(Not too) Long ago,
before Facebook, and Twitter and MySpace, was a period of time when online
communities formed in the form of a discussion forum. A group of people with a
common hobby or goal congregate in cyberspace, share their knowledge with each
other and in turn the community benefits as a whole as everyone's level of
knowledge on that topic increases. Moderators controlled user activities by
setting rules to the forums, monitoring chat rooms, and checking for unusual behavior
from certain users. The community help patrol the forum by flagging posts that
could be of concern for the moderators to block or to remove. If necessary,
moderators have the right to ban users from using the forum altogether. Members
of the forum also collectively ensure the quality of the forum by "calling
out" on other people if users post information that is incorrect, and in
the long run inaccurate information is filtered. Long-term users supported by
the community also further act as mentors within the forum - new users often
seek advice from veteran members to learn the "tricks of the trade".
One very popular forum
is FlyerTalk, where global travelers collide to discuss recent flight deals
around the world, mileage systems of various airlines and hotel points systems,
and get travel tips for popular places and destinations off the beaten path.
New users often ask senior contributors for hints for flight routings and how
to get the most out of their travel budget, and people around the community are
willing to help. However, as soon as a user posts inappropriate activities
(like unauthorized advertising, posting rude comments or minor offense like
posting on the wrong forum), it only takes 5 minutes for the community to
publicly dismiss the posting and for moderators to be alerted. Overtime, this
community benefits from the shared knowledge, and the community is often able
to put themselves in an advantageous position over airlines and hotels.
Imagine this kind of
efficiency in an online forum for academic scholars. As a community,
researchers share their findings or insights on a forum in different topics.
Scholars globally can comment and analyze new studies, in hopes to raise the
level of knowledge of all users. Hot topics would generate discussions across a
demographic much wider than traditional methods. These posts would be patrolled
by the community too - anything posted is subject to scrutiny by everyone on
the forum, and inaccurate information would be ultimately be rejected.
Essentially, all information on the forum would've undergone some form of peer
review for it to stay posted, thus, ensuring credibility and quality of these
posts. Young researchers can now draw from the wealth of information from
experts around the world at once to improve their methods or to get insight on
results. This kind of interaction can only benefit the research community in
the long run, especially when the trend in everything is to be globalized
through the use of the internet. If
research and knowledge sharing is still solely bound to textbooks and peer-reviewed
journals, the rate of information being delivered could be slower than the rate
of how things are changing – eLearning and technology is a great example, where
data from studies that took 5 years to complete is now obsolete because of the
new technology that’s been made available in within that time frame. By being
more flexible and opening up other channels of knowledge sharing, information would
be more relevant without necessary sacrificing reliability and credibility.
And to finish off my post, here is the link to FlyerTalk (one of my favorite forums). Enjoy!
And to finish off my post, here is the link to FlyerTalk (one of my favorite forums). Enjoy!
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