Posted by Timne on July 7, 2009, at 11:20:14
Discussion on these boards, especially as led by the administrator when commenting on the value and uniqueness of the boards, tends to focus on the social millieu, or the rules, as what makes it different. There have apparently even been studies to this effect published about this site, but my review indicates those studies looked primarily at the content and administration of the site rather than at the graphic and architectural design.
With this talk about "Twitter" and "Tweeting," and the resulting backlash, I think it worthwhile to consider more typical Web metrics as potential factors.
One factor halfway between graphics and content is the role of an expert. In this case, the expert represents himself as primarily offering administrative input, but clearly the administrative style is presented as one informed by a particular brand of professional expertise in human psychology. But the actual expertise is not much different than that at most sites. Standard advice in leading Web-how-to texts says,with regard to managing forums, kick out people who trouble the waters, with group stability serving as more of a guideline than justice, fairness, integrity of dialogue or intellectual freedom. Enforcement here seems to have some unique flavor, but I've visited many forums that have varied block lengths, and special areas for discussion of blocking or administrative approach.
Since the rules tend to be the about same here and on most forums, what if the expert isn't bringing that much in the way of expertise, but instead the primary contribution is one of a trusted authority, no different than the rent-a-docs whose names appear above the bylines of ghostwriters on so many health-oriented newsletters?
So, experts and rules are standard fare in self-help or mutual support venues, especially online or in publications similar to online groups.
Rule that out and what's left is design and technology. "Forums" as we might visit on other sites have some notably different graphic styles. One, they usually involve more than two main colors, and colors are more often highly saturated. The extra colors on other forums usually don't tell us anything about what's on the page, they're more like decoration. Also, forums tend to come out of the box with themes that include lots of horizontal and vertical lines. The style of this forum is notably different -- primarily one muted main color, one font style and no little lines disrupting the eye. Posts opening in a separate window are also unique in that they let users keep their place on the meta-list of posts when they open several posts for reading. Other forums more often require jumping from page to page every 10 or 20 posts, and often require scrolling through the body of all posts to find the titles, 10 or 20 per page.
If someone wanted to emulate whatever "success" this site has had (by whatever measure? didn't go defunct after five years? maintained a few original members for several years?), one experiment might be to emulate the color, the functionality, the general graphic approach, the nominal presence of an expert and the branding approach of this site. The consolidated branding message probably has some effect too. Yahoo groups generate very similar content, there are far more of them and they recruit more members in total to their psych groups, but they also include Yahoo's social network branding on every page. It doesn't feel so much like a unique place as does a site with little branding message other than that of the site owner.
"Social networking" on the Internet grew at an exponential rate during the years this site shows up on archive logs. New technology appealed to many, but the new colors, lines and formats might also be disorienting or confusing to some. In so much as they might be, the simpler format of this site, built around technology now more than 10 years old (way past retirement, in IT terms -- avg software lifecycle = eight years) might be one of the primary reasons behind its appeal. Consistency of design implies stability, and maybe that's one of the main things people get here. Maybe poeple wouldn't drink this Coca-Cola so much if it wasn't packaged in the classic swooshing bottle?
poster:Timne
thread:905454
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090707/msgs/905454.html