Citizen participation: norm consensus in virtual communities

Abstract

For a long time, communities have delegated the task of defining and enforcing rules to a selected few. In online spaces, this could be moderators in a forum, and in real life, politicians. The Internet is a powerful tool that allows many people to communicate directly with each other in real time. Using these new possibilities to create spaces were people can propose and discuss norms that they want for their own communities should be a prioritary goal for society as a whole. Everyone should be included in these discussions, so usability is extremely important for these projects. Users have to understand and feel comfortable with the tools they have at their disposal to fully participate in the creation of norms. The aim of this project is to analyze and improve the usability of an existing virtual community prototype, in which users can propose norms and argue in favor or against them. Finally, the website is tested with humans in order to assess their reaction to the proposed system.