Closed social affordances / Open social affordances in social systems design

Daniel Cook · 1 Jan 2023 · lostgarden.com ↗

4 korrents from this piece

Daniel Cook did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Closing off the ways people can hurt each other in a shared space also closes off the ways they can befriend each other.

Their wordsBy eliminating the bad aspects of humans interacting, you often also remove many of the good parts.

Interesting
Our reading
The more freedom a design gives people to interact, the more of that freedom will be abused.

Their wordsThe more freedom you give players, the more they will abuse it.

Interesting
Our reading
People will pry open any communication channel a designer tries to close, because the need to connect is stronger than the constraint.

Their wordsSocial affordances are naturally open because humans crave social connection and will pry open channels that designers tried to close off.

Interesting
Our reading
People who do not yet trust each other are better served by tightly limited ways to interact.

Their wordsLow trust players benefit from closed affordances.

Interesting