Organization and Regulation of a Virtual Community

Abstract

"The question of interest here is how SvenskMud as an example of a virtual community has managed to organize and regulate its activities in such a way that a sustainable community has developed and is maintained over time. The question will however not fully be answered here. The implications of the question are immense, but parts will be explored and answered in this text. The end result at this point might very well be that more questions are raised than answered.Two different frameworks will be used to explore the question. The first one regards SvenskMud as a public good and explores how a number of critical 'design principles' of successful (real-world) communities are handled by SvenskMud. The second one regards SvenskMud as an activity system and explores some implications that has."