Talk:Social software (research field)

Untitled edit

I have tagged this page for multiple issues. First of all, putting an "under construction" sign on an article does not grant you ownership of that article. Second, and more importantly, I find it disgraceful that a researcher (or group of them actually) would choose to use Wikipedia to publish their research. There is such a thing as academic integrity and if you wish to gather more attention to your research you can use the usual channels for doing so (journals, working papers in general and conference papers in particular). Coming from an academic background myself I find it appaling that you would choose to do this. While you are thinking about this you may want to read WP:COI, WP:OR and WP:SPS MartinDK 08:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

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Dear MartinDK: If you had gone to the end of the article you would have found 27 references to published work. The entry is not being used to announce new unpublished work, but to inform people of exciting new work which has been done and which is being done. Four conferences, either partly or wholly on social software have already taken place, in Copenhagen, London, Utrecht and New York. As for the conflict of names with two difference meanings or usages, the best thing to do is to be polite to the other community. Our purpose is to convey information and not to block others from conveying theirs. Sincerely, Rjpc 22:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Rjpc --Reply

Well to be honest I'm very disappointed that searching for the term social software led me to this page on wikipedia. I'm really interested in Eric Pacuits work and I try to understand it but obviously it clearly fails to distinguish itself from the "other" meaning of social software. If I'd be a scientist I'd be more modest if I just forgot about the other meanings of the term.
Eric's definition in my eyes clearly doesn't earn to occupy the lemma Social Software as I found no other reference that defines Social Software his way("Social software is an interdisciplinary research program that combines mathematical tools and techniques from game theory and computer science in order to analyze and design social procedures. Research in social software can be divided into three different but related categories: modeling social situations, developing a theory of correctness of social procedures and designing socialp rocedures." [1]
Whoever published the article this way, clearly didn't understand what an encyclopedia is. Torstenpeh 15:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
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This article is very clearly against the spirit of wikipedia. I am also an academic researcher, and I find the author's choice to use wikipedia as a venue for pushing a very marginal and decidedly non-neutral viewpoint on what "social software" might mean to be appalling. Grow a backbone and let your ideas fight it out in the usual places, i.e., the peer-reviewed literature. If you're successful you'll get a wikipedia page summarizing your work and viewpoint soon enough. 152.78.64.180 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply


The article has been recently updated to meet Wikipedia standards. There is no unpublished work in this article. You would notice this if you take the time to scroll down the page and look under 'references' section. Best, CM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yash M (talkcontribs) 03:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)Reply



I am distressed by rude expressions like "Grow a backbone and let your ideas fight it out in the usual places". How about growing a backbone and scrolling down to the rest of the entry to see that in fact a lot of the material HAS been published in "the usual places"? Somehow I feel that those who want to identify social software solely with their approach are being a little selfish. The problems of society looked at from the point of view of computer science (as well as game theory and epistemic logic) are extremely important and those of us who care about social problems should be grateful that precise methods from mathematics and computer science are being used to discuss social procedures. It is an inconvenience that the expression "social software" has two different usages but we just have to live with it rather than try to kill off the other community.Rjpc (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)Reply


"Somehow I feel that those who want to identify social software solely with their approach are being a little selfish."

I can only agree with this part. I suspect we disagree about who is doing the identification with their own approach.

"The problems of society looked at from the point of view of computer science (as well as game theory and epistemic logic) are extremely important and those of us who care about social problems should be grateful that precise methods from mathematics and computer science are being used to discuss social procedures."

Yes, absolutely. But the little corner of the field that this "social software" sense-2 represents is not the whole story, and you should recognize the disingenuousness in claiming that it is. 152.78.64.180 (talk) 16:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

disambiguation or move to Social Procedure needed, but ... edit

DPardoeWilson (talk) 02:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)Personally I believe Social Procedure is Social Software, and I am actually rather pleased that the individual who put up this page decided to use this extremely misleading title. I put up a request for a disambiguation page, partly because it makes me angry that there should be two pages differing in title on by the capitalization of one letter (Social Sofware, second word Capitalized, Social software, second word uncapitalized. If you look on the web with Google you find that Social Software means computer software, almost always, so I would prefer to have it the other way around -- the page Social Software, both words capitalized should be about computer software, but should note that the term has been used to refer to Social Procedure, and direct the user to Social Procedure, which should no longer be a short and dubious article but the entire contents of the article with the misleading title. But I am reluctant to make such a drastic change myself.Reply


I can only say that AS A RESEARCHER I am extremely satisfied with this entry, including its title. Social Software is definitely, and has for quite some time now, been an active concept in the field that the entry describes. Should I be offended by Computer "Science" to have borrowed the concept "science" from those disciplines that it originally belongs to? "Domain", "Desktop", "system", could go the same way. I'm sorry to say that the criticism above is ultimately ill-conceived and signals a lack of knowledge and 'possesionism', rather than a valid objection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.60.232.119 (talk) 11:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)Reply