Does Bad Design = Bad Community
Zach responds to my last post:
This is bunk. At some point, we were all sloppy lowlifes, aka new Internet users. For many people, I assume, MySpace is their first Internet experiece (“I need to get me a myspace!”). Of course it’s going to be like a daycare center with toddlers running around smearing ice cream on the carpet! The fact is that most users don’t realize the site is poorly designed. It will take time for the MySpace generation to develop etiquette and taste— not everybody has been using the Internet for 10 years!
Bottlomline, I wouldn’t be so quick to blame design. Gawker and NY Observer, for example, both have slick designs, yet their active users are snarky jerks still.
Zach- People in a slum don’t consciously realize they’re in a broken windows environment either. The environment people are in can transform behavior regardless of whether people are new to it or veterans of it, or aware/unaware of it.
— rickyv
I would say these are each valid points, both however, are contingent upon the popularity of any of these sites. As anything grows and expands to a wider audience there is more of a chance to draw in crowds that don’t follow the same etiquette as the initial user base. With that said, if the initial user base and community starts with a good foundation of etiquette I’d have to believe there is more of a chance to stay that way. Whether that has something to do with a sites design or not in the first place is the question in debate though. I doubt “Lowlifes” as we’re calling them really care where they are. They will be drawn towards the masses. To say that a nicely designed site couldn’t have such people is obviously crazy, but I would imagine it is the community on these sites that will determine whether that holds true. But environment definetely plays a factor as far as affecting the masses and I think over time, being surrounded by a “bad” environment will keep around more bad than good. The good, the ones that grow will find something cleaner and less messy, but is it really just a huge cycle destined to repeat itself.
