Talk:Social network

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{{down. --Goodoldpolonius 06:09, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Can this be expanded, or should it go to Wiktionary? Wetman 12:00, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Terminology 2 Dunbar's 150 rule 3 Image 4 External links 5 suggested additions 6 Object-centered Sociality 7 CASOS (Carnegie Mellon) 8 sixdegrees.com 9 MySpace and News Corporation 10 Global brain: Social Network Analysis 11 External links 12 Niche topics, e.g. GolfBuzz 13 Added mobile social networking section 14 Milroy 15 Split the Article 16 Suggestions 17 Accessibility hint

[edit] Terminology

The section "Quantities in Social Network Analysis" is very poorly written. It would be nice if somebody knowledgable in the topic could rewrite it in a more comprehensible way.

[edit] Dunbar's 150 rule

Disregarding the fact that I don't have access to the paper itsel;f, I think Wikipedia will do a better service to its users if it links directly to Dunbar's findings relating the "150 rule". I also suggest that it's name to be attached to the number, instead of it be presented as a 'magic' number on the current page.

FYI, the ref to the original article by dumbar is:

R.I.M Dunbar, "Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates," Journal of Human Evolution (1992), vol. 20, pp. 469-493. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.225.194.49 (talk) 08:22, 29 July 2004.

• That paper's here, but it's a preprint - I don't know if anything altered in the final publication, but the tables are screwed up in this one. Still, it gets the gist... Shimgray 18:09, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Heh, I thought the same thing, and without taking a look at the talk page, blithely added the link as a parenthetical reference. I can't believe this has languished for over two years without getting linked! Be bold! I also thought about blindly linking it like 150 people, but I thought it would be better to cite the *name* in the text. The only downside is that, indeed, it is parenthetical -- and there are already two other parenthetical sections in that paragraph. If anyone else can think of a way to work it into the text in a more fluid fashion, please boldly do so. Matt B. 07:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I am happy that someone wants to create a new social network image (I did the current one in MS Paint). It is important that any new picture show not just nodes, but also the links or ties that connect them, since those are both mentioned prominently in the article and are also key to any sort of social network analysis or analysis of social capital. Any diagram should be able to illustrate centrality, closed and open groups, social holes, and social bridges/brokers. Feel free to make the one I put together nicer, but I don't think that we should use a version that has no ties at all. --Goodoldpolonius2 05:01, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about uk:Зображення:Social network.svg? --VictorAnyakin 07:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I propose that all the external links on the "Examples of Internet social networking systems, otherwise known as YASNS" section be completely removed. It's a linkspam magnet. Either the site is relevant enough to merit its own Wikipedia article (and we should link to the article instead of the site), or it's not (and probably linkspam). --cesarb 01:32, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As a long-time contributor to (and often regulator of) this article, I agree in principle but disagree in practice. Without the YASNS links, people put linkspam directly in the article, now, at least, it is limited to that section. People add linkspam several times a day, which would make the administrative load too high for this article if there wasn't a place for people to put it. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:07, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WEAK AGREE I too prefer that the page not be used for advertising purposes, but I also agree that it's much more manageable with all of the external links in one somewhat-maintainable spot. That said, I would prefer that the link descriptions were less... advertise-y. In particular, I've removed a couple of choice phrases like "and more!", etc. --Alan Au 02:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I propose that external links be limited to a one-sentence description. Comments? --Alan Au 22:39, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Again, I agree, but how would we enforce it? If you are willing to, great, otherwise I think we will have to keep editing all the time, which isn't worth it. --Goodoldpolonius2 23:12, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I propose to limit the list to one link to The SNS Meta List, they are doing a much better job of collecting the YASNS links.

A good idea, but I agree with CesarB that it's better to have an inclusive (but maintainable) policy so that people are less likely to put external links into the article text. Also, I'm wary of giving the appearance that Wikipedia is in any way "endorsing" the SNS meta list, whether that's the intent or not. --Alan Au 18:22, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] suggested additions

I just stumbled upon this article and want to suggest a couple of additions:

1. "(Social) networking" is often used to describe the act of building your own social network. I don't know if an article can be written about it, but it seems that this sense of the word deserves a mention. Maybe this would just be opening up the article to "original research", but there are a number of (non-internet) institutions that are used to develop one's social network--ranging from country clubs, to cocktail parties, to formal education, and charity galas along with all that other junk you see in the "society" page of your newspaper.
2. Similar analyses are being used in biology. Small world phenomenon kinda gets into it. I guess this is my field, so when I have some time and remember the issues, I'll see how this fits into this article or related articles.

