Provocation :

Since up to 90% of rich communications (that is face to face) is transmitted by by mechanisms other than the words themselves (intonation, speed, volume,facial expressions <mouth and eyes especially> body-language, etc.) it will never be possible to establish levels of trust in a virtual environment that approach those of 'being there.'

I'm not sure abt trust, but personally, I do find it hard to adequately express myself with only typewritten words.

If I have an extended exchange with someone online, and they are consistent with what they say, I find that I develop a certain level of trust.
get what I mean?

So more questions then ... 

• does respect come first? 
  
• Do you develop trust at at different rates depending on whether the initial contacts show opinions that are similar in nature to your own?  Is it important at all whether their opinions in any area match or partially match your own?
• Do you initially have a mind set that trust has to earned? Or perhaps do you have a mind set of granting trust and then changing your opinion if it seems betrayed? If the later, can it be earned back once broken?

Also, please note that I started this topic with the word  Provocation because I wanted to  "strongly " start the debate not because I believe the satement to be true... but because I'm actually trying to use the lateral thinking process of "PO"  (by E. de Bono) to stir some Ideas so I can add to the discourse over in Tangler feedback group @ Voting Up/Down, Tangler.com, other ideas  which I had managed to somehow steer off topic towards questions of conversation flow .

People who share the same mindset are more likely to become friends (and trust each other). I don't think that Bill Gates and Paris Hilton would make good friends 

Interesting combination, Kurisu. 

Many people would say that neither could be considered trustworthy.  But I would tend to the view that its more complicated than just that... For example, one is almost entirely consistent ... the other, well, somewhat flakey?  When Gates got involved in philanthropy I expected it to be big time and consistent... when I hear that Paris has had an epiphany in prison and is going to come out being more adult and contributing to society in a big way I'm more than just a little dubious...

There are lots of people I trust that I don't think of as friends.... on the other hand there are no friends that I don't trust to a great degree

So do you think that finding similar mindset is enough for the development of trust  in a virtual community?or is it part but not all of the matter?

I didn'y mean to say that Bill or Paris would be considered trustworthy. I meant that similar people are more likely to trust each other. People who share the same hobbies or like the same sports team are more likeable. They give you the feeling that you are doing something right and are not alone (with your thoughts / interests / whatever).

There are several levels of trust.
Would you trust a review I write? Possible
Would you entrust your most personal feelings with my? I don't hink so
Do you trust me enough to lend me $1000? I doubt that

Personally, I trust Rand Fishkin a lot. On the other hand, I dont trust Jeremy Shoemoney.

Whereas Rand is very helpful, friendly and not profit-orientated, Jeremy is only interested in making money and uses affiliate links wherever possible and does everything to profit from his visitors

Many people put money first and the users last. That is VERY untrustworthy

Displaying banner ads everywhere and tricking your users to click on them is very bad, too

The design plays a big role, too. Does everyone (who is not younger than 12 years old) trust MySpace?
Gaia Online looks nice and is ad-free. If you look at their footer, those links also help to build trust

ahhh ... you're comment re the different levels of trust is spot-on as far as I'm concerned... it gets to the crux of the matter...

In forming my provocation, it came because I had just read a similar statement in a book made  by an polymath  (John Seely Brown ) I truly respect ... and although I trust in most of his opinions in knowledge management matters, I feel he came down on the wrong side of this issue (perhaps I felt he had gone to far in favour of your noted  "not younger" syndrome).

I've never had the pleasure of hearing Brown speak, let alone have I met the man, yet I feel a high degree of trust based simply on reading several  his works. ... Surely interactive text based conversation (or even  "lurking" in as a third party to this type of conversation ) could lead to a higher degree of trust as it gives a view in to a "stream of conciousness" rather than just a 'polished snapshot of thought" as is the case in a formal publication - or as you suggest a review?

I find your comment re Displaying Banner Ads also very interesting... I have, in rough draft form, a piece I intend on posting to the Usability group where I examine the nature of relative sins in software failure/abuse (hope to have it there by tomorrow) ... and one of the examples I raise is the difference in levels 'evil' of unwanted pop up ads versus pop up ads that deliberately deceive users by having close (x) buttons that actually open up the very new windows the user was saying no to!

