The recent forum change announcement caused the rise of a debate: can a blog replace a forum as a tool for community communication? Forum structure supports a many-to-many discussion style that is well-suited to a community founded around a specific and common topic. Sounds like Second Life, doesn't it? So why close some of the forums?As groups get larger and larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage the community discussion. Some hypothesize that once a group exceeds 150 people, the quality of conversation starts to degenerate. In a forum context, this loss of quality means more moderation is needed to make sure questions get answered and disruptive or negative posting is minimized. A closer look at the Second Life forums suggests that the larger, general boards suffer from this problem. The smaller, more tightly focused sub-forums such as the content creation discussions tend to need a great deal less intervention to stay positive and on topic.Blogs are a product of the Internet, which as we all know is essentially a publishing medium. Content is easy to update and keep current. Add in multiple authors and you now have the basis for a new type of discussion, with several people contributing information and ideas. The blog becomes communal through comments and trackbacks, where the dialog rests. Unlike the group discussions on the forums, blog discussions tend to be more bi-directional while remaining focused. It also has broader reach; hence the development of the word 'blogosphere', suggesting a wide circle of connected discussion. Imagine if all the Resident forums and blogs were connected to the Linden blog to further enrich the conversation!
technorati tags:SecondLife, blog, blogging, forum
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