What is it that motivates you to "participate" in online communities?

January 4, 2005 5:34 PM

What is it that motivates you to "participate" in online communities? Why do you share your thoughts, feelings, ideas and creativity with faceless others online?

Is it the “give-and-take”; the barter or exchange of some sort of currency (money, favors, or a sense of “doing good for others”)? Is it the opportunity to share our thoughts, creativity with other? To collaborate; to connect?

Why do so many of us maintain online journals?

I think the concept of “reputonics” – which I first came across in Steven Weber's recent book – "The Success of Open Source” – points to a powerful motivating factor.

Steven Levy’s article in this week’s Newsweek magazine (" They Hacked Real Good, For Free ") profiles the "Graphing Calculator Story" (previously discussed here on MeFi). While not pertinent to online activity, the article touches on similar motivations - “a reminder that what drives our most original work is not always the almighty buck”

posted by ericb to Human Relations (47 answers total)

Mostly I don't. I've written some replies on metafilter but I've probably written 10 times as many that I never posted. In the olden days, in very small communities, I was much more vocal as I was as apt to know something or have something interesting to say as anyone else. With tens of thousands of members here, I now generally only speak up when I am sure of something near and dear to me. Generally.

I used to provide a lot of free web services. I guess I still do but I don't advertise them or push them any more so they don't get used. I used to write and give away a lot of software but I didn't have time to support it and got crushed under the weight of it (Mathowie, I know how you must feel some times). Providing a free service that is related to something you are passionate about can be a burden.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:48 PM on January 4, 2005

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, because, "I've got a headful of ideas that are driving me insane."
posted by jonmc at 6:04 PM on January 4, 2005

jonmc OTM.
posted by josh at 6:08 PM on January 4, 2005

Boredom.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:18 PM on January 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

narcissism, shamelessness, and insanity (did I miss anything?)
posted by lilboo at 6:21 PM on January 4, 2005

(did I miss anything?)

avoiding work.
posted by jonmc at 6:23 PM on January 4, 2005

Response by poster: Boredom.

Check out "I Am Bored" (thanks to nathanrudy for introduing the website the other day).
posted by ericb at 6:27 PM on January 4, 2005

Response by poster: *introducing*
posted by ericb at 6:30 PM on January 4, 2005

It's actually a semblance of social life for me. I do have a real one, with real friends and everything ;-)but it's much more fun talking to strangers than meeting them for real.

I can finish thoughts without getting interrupted or losing my train of thought, whereas in real life it isn't that easy sometimes.
posted by konolia at 6:57 PM on January 4, 2005

I like the idea of sending messages into the ether, which may or may not be read by other individuals. When someone argues with or against me, I find it strangely exciting (even after many years online - I started in alt.punk more than 11 years ago and I still get a rush). I did a post on freak-folk this summer, and randomly a few months later in a completely unrelated thread, someone thanked me for turning them onto Joanna Newsome. I love that kind of shit.

I also like that people here (and other places I visit) share a similar level of discourse, and have the same kinds of interests as me (which, as a general rule, I don't really find in the RW).

Finally, I like the fact that there are so many people here who know so much more than me about things I am passionate about (R.I.P. dobbs!), so I guess there is a learning aspect as well.
posted by Quartermass at 7:03 PM on January 4, 2005

Question...recursing... Universe folding in on self... Must...fight...

GAH!
posted by waldo at 7:06 PM on January 4, 2005

Because, in the mortal words of Bob Dylan, "I like Fidel Castro and his beard." Also, reality television has driven me away from the tube and into the ever-loving arms of the internets.
posted by mds35 at 7:06 PM on January 4, 2005

I have a lot of difficulty interacting with people in real life - I mean, when I do it, I do just fine and everybody I meet in real life after knowing them online for a while always tells me how shocked they were at how normal and sociable I was. But it takes a lot a lot of mental preparation on my part - I can't just go out there every day and cope with people. It takes literally days worth of building up my resolve, mentally cataloguing the negative things people might say about me and steeling myself against them, figuring out what I should say to people and summoning up my reserves of self-control.

Going to the dentist's office, or to my family's house for Christmas, or anything like that is a Big Event for me and not something I can easily do.

Because of all this I'm a bit of a shut-in. Online communities are how I fill my social needs - because at the end of the day I'm still a person like any other.
posted by Ryvar at 7:08 PM on January 4, 2005

Oh, and to echo what konolia was saying about the advantages of online communication - everybody you meet online comes with an off button.
posted by Ryvar at 7:17 PM on January 4, 2005

I've become a much better arguer, for one thing. Also the people I hang out with would not be too interested in my thoughts on the latest version of Xcode, so I write them in a blog and maybe someone else will.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:18 PM on January 4, 2005

Because in real life, I have few friends, and they're very busy. Also because I tend to like the people I meet on the net more.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:18 PM on January 4, 2005

I don't like people, but pixels I can deal with.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:37 PM on January 4, 2005

Boredom.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:18 PM PST on January 4