Another comment ... returning to my usability piece... note that it is an experiment.... it certainly won't be polished to the extent of a piece put out for publication... but its more of a set piece than the normal conversation here on Tangler (I don't think I can open the conversation I'd like to get into without some background). To me this raises several questions. 

• First, is this sufficiently jarring to mental models that it could result in less trust?
  
• Could it be written off as someone 'getting their own soapbox' and abusing it?
  
• Or could it be seen as simply increasing the richness of the communication (similar to an opening statement by debate participants or 'round table' discussion particpants? 
  

Good Point on the Gaia transparency provided by their footers... I'd never seen the site before... do they do a good job of moderating to keep in the site in compliance in a timely fashion?

Two cents worth with more to come: Trust can be seen to be tied to reliability, at least in part, and for that reason even though I am not in a position to comment on this topic to the extent that I would like right now, I'll comment on my intention to post.

There are people here and in other online communities who I would say I could trust, maybe not to the quite the extent that I trust people I know and have met, but that's because those people can't (without some difficulty) exit the community and leave me hanging with the negative side of whatever I trusted them to do.

i.e. If I lent money to a friend, they can't disappear and never pay me back, on the net that's all too possible

But as far as trusting a person's advice, opionion, character etc. there's no barrier to trust developing as far as I can see, its just that there's a point at which you need physical contact with a person to be certain that they'll go through with their side of a bargain 

Is there a certain level of trust that comes with anonymity?  I find that some people will divulge all kinds of personal secrets over the internet as they are able to skip a few peices of vital information that would lead the receiver of said secrets back to them in real life. 

Of course, like most people I have had my fair share of people on real life who I have known for years, thought I could trust and then they have seriously screwed me over.  So for this reason I feel that trust is a tough one regardless of its online/offline association. 

Over in the Tangler Feedback group, RichardPendergast had an interesting observation that could have a bearing on issues of trust in virtual community:

"Another thought, it might be worth reviewing the capability to edit prior posts and topic headings, or at least throw it out as a discussion to the community. I have no real feelings on this as yet, but noted in a discussion with Dek that it was entirely possible for me to edit a post made 3 weeks ago, and change the entrie flow of a converstion. "
Any comments? 

So more questions then ... 

• does respect come first? 
  
• Do you develop trust at at different rates depending on whether the initial contacts show opinions that are similar in nature to your own?  Is it important at all whether their opinions in any area match or partially match your own?
• Do you initially have a mind set that trust has to earned? Or perhaps do you have a mind set of granting trust and then changing your opinion if it seems betrayed? If the later, can it be earned back once broken?

1. Respect always comes first.  I respect anyone I come across (in life and online) until they do something for me to change my mind. And since trust is somehow tied in with respect, I suppose I trust anyone I meet. This ain't the blind trust - more like - I trust this person won't turn serial on me (unless they display their human skin wallet, which is probably  when I'll change my mind)
2. I'm not too sure abt this. I might like someone who shares the same opinion as me, but I don't think for me it translates to/as trust. I trust people I disagree with wholly on certain matters.
3. As to mindset - I take everyone as they come. No doubt there are some people I distrust straight away - think Dubya and his friend-shooting sidekick - but mostly, I keep an open mind and let the person present themself to me. As to betrayal and earning trust back, sometimes it is hard for someone to earn my trust back, but that has been because they haven't displayed the requisite behaviour

With regard to what Richard has said (quoted by Bric up there) - I am very conscious of editing and deleting my posts.

I tend to only edit typos and sentences that don't make sense. Otherwise, I do think it is taking something you said back, in which case, state what it is you took back.
It is kinda like the spoken word - you can't retract it once said, so why should  it be any different from the written word. Plus it's unfair to the people who have commented on what I've said, and also unfair on future readers, who will have no clue what happened

So you would go with an etiquette somewhat along these lines:

It's ok to change typo's and syntax but don't touch semantics  in an old post....if you must clarify  the 'matter' do it in current time and explain that you are clarifying your positions in the previous post  (due to error or simply having a newly revised point of view) ?

