Just when you might have hoped you couldn't possibly be pegged by another label, along comes Web Community Social Roles by Roger Dooley. The article focuses on a study called Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups.
The abstract states, in part,
"Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of “answer people." Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role behavior (R2=.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general."
Cre8asiteforums members have taken a shot at the findings, applying it to that forum, but also to others that members belong to. Some see themselves, and several feel they don't fit precisely into a role at all. One person noted that the role of Moderator or Administrator was not mentioned in the study.
Our social roles online are another point brought out in the study and Dooley's article. If social behavior on the web sites interests you, check out the Cre8asiteforums discussion called Web Community Social Roles - Which Are You?
