"Online societies like forums and MMOGs have traditionally utilised a number of initiatives - like moderators and administrators - to police, control, and sustain their online societies. Is there any other way to characterise control and maintenance of online societies?"

I Introduction

The manifestation of online societies in this virtual era is neither particularly surprising, nor is their continued propagation as new technological innovations are made particularly unforeseeable. Even as they grow, issues of social and cultural clash, identity in anonymity, and simple crass behaviour (possibly as a result of the former two) have increased as well – necessitating that some minimum level or form of policing is required. Traditionally, active members of these online societies – the ambit of which includes forums and online games, which this essay will focus on – have been perceived to place their trust in moderators, administrators and ‘Game Masters’ (and all the powers pertaining thereunto) to sustain and minister their society.

Research into precisely how an online society is sustained or ‘organised’ tends to fall into two categories. Either the writer focuses upon the traditional mechanisms outlined above to make a determination of their effectiveness, or – more recently – writers tend to characterise the construction of networks in the context of complex social dynamics and media theories. I do not purport that either of these approaches are incorrect, but I do argue that neither of them have ever been considered together and therefore lack consideration of a middle ground only apparent when one approach is tempered by the perspective of the other. Furthermore, I contend that neither approach has made sufficient enquiry into the role real-world cultural content (as distinct from the collective culture of virtual societies) plays in sustaining/destabilising online societies and networks. This essay will attempt to rectify these oversights, and with reference to case studies – 2Channel and bboy.org, as well as World of Warcraft – will demonstrate that the life or downfall of online societies is produced by a combination of the two categories mentioned at the outset, tempered by real-world cultural relativity.

II Logistics of an Online Society

Most online societies of this virtual society follow a fairly distinct pattern. The Internet user of average experience will generally recognize the three tiers of online society management: the ‘coding/tech’ tier which is comprised of administrators and/or founders; the ‘upper’ tier, characterised generally by moderators or permutations thereof, as well as possibly the founders and; the ‘lower’ tier, containing those who utilise the code wrought by the ‘coding’ tier – active and non-active users, as well as ‘trolls’ and ‘lurkers’ or their equivalents (Chien 2004, 28).

It is important to point out that I regard that these titles ‘administrator’, ‘moderator’ or ‘user’ not as references to particular people, but as definitions of a source and measure of power. All the powers inherent in these positions can easily manifest themselves in a single person or body. If these titles are therefore not specific people but demarcations of power flows within the online forum or game, it can be seen that beyond the fairly formalistic structure as outlined above, further tiers begin to emerge. Of particular importance to this essay is the split that begins to form in the ‘lower’ tier – active users can generally be regarded as having more ‘power’, culturally and influentially speaking, than ‘trolls’, ‘spammers’ and to a lesser degree ‘lurkers’ (Chien 2004, 2). For convenience’s sake, this tier can be split into the ‘user’ tier, containing active and non-active users, and the ‘lowest’ tier, containing those latter entities of lesser power.

III Traditional moderated society model: Are the two higher tiers the bulwark between a thriving virtual society and virtual disintegration?

A sizeable amount of literature concerning networks and societies tends to suggest that the answer to the above is yes. Sean Buscay, an experienced web master (analogous to an administrator) claims that “moderators are very necessary” if one is to prevent devolution to a “ghost-town like spookiness” (Buscay 2006). Several writings suggest that the infamous online anonymity that might embolden virtual troublemakers (Cyberjournalist 2007) can be countered by a number of means (Punday 2000, 207; Chien 2004, 34). Among the suggestions mentioned are the code based solution of forcing users to register their details for the society(this course has its own practical difficulties) and the retroactive solution of removing anonymous anti-social behaviour as it appears – presumably, a moderator-like figure would be in charge of the latter (Punday 2000, 207; Orita 2003). Even lawyers specialising in Internet law acknowledge the importance of ‘code solutions’ and ‘filters’ (Harvard Law Review 1999, 1637-1644). As a final observation from purely the perspective of an Internet forum user, moderators and administrators are seen as part and parcel of the ‘forum’ package.

Yet many forums exist without proper moderation; nor do moderators always act – in fact, some might say they never act – in the purely objective capacity literature insists they have (Buscay 2006; Chien 2004). The very fact that power in the capacity of a moderator can, and often does overlap with power in the capacity of a user demonstrates the basic flaw in the idea of moderated online societies – we have no separation of power in our virtual commonwealth.