AdamRetchless 03:01, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Tentatively, I would avoid adding anything unless it can be externally supported. That said, it might be worthwhile checking around to find literature on "informal" networking. (http://www.asis.org) --Alan Au 20:20, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Object-centered Sociality

Valuable criticism: http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2005/04/why_some_social.html

Basically, he says that point-and-spoke models of relationships don't work, if the relationships all have different objects. The failing of the social network software is that it fails to account for the objects: they focus almost entirely on the people.

This article, too, seems to focus mostly on the people and their relationships, but not on their objects. The relationship is frequently named explicitly, but that does not make a social network.

That is, it does not make sense to say that I share a Social Network with a friend of my friend who I don't know. Instead, I share a social network with the people in my part of my company, because we all interact with one another. But I do not share a social network with one of the other employees' children.

I am explaining an idea here, and I don't know if it makes sense to put this idea in the article just on the merit of my bringing it up here. But Karin Knorr Cetina is a sociology, and she has described this theory in great detail. She is a professor of sociology writing about these kinds of ideas. That implies to me that this warrents inclusion in the article.

I myself learned this idea from The Case for Object-Centered Sociality.

LionKimbro

I think some of the confusion here is the difference between social networking as a catagory of software (like LinkedIn) and social network theory more broadly. Social network software may suffer some of the flaws discussed -- it arbitrarily creates "networks" by linking people together, but these are not social networks in a sociological sense. Social network theory is based on mapping relationships between individuals and groups as they actually exist, and plays a prominent role in a lot of sociological research about knowledge diffusion, power in organizations, and learning. Social network theory is capable of making distinctions between those who share networks for work or a project, and those who do so purely for social reasons -- it is not just "hub and spoke." Actor-network theory and related approaches are actually subfields within the broader social network world. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:43, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CASOS (Carnegie Mellon)

I moved the inline references to the CMU CASOS site and project over to the "External links" section. While the CMU program seems like a great resource, I'm not convinced (based on the link description) that it is sufficiently fundamental to understanding social network theory that it would warrant special mention in the article text. In particular, my understanding is that Wikipedia tends to shy away from discussion of ongoing research. That said, please feel free to re-integrate the text into the main article, but a more thorough explanation of the significance would be greatly appreciated. --Alan Au 08:50, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] sixdegrees.com

I'm not sure how important this is, but in the section entitled "Internet social networks" there is no mention of the site sixdegrees.com. Am I the only one who remembers it? It probably wasn't the first "social networking" site, but it was around in the early days. -- Allen U

• I'm not sure what we want to do about it, since the SixDegrees.com site is no longer live. There's already a wikilink to the Six_degrees_of_separation page, although I have no problem if you wanted to add a mention (and wikilink) into the "Internet social networks" area of the article. --Alan Au 17:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MySpace and News Corporation

I think it would be informative to mention the acquisition of Intermix Media, the parent company of MySpace, by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in September 2005 for $580 million. This would best be inserted after the mention of Google and Yahoo entering the social networking space, as another example of a major corporation (in this case, one of the world's largest "old media" empires) making a major financial investment in an online social networking business. One could argue this was a watershed event as the first successful "exit" of a venture capital investment in the online social networking business. I didn't add any text to the article myself because I work for Intermix and don't want to upset the NPOV. Antonej 03:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please keep in mind that this article is primarily for information about social network theory, not about commercial social networking services. --Alan Au 21:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The article seemed to imply that Friendster was still the most popular social networking site, which is no longer true; MySpace is way out in front. I'm adding this fact because it's the info I came here to find out, not because I'm affiliated with Rupert Murdoch's evil empire. Factual info from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc20050719_5427_tc119.htm 64.122.41.167 17:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Global brain: Social Network Analysis

From Library Journal
Dunbar (psychology, University of Liverpool) has written a provocative book about the sociology of language use.
He begins with a discussion of primate behavior, physiology, and Darwinian evolution.

