[-empyre-] Hello and All About BumpList

[Jonah Brucker-Cohen <jonah@coin-operated.com>]

Hi Everyone,

I've also been a lurker on this list for a few months.  After reading 
through the posts since I've been on, I definitely have to agree with 
others that this list really does provides a crucial outlet for 
discussion that is often lacking in the other lists I've been on. Its 
nice to have space for thoughts and ideas to float around that feels 
a bit more organic and nurtured - as well as people willing to post 
their candid opinions without any hesitation.

Thanks to Melinda for inviting me to participate in this month's 
network(O)rama event. For a quick intro on me, I'm currently a PhD 
student in the Disruptive Design Team at Trinity College Dublin's 
Networking and Telecommunications Research Group (NTRG) and a 
collaborator/researcher with the Human Connectedness group at Media 
Lab Europe in Dublin. I've been running a community group in Dublin 
for the past two years called the Dublin Art and Technology 
Association (www.data.ie) which has dedicated itself to opening up 
discussion of projects and ideas informally online and in monthly 
events. My own research is on deconstructing networks by subverting 
existing relationships to human-networked interfaces and building 
experiments such as real-world inputs to networks, redefining how 
information is used and disseminated, and shifting virtual processes 
into physical forms through networked devices and experiences. Some 
of this work can be found here:
http://www.coin-operated.com

On the topic of networks, I've been working on the social 
relationships between people using networks and the infrastructure in 
place surrounding this use. This includes everything from how 
networks are represented in pop culture, the language of networks, 
metaphors of interaction, proximity engagement of ad-hoc and wireless 
networks (in collaboration with Katherine Moriwaki), and 
collaborative systems with mobile phones. On the topic of email 
lists, since this is one, I've been working on a project called 
BumpList: An Email Community for the Determined 
(http://www.bumplist.net) that aims to re-examine the culture and 
rules of email list communities.

I started BumpList because I am interested in making systems that 
directly counter themselves through their structure and use. On 
BumpList, the main constraint is that it only allows for a maximum 
amount of subscribers so that when a new person subscribes, the first 
person to subscribe is "bumped", or unsubscribed from the list. Once 
subscribed, you can only be unsubscribed if someone else subscribes 
and "bumps" you off. BumpList is meant to actively encourage people 
to participate in the list process by requiring them to subscribe 
repeatedly if they are bumped off.

BumpList is an example of an online community that was created to 
question the fundamental structure of online communities. The project 
takes a critical role at the traditional form and use of emailing 
lists by placing emphasis on the "act of belonging" to these lists so 
that users must constantly subscribe to stay active in the community. 
This challenges the notion of how digital communities maintain 
member's involvement and how the design of these lists impact users' 
behaviors. I'm sure this is never a problem on Empyre!

Since BumpList launched in May 2003 it has succeeded in maintaining 
involvement as users have generated over 78,000 total subscribes, 
resubscribes and bumps, 30,000 unique email messages, and millions of 
total hits. The website features a real-time "Hall of Fame" that 
ranks users activities based on total posts, bumps, and time they 
have managed to stay subscribed. Some observed behaviors from the 
project range from participants creating personalized statistics 
pages, one member creating a yahoo group for people unable to stay on 
the list, attempted hacks of the systems such as auto-subscribe bots, 
and fierce competition over belonging to the list (currently about 
12-20 people fighting for the 6 spots). The project attempts to 
rethink the formal assumptions that define online communities and 
eventually allow for these systems to be redesigned based on 
user-defined criteria.

So far the results of this project / experiment have been really 
interesting. The most significant part of the project is how making a 
change to one simple rule completely alters the dynamic of a 
community. My interest was in keeping the structure of the list the 
same so that no one who subscribed would have to learn a new 
interface, but make the emphasis rest on the "act of belonging" 
rather than just being on the list. This makes it more active to be a 
participant and the impetus to contribute much higher. Since we 
publish the amount of posts, no one can be a lurker either! So being 
involved in the community becomes more public and demanding - thus 
measuring the participants determination to stay involved.

Watching BumpList evolve has been an amazing learning experience. 
What started off as an experiment has turned into a strong community 
of dedicated people. The most interesting part of the project was to 
watch how people tried to break the system and hack the interface by 
subscribing long email address names or posting their messages as 
subjects. We purposely made it open, yet exclusive and democratic so 
that people would be encouraged to rejoin after being bumped.

Anyways -  hope this sheds some light on the underbelly of the 
project and I encourage people to comment about what is important to 
them in online communities and if or how the structure of them 
determines your involvement and interest. I definitely think it does.

Jonah

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Jonah Brucker-Cohen             |        Human Connectedness Group
PHD Candidate		    |        Media Lab Europe
NTRG, Trinity College 	    |        Sugar House Lane, Bellevue
Dublin 2, Ireland  	    |        Dublin 8, Ireland
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(w) +353 1 4742853  (m) +353 (0)87 7990004
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http://www.coin-operated.com - projects and work/blog
http://www.undertheumbrella.net - UMBRELLA.net project
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