Usenet World

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Usenet World

• Jakob Metzler

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Motivation

• People confuse neighborhood with community
  (Barry Wellman The Network Community)
• Maybe we can make community and neighborhood
  equal again
• Apply this idea to Usenet newsgroups

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Usenet World

• Graphical map (2D/3D) of Usenet communities
• Not based on location, but interest
• 8 continents comps, news, sci, humanities, rec,
  soc, talk, misc
• Each continent has a number of countries based
  on the hierarchy, eg. Continent rec
• rec.animals, rec.antiques, rec.art

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Usenet World

• Continue with hierarchy
• Continent -gt country -gt city -gt neighborhood
• Use Sim City engine to display neighborhood.
• Each main thread is a building
• Subject displayed on top of map
• Size matters number of responses determines
  size of building

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Content Signals

• Autonomous agents can parse threads for content
• display different graphics next to buildings
  according to content characteristics
• Flaming
• Inappropriate language (?)
• Users interest keywords
• Etc.

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Example
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Example
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Flaming Signal
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Some Considerations

• Search functions extended to point to areas in
  the world map that match keywords
• Houses deteriorate when thread is inactive, and
  eventually disappear
• gt Dynamic landscape

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Advantages

• Can browse newsgroups much more intuitively
  (walk around neighborhood)
• People have motivation to continue the discussion
• who builds the highest building?
• gt Increases social exchange
• People are more likely participate in neighbors
  discussion