Research questions

Some of the questions you might ask as you search for a more narrow set of questions might include:

• What social norms apply and how are they manifest and enforced?
• Code is law - how do architectural elements contribute to membership, relationships, interactions and content?
• Freedom of expression - what topics are permitted, what is removed and who decides.
• What is the mix of emergent social structure versus hierarchical organization?
• Is there an explicit mapping on online and offline activity?
• What role does national law play?
• Is there an apparent logic to the community structure?
• Is membership static or dynamic?
• How are new entrants treated?
• What are the explicit and implicit policies for dealing with trolls and vandals?
• What motivations and incentives influence contributors?
• How are a site's superusers specially empowered, promoted, and regulated?
• How would you classify the governance system of the community? (oligarchy, dictatorship, democracy, ad-hocracy)
• Is there evidence of user circumventing the explicit purpose of the community, in an acceptable or unacceptable manner? (Unacceptable: spam. Acceptable: anything on 4chan. Grey-area: 'Griefing' in online games, sex (sexual content on flickr and sexual services on craigslist)

Examples of previous papers:

• Digital Intellectual Property of Synthetic Worlds (PDF)
• Yelp Reviews: Freedom of Speech v. Reputational Injuries (PDF)
• Viva la Vimeo!: How Vimeo's Unique Architecture Fostered a Unique Videomaking Community (PDF)