Examples of non-moderated or badly moderated forums are the large Japanese forum 2Channel and the smaller, sub-culture forum bboy.org respectively. Whilst not precisely a forum in the traditional sense, 2Channel demonstrates the redundancy of moderators in sustaining an online society, having supplanted the traditional format with its own, now known as the 2Ch model (Iwate 2004). The 2Ch model allows users to ‘age’ or ‘sage’ – dig or bury, to borrow from internet colloquialism – any particular thread whenever they post on it, instead of the standard method where any new post will bump its collective thread to the top of the page. More popular threads will be ‘dug’ to the top, whilst irrelevant threads or ‘flame wars’ (users exchanging insults) tend to sink. Whilst this might be seen to be a code based solution, as suggested by theorists (Iwate 2004, 300), there is a far more complex cultural play occurring that will be elaborated on under heading V.

As a qualification, it must be mentioned that the 2Ch style does in theory have a small group of moderators. On a practical level, however, their presence is redundant. This is due in no small part to the sheer size of the forum – 2.7 million posts are made per day (stats.2ch.net 2007). More relevant, however, is the effectiveness of the dig/bury system – leaving moderators with little to do (Orita 2003).

Most remarkable about 2Channel is that it has existed, and continues to exist through all the problems that the upper two tiers were created to combat. Anonymity in both an online ‘handle’ (an online pseudonym) and absolute sense is not only allowed but encouraged and rampant (Furukawa 2003). NetRatings Japan released survey results that showed significantly fewer registered internet handles than actual users on the boards (Inoue 2001). Having browsed and observed this board for several years, it is itself as much a victim of automated spamming programs and ‘trolls’ as any other board. The usual, highly personal arguments that occur on traditional style forums have parallels in 2Channel. Despite all this 2Channel is the single largest online forum, with 3 million users, and 8 million hits per day. ‘2Channel’ was also the most utilised search term used on Google Japan in 2002 (Matsumura, Asako, Shibanai, Ohsawa and Nishida 2003).

Bboy.org, a forum for breakdancers, provides an example that is more in context than 2Channel, given that it exists within the standard tier based system. Its administrative power is embodied in a single person. The forum itself is split into 14 sub-forums, each with its own set of moderators. Over time, however, moderators have become inactive, such that only one of the 14 sub-forums has an active moderator. Yet no ‘chaos’ (Buscay 2006) is to be found – instead the curious phenomena of creating a single ‘spam’ thread in each un-moderated forum has arisen, usually by one of the active users. All off topic discussion and ‘flaming’ that would usually be moderated is posted in that thread, easily ignored by those who do not wish to see it. The rest of the forum is orderly, with half a million non-archived posts and 40 thousand members; close to one hundred threads are posted a day to help beginner breakdancers and users actively discuss and debate topics without the assistance of a moderator.

The purpose of these examples is not to put a lie to the supposition that the upper tiers are required to sustain an online society. Indeed, the internet has a number of now defunct forums, and the forum host Ezboard is littered with the corpses of once active virtual networks. What these examples achieve is to demonstrate that there are more factors at play in policing an online society than a simple tiered hierarchy.

IV A collective theory of organised networks/societies: is there truly a single, absolute archetype hidden beneath the structure of all online societies?

If the above research on tiered systems can be viewed as a practice-up approach, then writing on organised networks can be viewed as a theory-down response. These latter writings tend to be attempts to rationalise the realisation of large scale social interaction in a virtual context – in effect, although it is not overtly said, turning online networks themselves into an exclusive, cyberspatial culture.

Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter in their article ‘The Dawn of the Organised Networks’ (2005) propose the transcendent model of ‘organised networks’ – an evolution, as it were, of current forms of online networking to more institution based ‘networked organisation’. No issue can be taken with their arguments; as far as their contention goes, their reasoning is sound. The only problem – and this is a problem universal to many theoretical inquests into the multifaceted and plural virtual world – is that while their rationale pertains perfectly to the universal culture of networked societies, it simply cannot take into account the specific culture around which a particular networked society has been built. Bboy.org, for example, deals with hip hop and exclusively with the culture of breakdancing. World of Warcraft slots into the larger category of MMORPGs, and has created its own subculture. There are a million cultural contexts and as Lovink and Rossiter themselves say, “There is no permanency here. People come and go according to what holds a passing affinity and interest for them.” Yes, networks are indeed the “ideal Foucault machines”, devouring power with its own created power – but this cycle is not born out of the structure of the network; rather, it is governed by specific cultural dynamics. The state of the cultural backdrop determines whether the rate of deconstruction outweighs the rate of creation (or vice versa). Ultimately the power of a machine is potential power only – its ability to be unleashed rests with people, and the manner in which it is used depends on their mindset. Chinese theorist Hui Kai Ling (2007) faced similar difficulties when trying to fit MMORPG Vanguard into a universal theory of ‘network culture’ – to quote, “It is hard to gauge players’ virtual reaction to social stimuli outside of their virtual world. We cannot place them in any context but their own.”