I'm sad to hear this - New York is such a fun place!
posted by orange clock at 7:46 PM on January 4, 2005

Because no one I know wants to listen to me babble about Alan Moore, Noam Chomsky, and fibromyalgia treatments. Because I need lots and lots of information on a daily basis and it just feels so much nicer when you can talk to the people who are on the other end of that information. Oh, and also, I'm holding out hope that somehow my participation in online communities will lead to me meeting a very smart, deeply neurotic female who's into bondage and cuddling so that I'll finally be able to settle down and refrain from raising children.
posted by Clay201 at 7:49 PM on January 4, 2005

Hahah, well I'm not in New York at the moment, orange clock. I'm finishing up the holidays in Florida.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:56 PM on January 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

Every now and then, someone asks a question I can answer. It makes me feel helpful.
posted by SPrintF at 8:06 PM on January 4, 2005

"when masturbation's lost its fun"
posted by telstar at 8:49 PM on January 4, 2005

because I don't know as many people in real life that are into the geeky kind of stuff that I gravitate towards online...or what clay201 said minus the neurotic bondage.

for instance, in real life I know a grand total of 2 people who even know about 2046, much less care. and both of them are not in the same country as me.
posted by juv3nal at 8:58 PM on January 4, 2005

I socialize online because as a businessperson and family guy I don't really have time to socialize out a lot. But perhaps more imporantly, it's easy to find people with shared interests online. I also like putting my ideas into the ether and being surprised by the things that occasionally pop back out.
posted by Ironwolf at 9:05 PM on January 4, 2005

I am here so I can thank Quartermass for turning me on to Joanna Newsom. Devendra Barnhart, too. Such great, great records.

(Really, that's it. Metafilter has made my life richer in this and so many ways. I'm truly happy to be part of it.)
posted by melissa may at 9:13 PM on January 4, 2005

I honestly don't have much of an opportunity to discuss "big ideas" with the people who inhabit my day to day life. I love them all (mostly) but I also need to 'talk' to people who care as much as I do about language, politics, arcane and obscure subjects and any other topics that I might accidentally learn to care about from them. On-line communities give me an intellectual outlet and broaden my horizons. No, I'm not kidding.

In addition, smart in sexy on the internets. Not so much in real life.

Also, I secretly harbor the wish that someday I'll be discovered an become a minor internet celebrity
posted by anastasiav at 9:38 PM on January 4, 2005

Because this place gave me something, a collection of like minded (mostly) people who watch the same channels as I do. Oh, if you don't know what I mean, the Internet is like a TV with 8,058,044,651 channels (and then some). As with anywhere there are your nice people and your not so nice people. But it's ok in a non-threatening kind of way, there's a distance between you and them. The links you post (if you have the guts nowadays) are kind of a window to the MetaSoul. That sounds crappy, sheesh. But you get to share yourself, even if you're not really you. Or something.

And Clay201, feel free to blather about Alan Moore anytime.
posted by bdave at 9:41 PM on January 4, 2005

why faceless? most of my online communities are filled with people i know and like very much in the offline world. many of them are people i don't get to see very often because they're geographically dispersed (and thus we substitute online interaction), but there are only a very few people i like online & haven't met offline...
posted by judith at 10:05 PM on January 4, 2005

I've said this a number of times before, but I have the opportunity to speak English with native speakers, in person, perhaps once every two weeks. I'm not complaining -- the expat life is one I've chosen, and enjoy. But I have little opportunity to use complicated language, or talk about Big Things, in a conversational context, living here in Korea.

I also hate the telephone, so that kind of leaves that out. Also also being a teacher means I'm face-to-face with people all day long, and there's a certain pleasantly relaxed semaphoric lassitude to slowing things down by typing out your conversations.

I don't know if I'd spend as much time here as I do if I lived back in Canada or Australia and could just shoot the shit with a circle of friends when I felt like it, or if my Korean language skills were at anywhere near a fluency level.

This place is very dear to me, because it is, in effect, my main social milieu, at least in terms of using my native language freely.

Plus, there are a lot of smart, interesting people here, and that's never a bad thing.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:10 PM on January 4, 2005

To me, it is common interest and sense of community.
posted by Doohickie at 10:12 PM on January 4, 2005

As far as my weblog goes (and this applies to my presence here, too, a bit), my writing has gotten better, and my thinking clearer (I think) since I started.

The way in which my site became such a vital tool for friends, family and friends of friends to gather and share their pain when my friend Rick was injured in the Bali bombing, and when he died, changed a lot of my thinking about (as David Weinberger put it) 'writing myself into existence', too, the role of keeping a virtual presence alive, and the power of the personal web.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:15 PM on January 4, 2005

I've learned a lot here. Face to face conversations tend to be more limited in width and depth than online coversations, which can be paused and continued at one's leisure. Although the thread may get goatse'd while one is up having a sandwich.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:54 PM on January 4, 2005

There's a whole body of research on this-- it's what I study for a living-- and if you want a starting place, I'd check out Lori Kendall's 'Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub' or Annette Markham's 'Life Online' for some insights.
posted by yellowcandy at 11:46 PM on January 4, 2005

It reminds me there are people out there who care more about life than the next party, girl to fuck, or shitty job. It breaks me out of the surrounding mold.