I see one of the dangers in the Political world is coming to be that Politicians have to face the prospect of a 30 second sound bite going back 3 decades. being played sequentially with one from 'yesterday'  ... while context has probably completely in the intervening period , the 30 seconds the sound bites  can make it look like a flip flop on moral position ... as we take part in community 2.0 could we all fall prey to the same sort of  'outing' ?  Will we be able to let people change over time and maintain a level of trust? Is it possible that  a nearly complete record make it difficult? 

If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart.
If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain. ( I've seen this attributed Winston Churchill but can find the reference now).  

I suppose I could go along with your 'outline'

Say for example you've made a post and not come back to Tangler for a week. In the meantime, others take it and run. At the end of it, you come back and find that one simple typo completely changed the meaning of what you initially meant to say. In this instance, it'd serve everyone's purpose for you to just clarify the matter in a new post, rather than editing the first one.
Am I making sense?

I don't see anything issue with allowing people to change their opinions. I also don't think it has anything to do with trust

Re your example: "one simple typo completely changed the meaning of what you initially meant to say"  and " In the meantime, others take it and run"  I'd agree that clarifying the matter in a new post is the only way to go... but what if the typo didn't change the meaning... say it was a simple transposition <whoops> transposition error due to poor typing skills is it ok to go back and just fix it?  What about a spelling mistake (two instead of too) I think so.... but I try to stay to the side of caution... as evidenced in my typing error (the case of the Famopus ) where I corrected the spelling in the title but inserted  this comment:

further proof that my skills as a typist are severely constrained.... for those wondering, yes the title of the group did say "World Famopus" <sigh>

I think a  bigger question arises though if you simply don't go back to the group and so don't notice the discrepency... and meanwhile you post in another group a different point of view... how does this impact the ability of a reader to determine your consistency? for as you say back near the start:

"If I have an extended exchange with someone online, and they are consistent with what they say, I find that I develop a certain level of trust.
get what I mean? "

 The later entrant  might see two sides of opinion from you! That's the conundrum i wonder about when I think of building trust online....

further, bits and pieces contributing to an understanding of others might be further complicated by being raised in different contexts entirely that are not apparent when viewed in isolation (for example you are EVERYWHERE on Tangler... and sometimes I make a remark harking back to something I've seen in another topic/group perhaps months ago in time.... while you grasp the reference immediately -as if we were both in the original conversation - but someone who has not seen the reference might not see the humour but think it is a pointed jab ... what opinion will the 'outsider' have of the exchange ... will it be seen as humor or reduce the appearance of consistency and get in the way of building trust?

Is there a natural limit to the time validity of carring content in groups?  Should things fall off the active scroll after a period of time? or is this of little concern? 

say it was a simple transposition <whoops> transposition error due to poor typing skills is it ok to go back and just fix it? 

Sure, why not, but then again, why bother? It obviously didn't matter to the rest of the crowd.... unless they're making you famopus thanks to the typo

I think a  bigger question arises though if you simply don't go back to the group and so don't notice the discrepency... and meanwhile you post in another group a different point of view... how does this impact the ability of a reader to determine your consistency? for as you say back near the start:

"If I have an extended exchange with someone online, and they are consistent with what they say, I find that I develop a certain level of trust.
get what I mean? "

Okay, I get what you're getting at. Isn't the whole point of communication well.... communication? If someone finds what I'm saying to be contradictory (like you just did) ask and clarify. Maybe if they ask how I arrived at each conclusion, and see my reasoning, they'll understand where I'm coming from.
Also, my meaning of consistent wasn't necessarily  only to do with someone's opinion. I was thinking more in terms of their writing style, what they say, how they say it (if you can in fact judge that online) and probably most importantly, how they react to/with others, esp new people

what opinion will the 'outsider' have of the exchange ... will it be seen as humor or reduce the appearance of consistency and get in the way of building trust?

Doesn't think happen in real life? And how do we deal with it in real life? Either we get the people in on it to explain it to us, or we forget it and move on. I don't think this is about trust. This is about history, and most people, when confronted with such a situation, will just ask. The advantage we have here over real life is that we can provide a linked reference to the person, such that they can not only 'catch up' as it were, but join in!

