Building successful online communities

What Hacker News says

1. schneemsOct 2026
   > I think it's more than "interesting theory". I've seen dang comment more than once to the effect that comments > upvotes = off the front page.

   The plural of anecdote is not data. I believe you. Also, I'm not going to set my priors on 0% chance it's not something else 100% of the time.

   > Let's say that an article has 50 upvotes and 20 comments. Posting 31 comments

   You're coming from an intentional actor angle. I was more thinking: people who are riled up and don't like something are more likely to post multiple comments (rage bait). So whether or not they intend to have that outcome, their emergent behavior has that effect. And if they're starting flame wars they only need N/2 number of comments if every comment draws a response. Fewer if multiple respond (which is usually true for the most horrible takes). I think it's cheaper and easier to do than you make out. If they can draw 5 responses per comment, they only need 7 comments total (round up).

   The book "Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design" by MIT press for where my head is at.

   How did you stumble on this comment thread in a nuked (for whatever reason) post anyway?

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2. jasonhongOct 2024
   This is a really great question, and well beyond my areas of expertise. What I can point you to is this excellent book by my colleague Bob Kraut and several of his colleagues, entitled Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. It summarizes a lot of empirical research into design claims, about how to socialize newcomers, increasing contributions, quality of contributions, and more.

   https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/2912/Building-Success...

   You might also look into research on pro-social behaviors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosocial_behavior

   One of my favorite books that I learned about from my colleagues is Influence by Robert Cialdini. It looks at how to use known social influence tactics to change people's behaviors. Ideally, these would be used for things that society widely regards as positive (e.g. less littering), though these have also been used for phishing attacks and other dark patterns.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini

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3. schneemsJan 2023
   There’s equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Just because everyone is treated equally doesn’t mean that the end result isn’t biased. Truly: there is no such thing as apolitical technology.

   I recommend MIT books Building Successful Online Communities. Also I’m reading the updated version of “Code” which has a bit about online communities I quote a lot:

   Lessig (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, norms, markets, and technology

   - Code/architecture – the physical or technical constraints on activities (e.g. locks on doors or firewalls on the Internet)

   - Market – economic forces

   - Law – explicit mandates that can be enforced by the government

   - Norms – social conventions that one often feels compelled to follow

   Regarding the case at hand. I think getting rid of 230 is a really dangerous idea. However I completely reject the “we have no sway over our users” argument and think we should hold online institutions socially (more) accountable for not doing more to encourage and promote high quality non-toxic communities.

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4. jasonhongSep 2020
   Here is a very good book that summarizes a lot of the scientific research about creating and fostering online communities.

   Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design

   Here are the chapters:

     * Encouraging Contribution to Online Communities
     * Encouraging Commitment to Online Communities
     * Regulating Behavior in Online Communities
     * The Challenges of Dealing with Newcomers
     * Starting New Online Communities

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5. nevesDec 2019
   A nice book is Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design (The MIT Press) (English Edition) ASIN: B007RPF10U https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/building-successful-online-co...

   Once I found its content in a series of PDFs in the authors page, but didn't manage to find it now.

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6. rendxJul 2017
   "The Art of Community" by Jono Bacon

   "Building Successful Online Communities", by Kraut & Resnik

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