Sticky information and the locus of Lakshmi Goel is a PhD candidate in the Decision and problem solving: implications for innovations. Manage- Information Sciences department at the C.T. Bauer ment Science, 40, 429–439. College of Business, University of Houston. She holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Her research interests include knowledge Author Biographies sharing, learning, and collaboration through information technologies such as blogs, wikis, knowledge manage- Leiser Silva is an Assistant Professor in the Decision and ment systems, and virtual worlds. She is also interested in Information Sciences Department at the C. T. Bauer strategic, socio-psychological and managerial facets of College of Business, University of Houston. He holds a information systems. Lakshmi can be reached at lgoel@ PhD in Information Systems from the London School of uh.edu. Economics and Political Science. His current research Elham Mousavidin is a PhD candidate in the Decision examines issues of power and politics in the adoption and and Information Sciences Department at the C.T. Bauer implementation of information systems. In addition, he is College of Business, University of Houston. She received looking at managerial facets of information systems, spe- her MBA from the C.T. Bauer College of Business. Cur- ciﬁcally contextual and institutional aspects. His research rently she is studying technological frames of reference in has been published in journals such as MIS Quarterly, the process of information systems development (ISD). Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Com- Her other research interests include web-enabled commu- munications of the Association for Information Systems, nities (e.g. weblogs) and virtual worlds, and their potential European Journal of Information Systems, Information applications in organizations. Elham can be reached at Systems Journal, Information and Organization, The Infor- [email protected]. mation Society, and Information Technology and People.

Exploring the Dynamics of Blog Communities: the Case of Metafilter Leiser Silva*, Lakshmi Goel† & Elham Mousavidin‡ *C

Exploring the Dynamics of Blog Communities: the Case of Metafilter Leiser Silva, Lakshmi Goel† & Elham Mousavidin‡ C