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CommunityMitosis

Communities often split into new communities. This process always involves the SocialNetworks of the old community mutating into new social networks. This may involve capturing additional members into the emerging social networks. This may involve boiling off some number of members as the new social networks emerge. Any number of forces may conspire to push/pull the old social network apart into the new emerging ones.


See also: WikiBudding, ForkingOfOnlineCommunities, CommunityFork

Discussion

Do you mean ForkingOfOnlineCommunities?

The name "CommunityMitosis" seems somewhat stiff; How about "CommunityFork"? (…which presently NearLinks to Meatball, but we can redefine it locally, to say something locally.)

Of course, it might not be a CommunityFork, which can imply some strong disagreement leading to a breakoff.

CommunityBudding?, perhaps would be better. We've used the "budding" metaphor a number of times before. (HubAndSpokeWikis is one of those places where we've used the metaphor, to avoid talking about "forks," but to talk about how groups split and stuff like that.)

Stiff, maybe - I like how rich a metaphore it is :-).

Actually I'm invested in the membrane metaphore. That the engineering, design, management, maintainaince the membrane around a community is one of top dozen key puzzles in this space. I really like the work membrane rather than fence, or membership rules, etc.

Well how about CommunityBorder?, or CommunityEdge??

And then CommunityCrossing? and CommunityBudding??

That seems better to me, because people can just understand it without having to pull out a dictionary.

MembershipRules? does not explain the thing, because rules are rules. PointsOfUnity would be closer to the CommunityBorder?, but it is still not the same thing as the border itself. It's just a gating factor.

But CommunityBorder? seems to exactly describe the thing, and CommunityBudding? seems to describe the division of communities, like division on a plant.

Everyone knows what plant budding is. They also like it; It is a friendly term. :) But you have to understand cell division in order to recognize "CommunityMitosis."

Talking about the metaphor: Beeing a zoologist myself, I find technical terms like membranes and mitosis confusing in a social context. I associate membranes with osmosis, ion pumps, lipid layers, carbohydrate chains, and mitosis I contrast with meiosis, and chromosomes, and haploid and diploid, and… anyway, the metaphor doesn't quite work for me. It totally lacks human associations. Budding, flowers, spring, buddies, forks, roads, decisions, separation, old friends, … a much more human touch.

While I still think we should use CommunityBudding? and CommunityBorder? (or things like that,) I do want to note something in particular-

Biological metaphors for community and for people are interesting.

For instance, this particular metaphor- "CommunityMitosis," walks you straight into the HiveMind. That is, by saying that a community is like a group, and that people can leave and enter these cell-like things- and these cell like things interact in productive ways- well, it walks you straight into the notion of the "complete persion." Which is just like the HiveMind.

Also, concepts like RoleDiscovery- how groups of people that suddenly converge work out what roles the members will have- are analogous to the ways that cells (stem cells?) determine what type they are going to be.

I still think we should use the PlainTalk "CommunityBudding?" and "CommunityBorder?" (or "CommunityEdge?")-

But I wouldn't want to lose all contact with the biological metaphor.

I used "it seems to me like the growth of a biological cell complex" on WikiDe:BaumBild today.

I certainly ended up at such a complex metaphor after sampling quite a few other simpler ones. Alex's enumeration of all the complex bits, pieces, and processes around the cell wall have come to seem just about how complex one needs to admit the community boundries realy are. For example I just added this node JoiningScript as one example. (Which I can't figure out where I ought to hang :-))

EditNearLinks: MeatballWiki ForkingOfOnlineCommunities CommunityFork PatrickAnderson

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