The concept of a social role has long been central to sociology (Parsons 1951; Merton 1968; Callero 1994). There are many important social roles in online discussion groups: local experts, answer people, conversationalists, fans, discussion artists, flame warriors, and trolls (Burkhalter and Smith 2003; Golder 2003; Turner et al 2005; Herring 2004; Haythornthwaite and Hager 2005).

'Answer people,' the folks who contribute much of the value in the Internet, are a small minority of all online users. According to a recent paper in the Journal of Social Structure, less than 2% of authors in Usenet newsgroups are likely to be the helpful 'answer person' type — authors who reply to many other people with brief complete replies.

The paper Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups contains social network visualizations of the ties created when authors reply to one another. These images highlight the difference between these helpful folks and other types of contributors. The findings may apply to other threaded discussions, maybe even here at ScionLife...



Tom Two-Percent

 

I try to keep my internet "role" as separate from "social" as I can, lol...I dunno, sounds a little too weird trying to compare posting on forums to real life. The internet for me is a place to go only if I have the time, not a place to be someone or feel important. I don't mean that in a bad way, just gotta keep 'em separated.