Does participation matter more than quality? Ask the troll. Clay Shirky suggests in a critique of traditional mass media outlets foray into community building that participation matters much more to creating a successful community. Whereas traditional media filters its content prior to broadcast, the internet encourages people to publish their messages and let the reader determine which messages are worth attention. A good example of this is the moderation on Slashdot where users determine the highest quality postings which are moved to the top so that more readers are exposed to them. As a result, low quality postings are to a large extent ignored. Shirky argues that quantity is more important to quality for community development because the readers will determine what is worthy of attention. Filtering only functions to squash social interaction.
While quantity may be more important than quality for the community as a whole, for the individual participant the quality of contributions likely extremely important. Participation in online communities can serve many functions including information seeking, socialization, emotional support. However, the gratification of having an audience and expressing the self may be most important. However, in order for these needs to be met participants must be able to create messages that are judged positively by the community and garner sufficient attention. As Shirky suggests, messages that are poorly written or do not contribute to the community’s discussions are filtered by the reader. Therefore, in order to develop an audience that meets the individual’s needs quality messages must be constructed.
Unfortunately, despite the ideal of equality all men were not created equal. Some of us are better communicators and writers just as some of us are better athletes. This may lead to antisocial behavior. Frustration and negative attributions of community member’s responses to their messages may spur some individuals to behave in antisocial behavior to garner the audience they desire. As a result some “trolls” may be individuals whose writing skills prevent them from gaining their desired audience. Quality does matter. In order to be an active productive member (there are always lurkers) of the community an individual must have their needs met and to achieve this end must produce quality messages.