• Amazon: Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language

RJBurkhart 12:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

This is the external links section as of today. I think we have passed the spam event horizon here. Per WP:EL, we should link to:

• sources
• leading authorities

Many of these links seem to be to social networks, not sites about social networking. Can we review them individually, please? Remembering that we should only link to sites which are about social networking and which are either sources or provide a level of detail excessive for a WP article. WP:NOT a link farm! Just zis Guy you know? 16:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• DateApp Social Networking Program Build a synergistic community of social networks
• INSNA The International Network for Social Network Analysis with links to journals available online
• SOCNET The listserver for SNA.
• CASOS Dynamic Social Network Analysis being conducted at Carnegie Mellon University with datasets available
• Social Network Analysis resources subpage of the Program on Networked Governance at Harvard University by Ines Mergel
• Complexity and Social Networks Blog covering a wide variety of SN topics at Harvard University
• Gated Online Communities Link and Info Page
• Online Social Networking Research Report - A comparative analysis by Wildbit of the most popular online social networks with suggestions on creating and growing web communities.
• Knock, Knock, Knocking on Newton's Door - article published in Defense Acquisition University's journal Defense AT&L, based largely on Six Degrees by Duncan Watts. Explores theory and practice of social networking, as related to military technology development.
• How to Do Social Network Analysis Vladis Kreb's page
• Concepts of Social Network Analysis
• Robin Dunbar and the Magic Number of 150
• The Academic Robotics Community in the UK: Web based data construction and analysis of a distributed community of practice. This community's knowledge management social networks are built entirely from web-based resources such as web pages, electronic CVs and bibliographic search engines
• The Augmented Social Network:
  Building Identity and Trust into the Next-Generation Internet by Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster
• The Social Web: Building an Open Social Network with XDI by members of the OASIS XDI Technical Committee7
• UCINET - Software package for social network analysis
• Pajek - Program for Large Network Analyis
• Vlado's collection of datasets
• PieSpy - Social Network Bot Inferring and Visualizing Social Networks on IRC

[edit] Niche topics, e.g. GolfBuzz

I don't have a problem with any specific internet social networking service (e.g. GolfBuzz), but I'm concerned that once we start singling out particular services, we get into a problem of trying to decide who to include and exclude. At one point I blanket-removed all of the inline (external) links to prevent this problem. Partly, I'm not sure this is the correct article to be providing examples of commercial services, since this article is supposed to be the umbrella article about social network theory. Anyhow, I just wanted to express my thoughts on the matter. --Alan Au 18:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle but I do not see why singling out examples to illustrate points is a bad practice. Especially when it seems that social networking is tending towards niche sites that tailor specifically to peoples interstests and passions. In the article we single out the pioneers and social networking leaders such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. I do not see there being a problem highlighting the new niche sites that leading the change (dogster, Joga, or sisiterwoman) to illustrate a point. They are the next evolution and probably just as note worthy. How many of the companies above have been able to attract a partner such as Apple computer as is the case with the new running focused social network that Nike and Apple are launching. Social networks are so mainstream that "big industry" is reacting and starting to participate. 69.180.21.43 19:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

So let's say I come along and want to add my niche website about pie-based social networks, and the next guys wants to add a link about cake-based social networks, and then someone else wants to add their site dealing with muffin-based networks, and then where do you draw the line? I was hoping that by excluding the external links, it would discourage people from adding specialized variants for commercial purposes. --Alan Au 21:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree... knowing where to draw the line is difficult. I do not think it is so much excluding rather than providing examples to illustrate a point. Adding a few examples does not mean that everyone should be included. I would stipulate that the examples are early niche pioneers or extremely note-worthy examples that come in the future for example: Dogster, sisterwoman, or Nike's entries (Joga and nike +). I definitely agree with your diligence on maintaining the integrity of the wiki. I believe that is what was done with the MySpace, Friendster and LinkedIn examples in the main article. Keep up the good work! 69.180.21.43 04:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added mobile social networking section

Hi,

I'm still new to how Wikipedia works. I was kindly asked to sign my name whenever I make additions to Wiki pages. Here goes!

