Internet and related communications technologies support an emerging environment : “social software.” As M. Madison point out: "social software” specifically to describe a class of computer programs, environments, tools, and protocols that are designed to enhance individual productivity or sociability in group settings on the Internet or other computer networks. computing is about people, not merely about information. Computing builds connections, networks, and pathways for information and activity, channels that constrain the individual and that enable the group. It concerned freedom and sovereignty, and specifically how to conceptualize the relationship of the individual not to the individual machine. We face new challenges in appreciating the relationship between the law and groups.
Example 1: An open proxy
A proxy server that is accessible by any Internet user. It allows users within a network group to store and forward Internet services to reduce and control the bandwidth used by the group. With an open proxy, any user on the Internet is able to use this forwarding service. Open proxies may be blocked from editing for any period at any time to deal with editing abuse.
This is the problem of free-rider as explained in Peter Kollock and Marc Smith’s paper. A public good is a resource from which all may benefit, regardless of whether they have helped create the good. The temptation is to enjoy a public good without contributing to its production, but if all reach this decision, the good is never created and all suffer. Like in this open proxy example, the bandwidth used by the group is the public resource. If everyone try to use it without control. Then everyone is suffered. There is often a tension between individual and collective rationality. To avoid this situation, some rules have been proposed:
- Group boundaries are clearly defined.
- Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions.
- Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules.
- The rights of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities
- A system for monitoring member's behavior exists; this monitoring is undertaken by the community members themselves
- A graduated system of sanctions is used
- Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms
Here we can set a maximum limit for internet user to forbid the user to over use it and blocked for the user for any period at any time to deal with this abuse.
Example 2: Disruptive editors
They can be blocked from editing for short or long amounts of time. Extremely disruptive editors may be banned from Wikipedia. If you do not respect these bans, bait banned users, and help them out, you may be banned. Bans can be appealed to Jimbo Wales or the Arbitration Committee, depending on the nature of the ban.
When content restrictions were removed from a question answering community and social technologies were introduced, participants begin to focus less on topical content and more on one another. This increased site participation, social support and open normative debates, but it also increased conflict, rogue behaviors and factionalism. Sometimes the user may not respect the bans and help the banned user out. Severely punishing such a person might alienate him or her from the community, causing greater problems. Here we can use a graduated system of sanctions. The initial sanction for breaking a rule is very low, such as giving them a warning, blocking them for a short period, While sanctions could be as severe as banishment from the group.
Example 3: Uploading non-free images
avoid uploading non-free images; fully describe images' sources and copyright details on their description pages, and try to make images as useful and reusable as possible. They can be blocked from uploading images for short or long amounts of time.
“Social software” supports the creation and persistence of informal, dynamic groups of people, and it makes those groups visible and salient to a larger degree than they have been before. That salience should prompt law and policy to rethink historic skepticism of informal collectives, particularly in light of suggestions that the loose constraints that define informal groups may enable them to do a lot of good.