what are
virtual
gatherings?
Gatherings are an exchange of space, time, presence, knowledge. Taking away the physical aspect of gatherings, it becomes an abstract of that communication that gets split into levels of privacy and transparency. Your participation and presence is recorded in the internet.
what is
a good virtual gathering?
Coming together is a beginning ;
Keeping together is progress ;
Working together is success.
What parameters can be used to define a good virtual gathering?
What aspects of online gathering make better civic space to experience, communicate and share?
How do the characteristics of online gathering give a positive impact on users that they are unable to taste in real world?
Moderation
Nondiscriminatory Evaluation
High-quality Content
Trustworthiness
Less Social Prejudice
Hazardous Content Filter
Inclusivity
Content Diversity
Friendly Interface
Easy Contribution
Low Networking Barriers
Sociability
Purposeful Relationship
Professional Relationship
Indirect Relationship
Soverignty
Personal Data Protection
Decreased State Sovereignty
Contest Government's Control
Stability
Hardware/Software Stability
Presence to reach flow
Community Sustainability
Spatial Stability & Proxemics
What is a good virtual gathering from different perspectives?
'Good' will be based on how adequately it suits the needs of the user or group.
Government / Professional / Individuals / Marginalized Individuals will have different needs that demand a different division and overall makeup of the categories of Community Health / Moderation
Moderation
A virtual safe space an encourages all people present to share experiences, opinions, and view without fear to threat of political, economic or personal harm.
From a government perspective,
moderation brings fairness and balance into virtual gatherings by means of its power to control online platforms, evaluate moderation practices, cultivate cooperation of those who operate the virtual gathering moderation and help users who suffer from excessive level of online moderation.
This power accompanies obligations to provide transparent approaches for identifying harmful content and acting on it and to execute its policies continuously and fairly.
From an individual perspective,
moderation creates trustworthy and respectful environments without old or irrelevant content, broken links, outdated platforms, and inappropriate content. The fact that users can be protected from being the victims of abusive online contents lead them to more actively participate in virtual forums and generate healthy interaction with each other.
From a business perspective,
moderation for better virtual fora creates economic profit and its impact on society through higher quality of content, better information sharing environment and more accurate understanding of its users. Reliable and consistent moderation quality ensuring it does not overly interfere with user interactions and implementing its responsibility for users' active contribution enhances the value of itself.
From a marginalised group perspective,
moderation empowers their presence by amplifying their under-represented voices against physical, mental or moral attack and claiming spaces for conversation, community and support where marginalised group can feel the sense of belonging. Also, it arouses attention to moral and political justifications for their exercise of power.
Inclusivity
Inclusive virtual gatherings ensure involvement of everyone to the greatest extent possible, allowing all the users to contribute equally without barriers.
From a government perspective,
more involvement of civil society and the wider public in policy making, regulation and service delivery help to shape the growth of potential of economies and the level of societal well-being by addressing wider social and economic issues in a more performative, innovative and agile manner.
To make digital civic space truly open for everyone, government should encourage people, business, charities and public sector collaborate with each other.
From a business perspective,
a wider audience equipped with higher level of skills and connectivity leads to delivery of its digital services to its full potential and to broader market penetration.
Plus, by taking a stand on platform inclusivity, practices can build a foundation of positive public reactions, receive support from online customers who share beliefs, ideals and values of the business, and achieve better business outcomes.
From an individual perspective,
inclusivity allows people of diverse geographical, educational, professional, cultural and ethnic backgrounds to share enhanced quality and quantity of online resources, which brings about the mushroom growth of subreddits dealing with more specified topics and expertise that people in real world cannot easily obtain. The more advanced discussion and the more active engagement of people with their own distinct knowledge ultimately promote an objective and unbiased online environment.
From a marginalised group perspective,
less barriers to online gathering spaces with a variety of means such as inclusive design provide marginalised people more equivalent opportunities to perceive, navigate and interact without being subject to digital exclusion. Furthermore, inclusivity enables people with disabilities or digital illiteracies to reduce existing social gaps, create a new norm supporting anti-bias values and increase their quality of life.
