User Revolts
Typology
"There are three kinds of users revolts, explained Newitz: anarchist-style pranks, grassroots protests, and op-ed / open letter from high-profile users.
“I wanted to see if I could buy votes on Digg and get something really stupid on the front page,” said Newitz of the first type. Crowdhacking.com—her pictures of crowds—made it to the front page, though it was quickly buried.
Of the second kind, there’s the above-mentioned AACS key revolt from last year. One user posted a link to a key allowing others to break restrictions on DVDs, and Digg removed the post after pressure from media companies. Too many other users, though, posted the key in comments, linked sites, and digs themselves. The site gave in.
The final type, again a Digg example, came when longstanding users realized that the Digg algorithm had changed to give less preference to their posts. They threatened to leave Digg—and didn’t—but it did kick start a townhall meeting practice for Digg." (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/03/liveblogging-sx.html)
Examples=
Second Life
"Dzwigalski then took over to discuss revolts in Second Life.
“Second Life is kind of built for user revolts,” she explained. It’s seen all types, though “anarchist pranks” are typically viewed as “griefing.”
The first grassroots protest came in a tax revolt in July 2003, immediately after the launch from beta. Users were being taxed for using an increasing number prims. Linden responded with the current model of selling land.
“It also ultimately led to IP rights,” she said. “It really hit home, though maybe we should have noticed it before, that people really cared about what they were making, and they didn’t want to be taxed for it.”
More recent was the CopyBot protest of November 2006. Users were copying others’ creations, which led to a “day of silence” when shop owners closed down their stores.
“It led to a policy on our behalf that said basically you can’t use this,” said Dzwigalski “The thing that was interesting about it is that it also led to greater transparency for the community. The more data you give to people the more transparency they want. The thing with user revolts is that you need to engage—sometimes not right away, though. That’s sometimes exactly what they want and you need to wait a little bit.”
Just this week, though, a new campaign kicked off to promote IP rights with content creators’ avatars posing naked to protest stolen skins.
When asked about the most effective user revolt in Second Life, Dzwigalski explained that most of the revolts were over issues.
“Like IP,” she said. “We haven’t solved that. Linden Lab can’t solve all of that. We provide more tools and give people more options, though.”
The point is, sometimes, to strengthen the community instead of simply fixing the immediate problem.
Later in the conversation, the question came up of exiting users. It was a big deal when a few people exited Metafilter (see below), but plenty pull out of Slashdot all the time. How much is too much before a protest becomes a problem?
“It depends on the person," said Dzwigalski. "If all the ontent creators of Second Life quite, that would be more noticeable than if 20 or a 100 regular users quit. It depends on who it is."
"The great thing is that people come back," she continued later. "I've been with Second Life for years and sometimes users say, 'I hate you. You screwed it up. I'm never coming back.' But a lot of time they come back, not always, but sometimes." (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/03/liveblogging-sx.html)
Metafilter
“We have this sort of hippy hope thing,” said West, “where we really hope that you’re participating and helping the community.”
The site allows users to flag posts that break the rules, email the admin team, grief the site, and act out. Moderators can edit posts—“Which we never do because everyone loses their minds”—delete the posts—“Which we almost never use because everyone loses their mind”—ask people to behave—“My job is to ask boys to be nice on the Internet”—ban users or change the rules, explained West.
After allowing users to post pictures of themselves, the community realized the truth: MetaFilter is about 67% male, 78% between 18-39, and mostly white.
A discussion began about the community and sexism. One male user sent a message to all the women who had commented with a manifesto for the site.
“The most important thing from my moderator perspective is that it was Thanksgiving and my dad’s birthday,” said West. “The most important thing I did was nothing. Most of the women decided that having the feminist man on Metafilter telling them to do….”
And the discussion trailed off into laughter. The main change that came about was to change the “offensive” button on posts to include labels for sexism and racism, making it subtly clearer what was inappropriate.
As far as success, though, West promised to change her user name to "cooter" if Metafilter could go one month without one post about "I'd hit that."
"It's been up there since November," said West, "and I'm not worried." (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/03/liveblogging-sx.html)
Lifehacker
"Lifehacker is more of a blog than a community site, but there are still plenty of comment threads and emails for complaining.
One advertisement in July 2007 for the TOTO washlet—“a fancy toilet seat that’s also kind of a bidet”—featured prominent pictures of butts with smiley faces drawn on. It sparked a torrent of email.
“We were posting through this and the threads for all of the posts got totally derailed and people were discussing the ads,” said Trapani. “I went to sales and a managing editor and said, ‘Readers are saying the ads are offensive and contradicting the point of the site. This site is about work and should ostensibly be safe at work.’”
Other Gawker sites got complaints, but only Lifehacker pulled the ads. The question comes down to what needs you bend to and which others you can pass over." (http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/03/liveblogging-sx.html)