Keynote - Matthew Garrett

Communities, collaboration and conflict

Many of us are here because we're part of at least one online community. Many of us have made lifelong friends, found jobs, travelled the world and had experiences we could never have imagined, all as a result of collaborative online projects bringing us together - participating in communities has grown our lives and brought us joy and success.

And others have had the opposite experience. Membership of online communities has brought them stress and unhappiness or targeted them for abuse. People have been attacked for their sex, race, sexuality or neuroatypicality. People's professional lives have been ruined, and in some cases also their personal lives. Communities are not always welcoming.

Online communities have existed for decades, but we're still only now coming to terms with building ones that help without hurting. What's the difference between communities that foster collaboration and communities that create conflict? What have we learned through that history? And in a world that's basically on fire, is there any hope of doing better in future?

Comments

Comments are closed.