Control in blogs and communities (and flickr)

Joistke adds some important points in the blogging and communities discussion:

I think blogs simply add a lot of potential to thought development within a community of practice. Eg. if you did not have a blog, I wouldn’t have a clue what you were busy with or thinking about! Forums may seem more controllable, but they are not.

Yes, blogs are person-centric and this is what makes them very different to forums. Some people use their blogs as a space for personal reflection and working through half formed ideas, in a way which perhaps wouldn’t be afforded in a community forum. On the other hand, I like to surface my own ideas more through dialogue. As such, the contribution of both forms of communication is becoming clearer.

The issue of control is probably crucial when comparing technologies for communities. If a forum is heavy handedly owned or moderated, then some contributors will retreat to their blogs where they have total control over everything, even if the readership is less visible. Or it may be due to an inconvenient pace and volume of discussion on the list. Veering off at a slight tangent, here’s a quote from a discussion on Flickr about Groups vs Tags which reveals a little more about control:

Groups are useful – you can’t be sure people will use the same tags, or tags at all, if people join you know they are relatively interested, and they can have discussions. Also you can remove things from groups that shouldnt be there but you can’t remove incorrectly tagged stuff.