I get to read fascinating ideas on a daily basis, see silly names on a screen fight with each other and interact with words on a screen. I see humanity on these very walls.
posted by Dean Keaton at 12:11 AM on January 5, 2005

Response by poster: Ryvar - "Online communities are how I fill my social needs - because at the end of the day I'm still a person like any other."

Exactly as you say - you are indeed "a person like any other".

To me this is an illustration of how this medium (i.e. the online world of community) provides connection for everyone - regardless of location, social standing, geography, etc.
posted by ericb at 12:11 AM on January 5, 2005

I don't participate in (messageboard-style) communities much. I prefer Livejournal, IM clients, and IRC. The interaction is more immediate and it's easier to actually discuss something rather than trade statements (commenting to a messageboard feels very "holding forth" to me - more formal and debate-like rather than conversational, and a lot more standoffish).

Communities are for lurking and picking up info, links, and fun stuff. There's too much crap flung about to comfortably participate in most places, and I edit myself very closely when I do decide to comment on something, which makes me nervous and isn't really worth the bother. AskMeFi is useful and I like helping people if I have an answer that might assist them.

I'm sociable and I like meeting new people. I have very few real-life outlets for interaction. I have online friends, first-online-then-offline, and offline friends, almost all of them too far away to see often, and it's great that I can stay in touch with them so easily. Keeping a journal online not only forces me to write (saving my sanity), but it also keeps me connected to friends and family. Very valuable.
posted by Melinika at 12:14 AM on January 5, 2005

It goes back to Ivan's explanation of Christ-like love in The Brother's Karamazov, in the chapter 'Rebellion'.

"How are we supposed to love the vast mass of humanity," Ivan says (and I paraphrase from my memory of the Garnett translation).

"It's just those, to my mind, that one can't love - although one might love them at a distance."

The Internet adds the requisite distance.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:19 AM on January 5, 2005

Ego
posted by krisjohn at 5:00 AM on January 5, 2005

Why NOT?
posted by TTIKTDA at 5:27 AM on January 5, 2005

...because there are more interesting questions here than in my public library job, and I learn something every day. There are not a lot of people where I live who get the whole online/computers/techie thing, so this is a way for me to interact with people who, at least in some ways, are like me. I think my rural/techie perspective is a bit unusual -- not way out there, but in a definite minority -- so I think sometimes I have things to share that may be actually useful. The personal blog I do so my Mom doesn't feel the need to call every time she hasn't spoken to me in 2-3 days, and the work blog I do because I like sharing ideas, like meeting other people in the profession who think like I do [or who disagree with me, honestly] and because it's an amazing magnet for attracting work. I still meet a lot of people the old fashioned way [f2f before online] but more and more I'm finding that the people I meet online first I'm likely to have more in common with.
posted by jessamyn at 7:31 AM on January 5, 2005

I participate because I like learning new things and picking up new links, and sharing things I find with others. I have a lot of interests that my friends here don't share, and it is good to have a place to talk about that stuff. For example, I am a total fantasy football addict, but none of my friends here really care about it. However, I can go on a fantasy football messageboard and talk about it to my heart's content. I also read an Indiana University sports fan board. IU is my alma mater but I am no longer in that area, and the team is not covered as much around here, so I go to that board to keep up with what's happening.

Finally, I have made some wonderful friendships with people I have met on messageboards and BBSes, and many of them I eventually met in real life. It is good to know people in other places so I have someone to have dinner with or whatever when I travel. : )
posted by SisterHavana at 10:05 AM on January 5, 2005

Because I like communicating with smart people.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:27 AM on January 5, 2005

What Ryvar said. I'm hoping my anti-depression meds will sort some of that out ("that" being Social Anxiety Disorder), but until then... exactly what Ryvar said.
posted by deborah at 12:22 PM on January 5, 2005

I get lonely working alone. And people are smart here.

Also, what jonmc said about avoiding work.

My husband refers to all of you as "your imaginary friends". But you're not! You're real!
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:38 PM on January 5, 2005

I like listening to smart people, even if it does make me feel like an ignoramus because everyone is so much smarter than I.
posted by talitha_kumi at 4:29 PM on January 5, 2005

It somehow validates my own procrastination.
posted by tidecat at 6:56 PM on January 5, 2005

I like to read. It's how I think of myself, as a reader. Online I can read about entertaining stuff, intelligent stuff, or whatever I want when I want. One of my favorite parts is watching people interact without feeling pressured to contribute. After all, on here they don't know I'm watching. Best of all, all of this is free. If I couldn't find something interesting to read I'd drop the internet in a second, and I do when it's a slow day.
posted by stoneegg21 at 12:35 AM on January 6, 2005