As to time validity - most things fall off naturally.... sometimes they come back to life, when some brave soul has trudged thru the archives, sometimes they just die. I really do think this is of little concern.
What I've noticed is a lot of the time, an old topic commented in by someone new doesn't reignite anything. It's almost as if everyone said what they had to, and they just don't want to rehash it anymore. Something like, 'what I've said is up there, go read it.' As opposed to RL, when you need to say the same things over and over cos your word isn't there for all to see forever

Ahhh ...now that's really interesting.  "Writing Style" -- that could go a long way towards replacing some of  the missing attributes of face-to-face commuications.

Certainly in writing stories one uses a different style (depending on fiction vs non-fiction, romance vs horror etc) that add substantial 'meaning' to the words.  And style certainly varies in an indvidual between sms messages, twitter posts, blog posts, email, or reports for work (and similarly here in postings to Tangler)...  hmmm... another reason to improve my typing so my discourse here can be a truer reflection of my style and cognitive processes 

I do think you've come very close to successfully refuting the extent of the loss of communication due to 'words' only with this style comment.... exactly what I was looking for ..... thanks! 

Oh bugger, have I?

I do find something missing with this style.... I miss all the nuances of speaking. That's not to say that the written form suffers - I don't think it does. I think we manage to overcome the lack somehow. It's enough to make do i suppose

re: Doesn't think happen in real life? Yes, exactly.... my question was more about if the impact was different. In the early days of email and bulletin board software so called "flame wars" would develop as things often seemed 'harsher' when written than they would when spoken face to face... I think perhaps we've moved somewhat past this, but not all the way.

re: "Oh Bugger"  not the response I expected

I do believe we overcome it ... or I wouldn't be part of the Tangler community.... so having read a piece stating the contrary (from a respected source) I thought I would come to my favourite sources for their input! 

I find that this means doesn't do justice to the people I know in person (hence the oh bugger)
I've been thinking about this lately - somehow I don't read people I know in their voice. I read them in my voice, which really messes with what they're saying and how I receive their words sometimes. Which of course is really unfair.

However, with people I've never met in person, I read them all the same way, so I receive the message the same way all the time

Does any of that make sense? ^^

What did that other source have to say Bric?

hang on ... I'll go get the book so I can quote it accurately...

Oh thanks!

Digital Storytelling

(from Story Telling in Organizations, John Seely Brown et al , Elsevier Butterwort-Heinemann, Oxford, 2004.  pp 133 - 134) <emphasis added dhcs>

A different question that's sometimes asked has to do with the effectiveness of storytelling via e-mail or other virtual communication media.  If' you're sharing information, then electronic media can do a very good job.  It works well on the Web as anywhere else, probably better.  If you want a stock price, the weather report, a train timetable -- these things you can get on the Web easily and quickly and accurately and it's wonderful.  It has certainly simplified life a great deal having quick access to information like that.  But if you're getting into deeper kinds of questions, if you're doing what I'm trying to do -- persuade a change-resistant organization to change; if you're trying to talk to people who, when you start communicating with them aren't interested at all in what you have to say, then you're in a different ballgame.  I've not seen a virtual communications able to deal at all with that kind of a situation.  I've not seen any instance where anyone has been able to effect  significant change with a skeptical audience by sending an e-mail and asking people to visit a website.  And the reason is that it's difficult to do anyway.  Even if you're there in person, it's going to be a difficult challenge.  But if you're not there in person, it's not really possible.

For one thing there isn't enough bandwidth.  Studies have been done showing what i is the impact of storytelling and where does it come from.  These studies inciate that somwhere around 10 percent of the communication comes from the content, and around 90 percent from the tone of voice, the gesture, the look in the eye, and all of that.  In virtual communicaton you're missing most of that 90 percent -- you're dealing with the 10 percent, and there simply ins't enough bandwidth to connect with the person, to make it happen. 

