Brian, Thanks for your comments. I'm incorporating your suggestion into the final draft.

Heather, I appreciate your comments. As for Servo, the fact that Servo is used by a professional community does not immunize it from groupthink. In fact, groupthink could adversely affect Servo, in that it might lead the medical community to become more centralized and lead to less critical thinking by individual doctors. For instance, when a doctor comes across a difficult medical dilemma, instead of trying to devise an innovative solution to the problem, he might consult Servo and assume that the Servo's solution to his problem is the best solution available. At that point, he stops thinking critically and goes along with the group. In this scenario, critical thinking and a chance to invent a better solution are lost. However, in my opinion, the value of the information and the service that Servo provides far outweighs any negative impact. Groupthink within Servo is still important, but as I said in my paper, "the social utility it creates surely outweighs any negative cognitive impact."

-- ScottMcKinney - 13 Jan 2010

Scott, I really enjoyed reading your paper. The existence of groupthink within the context of social networking sites is a really interesting concept, and I think that you raise an important issue of the value of two potentially competing types of good: access to information, and high-quality, innovative programming. One question that your paper raised for me is how (and if) Servo is different than social network sites as relates to groupthink; in other words, does the fact that Servo is used by a professional community immunize it from groupthink, or does the value of information is provides mean that groupthink simply isn’t that important?

-- HeatherStevenson - 08 Jan 2010

Scott,

Interesting paper. I hadn't considered groupthink effects within social networks, but I suspect you and the study you cite are correct that it is problematic. I have no specific suggestions on the current content of your essay except to note it might be helpful if you talked briefly about the ways to fix the problem you identified (e.g. those discussed in the final link, or others you know of). You do a good job of identifying a problem and convincing the reader it is a problem worth addressing, so it would be helpful if you lent that same descriptive skill to suggesting how to solve the problem we readers are now attending to. A few sentences would accomplish that, one of which could incorporate the link you are citing now. Just a thought. Nice work, it reads well.

-- BrianS - 06 Jan 2010

Hi Juvaria,

I'm glad you enjoyed my paper. Your comment about the differentiation between social networking sites is correct: different types of social networks carry with them different benefits and drawbacks, and consequently affect cognitive processes differently. However, I wouldn't divide the types of networks I'm talking about into only two groups (social and educational). Really, there are many degrees and many types of online social networks: social, educational, and everything in between. In the context of open-source programming, the social network at issue may not be what one would traditionally think of as a traditional online social network like Myspace. I'll try to make these distinctions more obvious in my next revision of the paper.

-- ScottMcKinney - 30 Dec 2009

Hi Scott,

I enjoyed reading your paper and thought you did a good job of discussing the benefits of social networking sites. The groupthink phenomenon is fascinating (albeit often disturbing) and I thought it was interesting how you applied it to social networking sites. However, it seemed like you might be discussing two distinct types of sites: educational social networking sites that are specifically designed to exchange knowledge within a particular community (like Servo), and general social networking sites like Facebook. It seems to me that the balancing test you use at the end - (While it may be true that the groupthink mentality, combined with the natural “locked in” nature of the net leads to less radical thinking, does this negative outweigh the positives brought about by social networks (privacy concerns aside)?)- might change depending on what type of site you are talking about. It would also be interesting to hear more about how sites like Facebook promote critical and radical thinking.

-- JuvariaKhan - 10 Dec 2009