Comments on: A great resource http://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/06/a-great-resource/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:42:01 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Eszter http://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/06/a-great-resource/comment-page-1/#comment-78329 Eszter Sat, 09 Jul 2005 17:45:18 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/?p=3516#comment-78329 Thanks for those pointers, they're helpful and interesting. Thanks for those pointers, they’re helpful and interesting.

]]> By: Karim http://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/06/a-great-resource/comment-page-1/#comment-77637 Karim Thu, 07 Jul 2005 12:20:35 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/?p=3516#comment-77637 Ezter, Thanks for the plug on the open source community. You may be interested in the following three papers that address help prvoisioning in communities: 1)This one (by Eric von Hippel and I) is about help provision for Apache Software. Key finding - help providers were on the forum to learn about problems being faced in general with the software. Help providers mostly provided information they already knew. Large asymetrey in costs and benefits: Help providers took about 5 mins to respond - Help seekers saved about 180 mins of time. http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/lakhanivonhippelusersupport.pdf 2)This one by Nik Franke and Sonali Shah examines community help provision in the creation of innovations in various sports equipment. http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/frankeshah.pdf 3)Constant et al have a piece in Org Science about the "Kindness of Strangers" - is about online help in a company. You may also be intersted in a sister website of opensource.mit.edu : http://userinnovation.mit.edu - which looks at the broader phenomenon of user driven innovation and has many papers which show a strong community effect. Ezter,

Thanks for the plug on the open source community. You may be interested in the following three papers that address help prvoisioning in communities:

1)This one (by Eric von Hippel and I) is about help provision for Apache Software. Key finding – help providers were on the forum to learn about problems being faced in general with the software. Help providers mostly provided information they already knew. Large asymetrey in costs and benefits: Help providers took about 5 mins to respond – Help seekers saved about 180 mins of time.
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/lakhanivonhippelusersupport.pdf

2)This one by Nik Franke and Sonali Shah examines community help provision in the creation of innovations in various sports equipment.
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/frankeshah.pdf

3)Constant et al have a piece in Org Science about the “Kindness of Strangers” – is about online help in a company.

You may also be intersted in a sister website of opensource.mit.edu : http://userinnovation.mit.edu – which looks at the broader phenomenon of user driven innovation and has many papers which show a strong community effect.

]]> By: John Quiggin http://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/06/a-great-resource/comment-page-1/#comment-77532 John Quiggin Thu, 07 Jul 2005 06:28:50 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/?p=3516#comment-77532 I haven't done a proper analysis of this, but I'd say that all realworld common-purpose communities (sporting and social clubs, union branches and so on) operate on something like a 20-80 rule: 20 per cent of members do 80 per cent of the work. The special feature of the Internet is that this kind of thing can survive with proportions more like 2-98, because additional "lurkers" have essentially zero marginal cost. I haven’t done a proper analysis of this, but I’d say that all realworld common-purpose communities (sporting and social clubs, union branches and so on) operate on something like a 20-80 rule: 20 per cent of members do 80 per cent of the work.

The special feature of the Internet is that this kind of thing can survive with proportions more like 2-98, because additional “lurkers” have essentially zero marginal cost.

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