Assignment #7- Jordan Meltzer

I am a member of an online forum for the television show, Lost. There are many members, but only a handful of Moderators. Members trust that moderators will review posts and remove forms of trolling or baiting, when users engage in personally directed insults or attacks to elicit inflammatory posts. Moderators may suspend or ban members who engage in such activity, and other members trust that rules are enforced. Trust may be defined as “willingness to be vulnerable, based on positive expectations about the actions of others” (Bos et al, 135). For example, if I post a question indicating that I do not understand something in an episode, I am putting myself in a particularly vulnerable state. I am trusting others to give thoughtful responses and not complain that I should pay more close attention.

In addition to treating others with respect in responding to posts, another desired behavior is to place posts in appropriate threads. For example, if a member is a few episodes behind and wishes to discuss the events of a certain episode, they should not be given any information from newer episodes. It is encouraged that episode-specific posts are placed in their particular thread and any revealing information is placed in spoiler tags (spoiler tags must be highlighted to see message). Thus, it is a desired behavior for members to understand and respect purposes of each thread. Meeting desired behaviors is rewarded by receiving thoughtful responses and increasing post count. Resnick et al (2000) state that reputation systems distribute feedback about past behavior and are designed to promote trust and keep users engaged. The main source of feedback is one’s post count and status, since all posts are monitored and if posts do not violate rules or expectations then they are left as is, increasing post count. By obtaining higher post count, members can increase status (junior /standard/advanced/senior member). There is delayed trust associated with status, such that moderators are more likely to monitor posts of lower-ranked members, since “CMC may delay trust formation by slowing the rate at which individuals can gather nonverbal cues about partners’ trustworthiness” (Bos et al, 137). The online nature of the forum may make it seem members are detached from Moderators, so “good name is not at stake…the temptation to ‘hit and run’ outweighs the incentive to cooperate” (Resnick et al, 46). However, the first five posts of every member are not publicly displayed until they have been read through and approved by Moderators. This helps keep users from trolling, since they must make five acceptable, Lost-relevant posts before they can even directly post to the forum. If a user really wishes to manipulate the system, then they could make five relevant posts and then create as many spamming, inflammatory messages as possible before they are caught, in which case they would be permanently banned from the online forum.