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A Vision for Creating Online
Communities
An interview with Craig Newmark
conducted by Stuart
Brown
College and university students are logging on to the
Internet in ever increasing numbers--for academics,
co-curricular activities and general entertainment. As the
level of surfing continues to rise, and as the accessing
devices morph into more compact and wireless units, the
potential for a campus of self-absorbed drones pausing
simply to check e-mail or browse the Web, becomes less a
futuristic nightmare and more a current reality. How should
student affairs react? What proactive steps might be taken
to address this situation?
One response could be to develop online communities
within the virtual campus environment. By purposefully
structuring these type of networks to link undergraduates
more with each other--their concerns, opinions,
recommendations--there is a better opportunity for
communications and interactions to help students feel more
connected, even if it is within the cyber realm.
Someone who has pioneered the online community concept is
Craig Newmark. From humble beginnings of e-mailing friends
about happenings in and around the San Francisco area,
his craigslist.org
has grown into a Web site featuring countless numbers of
classified ads that encompass such topics as community
bulletin boards, all types of housing information (rentals,
roommates, shares), a jobs area, local events listings, and
much more. The site registers millions of page views a month
by tens of thousands of browsers.
One of Craig's tenets is to make "the net more personal
and authentic, providing an alternative to big, impersonal
corporate sites." He also looks for people to find their own
voice and to develop a sense of trust and even intimacy. By
keeping the site down-to-earth and simple (with no ads
whatsoever), he has created an environment that student
affairs professionals may want to examine and possibly
emulate on their respective campuses.
Recently, Craig took some time to talk with Student
Affairs Online about some of the important
attributes of online communities.
Student Affairs Online (SAO): How would you
describe craigslist.org?
Craig Newmark (CM): Our site is a way for
people to help each other, to give other people a break,
so we can better go about the daily work of our lives.
From one perspective, we're running a classifieds site,
but somehow we've gone beyond that, providing a means by
which people feel connected to each other. If people feel
connected as a group you are forming a community.
SAO: So, in sense, you are creating a type of
online community. How does craigslist accomplish
this?
CM: People feel they have something in common
by participating in the classifieds that we have on the
site. Also, with roommate searches people include a lot
of personal information about themselves which,
basically, humanizes the process. What people tell about
themselves is real. You have a critical mass that creates
the perception of community.
SAO: What are some of the critical aspects of
developing community in cyberspace?
CM: There are two basic components--common
interests and common geography. One does not take
precedent over the other. You can connect with people all
over the world and also in your community. For example,
you can share your interests across boundaries about your
favorite TV show or a musician. But you can also use
these interests to connect with people in your geographic
area too.
SAO: Your site seems to be able to personalize an
individual's interactions on the Web. Can you describe
what you are trying to do?
CM: In a deeper sense, our site is about
restoring the human voice to the Internet. It used to be
that the Net was very personal, characterized by people
relating to each other as people. Now, there are lots of
slick commercial corporate sites that speak in a formal,
business-like tone, devoid of real personality.
I don't want to make a value judgement, and I strongly
feel there's nothing wrong with commercialism. However, I
feel that pretty much everyone wants places on the Net
where people can just be people.
That's a big part of what we're about, being a place
where people can be real, and just talk to each other.
Take a look at our roommate category, for example, and
you'll see that people often tell a little story about
themselves. You'll see that you're connecting with real
people, people who have day-to-day needs just like
yours.
We're also about being as inclusive as possible. A lot
of how people work is based on "who you know", but we try
to open that up just a little. I grew up wearing a
plastic pocket protector, thick black glasses (taped
together) and marginal social skills. I was a
stereotypical computer nerd, and I knew about feeling
excluded. Well, we're doing something good about that
now, for whoever wants to participate.
SAO: How do you involve people?
CM: We ask for lots of feedback, and we get it,
and do something about it. People want to
be able to express their opinions; give their views.
We're also getting into message boards, since that's a
really good way for people to discuss what matters to
them, often as simple as recommendations for local stuff
like a good restaurant or dry cleaner. With some luck, we
hope to use board software, which makes it really obvious
that you're conversing with people, not just posting
messages. That means that when you're looking at a thread
of conversation, you see who's participating, with
profiles that might include their face, a name, maybe a
neighborhood.
While Craig has not taken his community concept to the
halls of academia, parallels can be drawn between
craigslist.org and
institutions of higher education's attempts to develop
community. For example, student affairs professionals
currently seek to open and maintain lines of communication
with undergraduates and help them feel more connected to the
campus environs. Administrators seek students' opinions and
recommendations about campus policies and procedures. These
features, along with others of craigslist.org, provide a
roadmap for initiating online communities. By embracing the
concepts and design features of the site, a blueprint is now
available for student affairs practitioners to begin
construction.
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