What role does software play in online communities?
Social software should cover three essential areas:
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Tools to achieve the mission, a set of possible actions users can perform on a platform. Without tools people will not be able to do what you invited them to do on the site. Upload videos, edit posts, vote, etc.
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Tools for coordinating the common effort. The more people involved in any activity, the more resources needed to be spent on coordinating the group itself so that it does not turn into chaos. This requires providing users with tools to coordinate collective activities and self-govern the group.
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Tools for creating and maintaining groups. Tools aimed at enabling individuals to connect, communicate, and engage with others and foster their relationships.
Everything that does not fall into these three categories is good to have but not necessary for a community to operate and per se does not play a significant role in the success of the community.
Software is just applied tools, no more, no less.
This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.