The online convention I'd like to discuss is the NSFW tag. NSFW stands for "Not Safe For Work" and is generally prefixed to links that contain content you might want to view in the privacy of your own home. That includes images and videos containing nudity, heavy graphical violence and explicit swearing.
The norm is as follows: If you are posting a link to any type of content described above, you should be putting a "NSFW" warning somewhere near the link which prevents people from for example looking at pornography in the workplace.
People learn this norm mainly by seeing it in action. Links with the tag will contain the explicit content so eventually NSFW will become associated with it. If you post links to nudity or violence without the tag you will also learn very quickly about it because a very large amount of people will complain about it. They will specifically request you label such links as NSFW in the future.
The Leviathan in this example is undeniably group user feedback. At this point in the age of the internet, people have learned not to click on random links from websites they do not know. So, the majority of clicking is done either from sites everybody trusts (say, cnn.com) or from forums/news aggregators with communities and the ability to comment on user submitted content. A great example of this is Digg.com. Sure, you can post whatever link you would like on that page. However, as users check it out they will instantly recognize that the content is bad and will do two things. First, they will flag it as inappropriate and report your entry to the administrators for removal. Second, they will make posts within your entry specifically telling people not to click on the link. And that's the Leviathan.
When you go to digg.com, if an entry has a lot of "diggs" (good votes) you automatically know that the content behind that link is good because 100's of other people have looked it over. Better still, if you don't trust it you can read the comments before clicking on the link. This provides that safe feeling we all look for in the Leviathan. So a NSFW link without the tag would very quickly be "dugg" down, flagged and commented on saying that it is actually NSFW.
On the theoretical side, all places that want you to use the NSFW tag are well-established online communities so clearly group dynamics are in play here. First, most group members will know to use the tag. Should somebody fail, the idea of conformity tells us that the older group members will reproach the newbie and teach him the right way, or lock them out of the group if it's a repeated offender. Next, very quickly the concept of group polarization makes a small reproach grow in magnitude. One "famous" user might comment on the NSFW post and complain about the lack of the tag. Very quickly many other group members will chime in on the importance of the tag even if they never planned to open the link in the first place. Generally most people would want the NSFW tag to be there, but might not care enough to comment. In a group setting though this becomes amplified.
Finally, the Leviathan itself is a group leviathan. This means that the exact rules are completely specific to the group setting. One forum might ban any offenders of the NSFW tag rule. Another might give a person three strikes.
4 comments:
Very interesting and informative. I wasn't aware that NSFW was so prevalent for Digg.
Now that 3 people have conferred similiar experiences with a "group Leviathan," it is fair to assume that the Leviathan in chatrooms, forums, boards and other colloborative network is the users themselves.
Sites like Digg and Wikipedia, that thrive on user-generated content, are advanced colloborations that compel users to conform to norms for the greater good. Similar to the social contract that the Leviathan guards, but different, as users are not physically castigated or are not punished at all, due to relative anonymity.
In Digg's case, there isn't an administrative board in existence that could police all of the junk commentary that floats around the site. To preserve the integrity of the site (for themselves and for others), group members are motivated to enforce normative guidelines.
Really interesting post, Aleksandr, about user aided and motivated websites such as digg.com. I was completely unfamiliar with this term NSFW, and even the website digg.com. Your description of these websites and how it relates to its leviathan was executed really well. As an outsider, I was able to follow your post easily.
Onto the theoretical comments, which I am familiar with…From your description it looks like the “raised eyebrow” method of reproach towards the newbie is used. Is there a tight-nit group of individuals who seem to dominate these conversations? I would agree, polarization is definitely in effect when it comes to making comments in public areas. A known person or “regular” can completely draw attention to an otherwise looked over post. That one post can in some instences be more powerful than many random unknowns posting.
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