Another aspect is that storytelling in person is intensely interactive, wheras virtual communication is passive.  When you tell a story in person, you get all sorts of cues in terms of expressions and body language from the audience as to how they are responding to the story, and you adjust that story to take that into account.  In a virtual encounter that kind of feedback is absent and so the experience becomes something different. 

 and from pp 37 - 38:

Web Communities 

Some people would say in defense of distributed-ness, that there are many thousands of vibrant virtual communities on the web.  They say that there are hundreds of thousands of people that play in virtual environments and know and trust each other and develop their own communities.  My own take on the situation is that it depends on how you define the words like '"know" and "trust" and "community".  It's a judgment call in the end.  But most people won't trust other people to the extent of really talking about serious things, not just the gross national product (GNP) orf Morocco or regression analysis, but subjects needing real trust.  People won't share this unless they know the other person.  And it's hard to know others if you haven't met them.  Some people say it's generational. And that may be so to a certain extent.

The issue arose in my mind because I had just read these passages and then signed on to Tangler and participated in the Humans as Food for Vultures topic in Charity, Philathropy and Community Group and so began to wondering about web communities as a possible force for change.... could a community come together in the same way a local not for profit or charitable organization does.? .. and if so how would one overcome the issues of trust and resistance to act posited in the selections I quoted?

ps Dek "- "somehow I don't read people I know in their voice. I read them in my voice, which really messes with what they're saying and how I receive their words sometimes" -   I believe that a Buddhist would tell you that that is the human condition ...  Now I've got to pull out and re-read The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life for a refresher course myself...

Well, firstly, the first thing that stood out was the percentages they used - 10% content, 90% 'the rest'.

If that really is the case, then online communication has a big advantage in the sense that it is 100% content (or 90% content and 10% emoticons).

It is interesting the authors think in this way, because traditionally, it is the written word which has been regarded as having the authority (verbal vs written contracts). All of a sudden, we are suspicious of the written word and think its not enough.... that's interesting

 I believe that a Buddhist would tell you that that is the human condition

I'd tell you the same thing.... the sad thing abt the human condition is that try as you might, you will never fully convey what you mean to the other person because it is the other

oops.... sorry abt that.... I dunno why it all went bold. Altho I unbolded it

stooopid IE

I think the percentages were where the 'meaning' that you get across in your communication comes from - similar to how certain hand gestures and certain words have much the same meaning, you can communicate things with looks, sighs, noises, body language, tone of voice, timing, emphasis etc. but that all gets cut out of text communication (except for the relatively limited options with emoticons, saying <sigh> or using italics/bold to signify emphasis.

Removing that emotional, sub-conscious layer of communication does make the whole process less empathic (if that's a word) which, like the thing said, would make it very hard to talk around an unreceptive audience, as is demonstrated by forum flamewars that end with neither party changing their mind but both pissed off

Some other stuff was raied in the past 25 posts that I missed, like the trust created by anonymity since you can tell someone on the other side of the world something embarassing and if they do the virtual equivalent of pointing and laughing you can just close the browser window. I wouldn't call that trust, if you're only divulging something because you know that can't get at you with it then there's no trust there at all - true trust (as I see it) is knowing that by doing something (eg telling a person something or lending them vast sums of money) you give someone the opportunity to hurt you but you do it anyway because you trust them to not do so.

In that sense I guess trust of that type isn't really common online.. although if you value a community enough that you wouldn't be able to tear yourself away even to escape whatever negative effect a betrayal of your trust would have then maybe it can exist.. i don't know

ith regards monetary trust, there are people here that if there were an easy way to move money around I would probably trust to pay me back,  I think that despite the lack of the empathy layer you can still get a reasonable idea of a person's character by the way they write and the things they say which can then engender trust in that person

Thinking about it, with the increasingly isolated way a lot of people live you could question how much trust there is in the real world

Are you saying that you don't want users to edit their posts? Editing posts is completely normal ans almost every forum alows you to do so. If you made same grave typos, it is your obligation to correct it.
i don't think anybody here would try evil things like Parasite Hosting.

And the rest of this topic has become vry psychologic, hasn't it? Just concentrate on building great websites, you can't reprogramm the human mind

The fact that you're reading this post right now means that you're a better webmaster than 98% of the internet users anyway