Rules & Institutions

Managing the Virtual Commons

Any successful community will have a set of rules – whether implicit
or explicit – that governs how common resources should be used and
who is responsible for producing and maintaining collective goods.
As Ostrom states that there is a good match between the goals and
local conditions of a group,

and the rules that govern the actions of the group’s members. Her
research indicates that there is a great variation from community to
community in the details of the rules for managing collective goods. It is
very critical to take a specific rules of a successful group and apply them
blindly to other groups. Ostrom also found out that an additional
characteristic of successful communities is that most of the individuals
affected by the rules…
governing the use of common resource can participate in
modifying those rules. These feature results in better-
designed rules because the individuals with the
knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the group and
the challenges the group faces could modify the rules over
time to better fit the local conditions.

Rules that were created and forced upon a community by

outside authorities often failed miserably because the rules
did not take into account the knowledge of local conditions.
A well-crafted set of rules for managing collective resource
is certainly important for newsgroups, and some progress
has been made in defining those rules. Rules and institutions
exist in on a global and local level throughout the USENET.

Globally, a set of documents exist which chart out rules that

should govern participation. Six key documents have been
grouped together in what is described as “mandatory course” for
new users. These documents discuss rules of etiquette,
suggestions for using the USENET efficiently, cautions against
wasting bandwidth or being off-topic, and many other issues.
On the local level, and consistent with the principle that
rules should be tailored to local conditions, many
newsgroups have also established a body of information
about the newsgroup, complete with prescriptions and
prescriptions, that is how as a Frequently-Asked Questions
file or FAQ.

However, there are problems: not every newsgroup has a FAQ

(indeed, the creation of a FAQ is often the first sign that a group
has resolved some of the hurdles of collective organization);
some FAQs do not address critical issues or do so ambiguously;
some newsgroups do not have a clear sense of their goals or the
challenges.
Issues of FAQs:

• New members do not bother on reading them

and other related documents
• These documents do not contain specific
recommendations for dealing with their
violations

All enforcement on the USENET remains an

informal process.
The production of FAQ helps in creating and modifying
rules based on the every-day events within the newsgroup.
But in the creation and modification of rules, not everyone
is required to participate. It could be group of people and
even only one can do it.

The thing is that even newsgroups that have produced a FAQ,

their rules and institutions remain informal, undocumented and
difficult to implement. Hence, certain serious issues of the
newsgroup will not be addressed and resolved.
The rules that govern a virtual community plays a
significant role in maintaining the proper and systematical
function of the group. It is also important that new and old
members know these rules and information necessary to
carry interaction in a newsgroup.

But long-time members ignore questions from neophytes

(termed newbies) and not contribute to the creation or
maintenance of FAQ files. New members are tempted to wade
into a newsgroup without learning the information and details
which are prepared by other members.
For instance, a group of member post an off-topic
discussion are not addressed properly and consistently. This
leads to the creation of set authorities that evaluates the
topics that they want to post and these authorities have the
right to allow them to post it on public or not.

Finally, the USENET is not subject to much interference from

external authorities. This is an advantage since it will allow the
newsgroups to hone and modify their rules based on the required
approach in the community.
Monitoring and Sanctioning
Managing the Virtual Commons
Monitoring and sanction is not merely for punishing rule
breakers but also for assuring the members that informal
behaviors of other members are not being tolerated. This
also makes the community successful in a way that the
rules are being properly implemented and addressed
carefully.

Interaction in USENET makes monitoring much easier, it is also

possible to monitor others thoroughly because if someone
violates the rules in a certain newsgroup everybody can see their
email address.
Being off-topic is highly inconsiderable because it will
make the newsgroup uncoordinated. Newsgroups are
typically strict in terms of its rules. If a member of a certain
newsgroup is being rude, insensitive, or insulting someone
other members may report their unlawful actions.

“Free-riders” – the term used for users who are doing actions
that do not conform with the law. Proper decorum is very
important in newsgroups.
However, there is no perfectly designed rules in
newsgroups and ambiguity is always present in applying a
particular rule. Since rules and regulation in newsgroups
remains informal, the responses to the inappropriate actions
toward those users who are violating the rules are still
happens very often.

Formal method for dealing with conflicts in newsgroups is yet to

be developed. There is no USENET court system and such.
USENET relies on the principle that most conflicts die out after
a period of time.