EmilyChew 22:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for contributing, but the AirG links were inappropriate and the section ended up sounding too much like a product advertisement, so I took it out. --Alan Au 06:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Milroy

The article is a little outdated, it doesn't even mention Milroy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 14:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

I have studied social networks for 40 years, and I have never heard of Milroy. Bellagio99 15:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split the Article

I wonder if this article should be split into two or three pieces. It includes both "social network analysis," a serious academic discipline that has been around since the 1950s, and "social networking software" (MySpace; LinkedIn) designed to facilitate interactions. These are only weakly related, and the current article is a linkspam magnet for start-up software companies to publicize their product. Bellagio99 15:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Except that vigilant reverters can turn the tide of linkspam as long as they check back to their watched pages regularly. Some of us editors feel very protective towards our favourite articles. Can I also say that there appears to be some concern that splitting articles unneccessarily will counter the good work done (towards a lean and workable Wikipedia) by article/category mergers? Refsworldlee^(chew-fat) 19:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There are at least two different meanings of the term "social network." There are at least two communities that have little interaction that each use the term, but it does not mean the same thing. Each of the two communities is sufficiently large that neither can change the name, so what makes sense it to just realize that it is a homophone, where the same words have different meanings.

The older community is, I suspect, by far the smaller. It has, however, been using the term "social network" since at least the 50's, it has two dedicated journals, there have been annual conferences for 35 years, it is taught at a number of universities, there are dozens of books and hundreds of articles, some in top academic journals. No one can go back and a search and replace on something with so much history and infrastructure. The newer use of the term is so common that it cannot be changed either. They just have to learn to live with each other.

The original social networks were about describing social relations that were not just dyadic or binary. In the world we influence others and they influence us, usually on many levels at the same time. It is not just one on one. Colds, jokes and many other things travel through networks of people. Networks rapidly become complicated, and how do we know how they are organized, and how do we talk about what we see? Social network analysts are excited by the 6 degree thing because it allows to make guesses about what the human networks are like.

The newer community came from the merger of two ideas: collaborative software and networking. Collaborative software is such things as e-mail, this wiki, IM and so on. This has roots going back to Vaneever Bush's 1945 paper "The Way We May Think" where he proposed a collaborative system that inspired hyperlinks and the World Wide Web. It was followed up by Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart and there is a long tradition of working towards better collaborative software in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Software that mediated human interaction came to be called "social software" (the term was coined by Eric Drexler, the same person who coined the term "nanotechnology").

Meanwhile, as women increasingly joined the marketplace in the 70's and on they realize that they were running into established networks that blocked their entry. They started forming groups to mentor and help each other. This activity came to be called "networking" and by the the 1980's it was an established business idea. In 1985, for instance, the organization Business Networking International was started, which still exists and is huge. In personal communication, the CEO (Ivan Mischner) said that the US Chamber of Commerce claims to have coined the term "networking." In any event, the term "networking" meant to actively expand your networks for business purposes.

In the late 90's some folks got the idea to start businesses that did "networking" using collaborative software. Most of them thought of themselves as "business" or "professional" networking, but Jonathan Abrams wanted to network for friends and he called what people did on his site, Friendster, "social networking." The term caught on and links a person makes through using MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, FriendSter and so on came to be called "social networks." In the abstract these are "social networks" in the first sense, and there have been some papers that explore this, but in the main the older one is talking about networks in general and the newer about networks that revolve around specific Web sites. It was unlikely that Johathan was familiar with the older term.

The social networks of collaborative software are wonderful, exciting technologies. Occasionally someone will comment to me that the older kind of social networks are not as important and somehow overly academic. I would hope that people can realize this is not true at all.

In the 60's the idea of interdisciplinary research was popular (it is again). At Harvard they started a program called "social relations." This program took the common aspect of social psychology, economics, sociology: social relations and made that the foreground of study. Many people who are still quite well known were there, Stanely Milgram, Mark Granovetter, Harrison White, Barry Wellman, Ivan Chase, ... (heck even BF Skinner was there, but he was in that department) - some were teachers, some students. Some of the ideas they had then and subsequently about how our social world works are still revolutionary.

