What Ails the Sarai Reader

List?Learning from

LiveJournal’s successKiran Jonnalagadda <jace@seacrow.com>August 24, 2005, at Sarai-CSDS, Delhi

Formerly:

Studying How Form Affects Online Community

(With insights from coffee shop culture)

Contrast in Participation

My participation in the Reader List and LiveJournal,* Dec 2004 to August 2005:

Total posters on Reader List: ≅ 520

Total posts to Reader List: 1546

Commentators on LiveJournal: ≅ 333

Comments received on Reader List: 0

Comments received on LJ: 3076 (0-77)

3LiveJournal’s nature makes it hard to do a one-on-one comparison; this is an approximation

*

Typical Complaints

Too many posts; hard to keep up

Too many posters; hard to get familiar

Hard to follow individual threads

Flood of posts every 25th

So how does LiveJournal sustain so much traffic so effortlessly? 1546 overall versus 3076 comments addressed to a single person!

4

The Sarai Reader List is crumbling. The list needs to figure

out how to effectively channelise traffic so readers are not burdened.

Imagine reading a newspaper that prints all the news in the world in a single narrow, long sheet.

Linearity and Unread Flags are for Memos, not Communities

Problem 1:

Threaded DiscussionsStandard feature of mailing lists

But LiveJournal makes participating easier

LiveJournal’s user experience frequently emphasises restricted views of a greater community.

7

The Friends Network:Seamless Subgroups

Identity andSelf-Representation

Problem 2:

Identity on LiveJournalGlobally unique id

User profile with contact and participation details

Reference via <lj user=“”>

User pictures linked to keywords (emotions)

Choice of picture when participating anywhere

10

Intimacy and Possession

The mailing list is not personal space

LiveJournal provides personal journals

Are you addressing one while a thousand peer at you?

Or are you addressing one while a thousand go about their own lives?

LiveJournal achieves the latter

11

Problem 3:

ArchivalHard to find an old post; No search

Threading unreliable and broken across months

LiveJournal: the archive is the primary interface

LiveJournal also lacking when searching for posts

12

Problem 4:

Rescuing the Reader List

Initial plan: make LiveJournal installation for the Reader List.

Abandoned for technical difficulties

Blue sky plan: make new system

But who’ll create and maintain it?

Current plan: make better interaction system on top of existing MailMan list

13