designing socially-constructive spaces

[David Galiel <web@galiel.com>]

Ah, yes, would be nice to connect text with images and a handshake---if 
only time and budget allowed...

> Hate to say this, but it is a much better way to discuss stuff than 
> lists or forums and most conferences I've ever been to.

Ironic, ain't it. To me, that suggests that a remedial failure of 
technology to support human need--especially since I've participated in 
remarkably effective online discussions, although they are admittedly 
the exception to the rule (but then, so are productive meetings....)

Actually, there are two, interrelated, mutually-reinforcing dynamics at 
work here, IMO--architecture and culture. Good, human-centric 
architecture rewards socially constructive behavior and dampens 
antisocial disruptions; strong, constructive culture exploits good 
architecture. Online discussions tend to have resonant characteristics, 
without the social and cultural norms that dampen abberant behavior in 
physical meetings.

It is fashionable among online community designers, particularly in the 
game industry, to say that online is different, and to conclude that 
nothing useful can be learned from physical meeting environments. The 
result, particularly in the game/virtual world/entertainment/interactive 
arena, is the creation of social spaces with (mostly accidental) 
positive feedback loops, without appropriate dampening mechanisms.

Before interactive drama, there needs to be environmental design with an 
understanding of human cultural dynamics, IMO.

Not to stretch the physical analogy to the breaking point, but if a 
public park has cold, narrow benches, no direct sunlight to keep the 
grass alive, fragile lighting easily vandalized, padlocked bathrooms, 
not a single trash can in sight, and no open space for street performers 
to put on King Lear for our amusement, then it doesn't really matter how 
big the signs are that say "Public Park", "Do Not Litter", "Do Not 
Loiter", or how many armed guards roam around kicking people out for 
trying to sit on the fountain's rim---most people will eat their bagged 
lunches elsewhere. And, those that do dare the park, are probably not 
those for whom civilization, cooperation and mutual respect are primary, 
and they will probably end up behaving as the environment encourages 
them to.

At which point, the city planners will gather and tsk-tsk at how 
hopeless park-goers are, and how people can't be trusted, and they will 
build a new version of the same park, only this time with a high 
concrete wall around it (which blocks out even more sun), surveilance 
cameras to record litter-bugs, and an electrified fountain-rim that 
shocks those who try to sit on it (and which, during spring showers, 
makes the entire park a death-zone). And then, as the walls become solid 
graffiti, pranksters wire the benches to the generator, and the grass is 
removed because people wouldn't stay off it and replaced with 
astro-turf, developers will feel vindicated in their conviction that 
people are stupid, and the only answer is to replace them with 
reasonable fascimilies that follow their rules.

"Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of 
witnesses."
 - Margaret Millar