Assignment 7: Eric Dial

An online community that I am a part of footballsfuture.com. This website provides in depth coverage of all current NFL teams, and allows users to post blogs about specific events or happenings around the league, such as the NFL Draft or big trades. Everything, from what teams are talking to what player to who will make the playoffs next year is discussed. I am a HUGE fan of the St. Louis Rams and this is the website I go to for all the latests news about my team and other teams in the league.

There has to be a lot of trust between members of this community. Many posts will be about rumors and stories that have been heard on the television and radio or read on a website, and if it affects your team or the NFL, you have to trust that these sources are credible. If an event, such as a big-name player being traded to another team is occurring, but the person that posted did not list any website or source, then most members know that this is speculation. However, most of the time, when anything like this happens, almost always the user lists a source. Although there is not face to face interaction, I believe trust still exists among members out of the respect we have for the teams and players.

The desirable behaviors for this community are blog posts, signature creations, and overall sharing of information throughout the league. I've already touched on the posts, but another big thing on this website is creating your own signature. Signatures can be anything designed to highlight your favorite team, favorite player, or who you think will be the best draft pick this year. I myself don't have a signature just because I don't think I'm creative enough, but I think some of the ones people have come up with are really creative and cool. Rewards for this sight are minimal. The most you'll get is someone commenting on your post that it was a good story or interesting article. Others will tell you that your signature is cool and it was a good design.

A good reputation system for this website would be a rating of the user's posts and their sources of information. If a user has a really interesting story about a player and a source to back it up, they would get a higher rating from other users than would a less interesting story with no source. This rating would be made public, as it would appear next to the users screen name, thus revealing whether it be worthwhile for another user to read their post.