But, the wikipedia needs to realize that "social networks" has at least two meanings, and that "networking" in and of itself has an interesing history. So there seems to be at least 3 separate subjects. I think that the older social network thinking has a lot to offer the newer social networks.03:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)dsteiny

Weak connection between the two, agreed. But they are nevertheless still relevant to each other. And I repeat my concerns about splitting a twice-splitted list which was split from X originally (for instance - that's probably not the true history of this subject, but I want to illustrate the process of repeated splitting over time). Meanwhile (he bangs on), others are worthily trying to merge content in an effort to keep Wikipedia referrable and readable. No votes here, I know, but I still disagree with splitting for no obvious and stark reason. Refsworldlee^(chew-fat)(eds) 14:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The main problem is that the current wikipedia entry is nonsense. It links "social networking" to "social networks" and it is just a coincidence they have similar names. I would be like linking "trucking" in "keep on trucking" to a vehicle. If the two are in the same entry they need to at the least, be linked properly. Social networking should be linked to collaborative software and names like Engelbart, Bush; projects like the social media work at U of Ill all need to be mentioned. None of these have any relations to the way the term "social network" has been being used for over 50 years. I have personally asked Doug Engelbart about this and he has vaugely heard of it. The term "social network" in the context of humans in general needs to be linked to names like Harrison White, Mark Granovetter, Barry Wellman and so on. There is a decent list of names, but it is a completely differnt list. The number of social networks analysts that have anything to do with social software is quite small. It is too different fields with the same name, the coorelation is much worse that "weak" it is confusing and wrong. 16:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)dsteiny

I strongly agree with dsteiny. I would be willing to work on the split in the spring. I know more about "social network" itself than about the social network software, so I would appreciate some help on that.

Bellagio99 18:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

In all honesty, I have used the entry on social networks as a sampling method to decide what I thought of wikipedia in general and it has given me a poor opinion of wikipdeida in general because of how confused and inaccurate this entry is. Rather than just complain I am able to take some time trying to help with this project. Some points:
Social Network Analysis (SNA) has THREE roots, not just graphs and graph theory. It also comes from sociology, as in the sociograms and theories of Morano, and psychology, specifically Fritz Heider and balance theory. The most cited works in the field have little or no mention of graphs at all. The graph theory portion is important because social network analysis does empirical research. Theories about the subject matter about which social network analysts are interested can be tested by real world observation. Seemingly simple questions like: "are two networks similar?" prove to be very difficult and it has taken many years of hypothesis testing to begin to answer this and related questions. However it is a methodology used by some analysts and not the essense of the field.
One of most highly regarded and inspirational people in this field is Harrison White, who is no lightweight in the mathematical properties of graphs. He uses them, however, to describe situations that he uses to build a much bigger picture of emergance of organizations and even people. It gets deep into the questions of essentialism and the Fundemental Attribution Error from social psychology. He is not about the mathematical properties of graphs, he is about how our social world makes us who we are.
We need to reorganize the whole thing into two threads, I don't care how it is done. It could be like a dictionary where there is definition 1 and definition 2 and so on. Another way might be to make an entry for social networking/social networks and one for social networks with a brief link at the top back to the other one for people that are interested in collaborative software. One for "networking" would be good as well. In all the literature about "social networks" I would guess that 1% is about "networking." It is usually not discussed as part of the field of social networks. It is important and valuable, but it has its own history and purpose.
Right now the wikipedia entries on this subject is either wrong or very weak (the Harrison White entry is very poor and I would like to update it, I have not done this before, but it would be a service to both Harrison and the community at large, he is WAY more interesting than the entry would lead us to believe).
Having entries in wikipedia that are misleading or wrong does not provide a service. It seems to me that to say "there is a weak link, but they are close enough" is just lack of information about the difference. There is virtually no link. They are both wonderful and important fields and I am deeply involved with both, but they are almost unrelated and the wikipedia entries are very confusing.
I do not want to put a bunch of work into this if it is not something that would be appreciated, so I am writing this here to get some feedback. Dsteiny 17:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accessibility hint

The text "An interactive model of this type can be found here based on rumor spreading from model on Cmol." uses "here" as a hyperlinked phrase. This is discouraged by accessibility guidelines; it is potentially confusing for screen-reader uses who will typically ask their software to read out all the links on a page as a list. A nicer hyperlink label might be "An interactive model of rumour spreading". Hypertext researchersn such as Nielsen, also argue that users exploit hyperlinked labels as eyecatchers.

Recursion see recursion 11:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)