V The missing link: Cultural context

If that is the case, then the life, death, and method of each network must be analysed within its own culture. It was mentioned earlier that there is far more to 2Channel’s sustainability than its code based dig/bury system. To elaborate, it is not the system, but rather the culture that uses it that allows 2Channel to operate.

Let us contextualise: 2Channel is a Japanese forum. Japanese culture has its ideological roots in a Confucianism meritocracy (Ko, Habboush and Piggot 2003). Given that the country was isolationist until the 1950s, the decorum they evolved over the centuries still plays a very strong role in its society. Even their language plays a role in their culture; there is no particular way to express rudeness in the Japanese language, only varying levels of politeness (Kykozama 2001). It would seem that this has bled over into their online behaviour – it would be extremely easy for those engaged in pointless debates and slinging matches to dig their threads to the top of the list. Curiously, this is an extremely rare occurrence. Whilst there has been remarkably little research into this area, it is not hard to correlate Japanese decorum and standard of behaviour with the correct operation of the 2Ch style. In other words, the power inherent in the upper and user tiers has been broken down and vested solely in the user and lowest tiers. In such a power structure, trust – unlike what is suggested by Lovink and Rossiter – would need to be and in fact is in full force at 2Channel, thanks to Japanese cultural mores. This might also explain why Western versions of 2Channel have alternately failed to reach 2Channel’s scale or failed altogether.

Otherwise there is bboy.org, which has been built up around the hip hop culture. Stereotypical as it may sound, this particular culture deals heavily in ideas of respect (George 1997; The Freshest Kids 2003). On the streets of a real-world city, where interaction between complete strangers is a loose and random occurrence, this currency of respect is harder to gauge (again, see The Freshest Kids 2003). When ideas of respect, however, are transplanted into the bboy.org forums, a curious pattern emerges. Whilst there is no faculty for the forum to measure respect on a coding level, and respect is not enforced by moderators as a policy, powers that have been traditionally embodied in the various tiers begin to react and flow in response to varying levels of respect. The power to remove somebody from a forum, for example, can be exercised by a respected member simply by speaking ill of the member he wishes to be removed. Certainly, the latter can still post, but members tend ignore his or her posts until they fade into obscurity; often, the offender rarely returns. As far as how members know who among them are respected; there is a thread in the general forum that gets moved to the top of the list every now and again naming those respected members. This thread was not created by a moderator or administrator, but by the users and arguably the culture within which they are enmeshed.

As a final example of another type of cultural context; online games demonstrate a culture based on commercial realities. World of Warcraft has arguably become a culture of its own, and in absence of any other MMOG dethroning it as the most popular (western) MMOG it and all its online societies will thrive (Hayden 2005). Once interest in it begins to wane, it may duplicate Everquest’s descent into obscurity. Indeed its online worlds may still exist in code and be well governed by Game Masters, but with no users to engage in the culture of it, or its social aspects, this is worth naught. Out of over two hundred thousand players, fewer than twenty thousand remain (Sony Official Website, 2007). In the cultural sphere of online games, players moved on to the new subculture of World of Warcraft; apt demonstration, perhaps, of Lovink and Rossiter’s acknowledgement of users of “passing affinity” and “interest”.

VI Conclusion

The only thing research has demonstrated about the world of online societies, like forums, is that there are no hard and fast truths. Moderators and administrators, overarching theories of a “networked organisation” culture are correct, but inadequate as models. Even cultural mores, which play a greater role and serve to cohese the two previously mentioned ideas, provide such a multiplicity of contexts that simultaneous and unified research into it is practically impossible. Yet it has been sufficiently demonstrated that, even if there is uncertainty as to which particular doctrine caused a forum’s death, its life is a combination of all three with, perhaps, a greater emphasis on cultural context that has been otherwise acknowledged.