Sociability
Virtual gathering platforms are places where people are able to broaden their relationship beyond their real-life connections with the specific purpose of recruitment, education or business.
From a government perspective,
Emergence of new forms of sociability and proliferation of groups and communities who are interested in diverse social, political, and cultural issues help government to promote discussion and debate on issues of public interest. It also makes authority endeavour to develop its policy, management and planning to meet the needs of society, resulting more powerful control over public.
From an individual perspective,
a wider range of relationship in online gathering spaces requires less effort to find and sustain relationship with people with similar views or interest, which means online users are able to develop strong bonds with communities more easily. Moreover, well-established peer-to-peer virtual relationships can evolve into meaningful offline activities such as professional or financial support.
From a business perspective,
diverse types of social network in online forums bring about compelling business benefits from economical promotion through the content of virtual forums to efficient collaboration in the face of growing relationship by the benefit of consumer-generated feedback, idea and professional ties. Moreover, professional relationship is likely to serve as effective recruitment.
From a marginalised group perspective,
social networking in virtual gathering spaces allows for human connection, contact and gratification that are more challenging to experience in the physical world compared to advantaged groups whose main purpose of online relationship is reinforcing existing network ties. As it is possible to adjust the level of disclosure about their weakness in virtual forums, marginalised people are more likely to broaden social networks in online than they do in reality.
Sovereignty
Digital Sovreignity could be defined as "the capability to determine how one acts and takes decisions in the digital space.” (National IT Sum- mit, 2015).
From a government perspective,
Governments exercise sovereignty over virtual gathering spaces by establishing common laws, which mainly aim to protecting individual's control over personal data. In 2016 the EU and EEA has introduced the GDPR, as in the General Data Protection Regulation. The US is controlled by the FCC. Digital sovereignty allows the state to nurture economic viability, competition, agility and the capacity to handle risk.
The government decides what is legal and what is illegal, taxes and all modes of costs of compliance.
From a business perspective,
Professionals tend to follow a "self-regulation" policy, whilst respecting local laws on illegal material. Different layers of "self regulation" could be identified:
-pure self-regulation
-civil regulation by NGOs or other actors
-other forms of multi-stakeholder regulation (NGOs and industry).
Stability
A stable virtual gathering space allows user and the virtual platform itself to actively enjoy the space without any interruption. This "intrinsic enjoyment from an activity" will allow to build communities and reach a level of "flow".
From a government perspective,
he government should act as the main source of communications.
Through communication of changes, improvements, issues, users and professional will know how to behave or perform.
From an individual perspective,
the user has, firstly, to inspect that the system and the platform are backed up, so that in case of the system's shutdown, there are no data loss or file corruptions. Secondly, stability is reached by the individual over time. The virtual gathering space is a means, for the user to strengthen already existing bonds. The recurring visits to the platform and encounter with regular visitors will allow to develop a sense of belonging to the virtual gathering space.
From a business perspective,
professionals must, firstly, ensure that the hardware is functioning correctly. Irregular failures, restarts and shutdowns have to be tested and avoided during usage. In addition, they myst ensure no deterioration under high loads.
Secondly, an overall platform environmental stability must be ensured; in terms of space, audio and vision. Oscillations have to be avoided in order to provide an enjoyable virtual experience.
Laslty, stability is here reached in terms of people connected.
From a marginalised group perspective,
they should first, be able to access the correct hardware, in order to ensure a continuous virtual experience. At times, due to economical difficulties or unstable home situations they are not equipped with sufficient hardware to support the virtual platforms. Secondly, to achieve individual and personal stability, they would need to find and adhere to the community they most feel part of. A community sustainability will allow to communicate and create new meaningful relationships. Proxemics play here a fundamental role.
Which parameter would you put emphasis on when creating a good virtual gathering?
Which parameter do you put more emphasis on creating a good virtual gathering?
