Social Computing
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about those changes. In this we see the modus operandi of social computing: users add content, and the system processes that content in ways that make it more usable (in this case, by increasing the ability of people to discuss, evaluate and keep or undo changes in keeping with Wikipedia policy).
4.6 Social Computing: The big picture Throughout this article we’ve looked at social computing in terms of how social computing systems work as systems: they create platforms for social interaction whose results can be drawn upon by the system to add value. This is natural because we have proceeded by looking closely at examples. However, I’d like to wrap this up by looking at social computing in a subtly different way – as a type of approach to computation. In my view, social computing is not so much about computer systems that accommodate social activity, but rather it is about systems that perform computations on information that is embedded in a social context. That is:
“Social computing refers to systems that support the gathering, processing and dissemination of information that is distributed across social collectives. Furthermore, the information in question is not independent of people, but rather is significant precisely because it linked to people, who are in turn associated with other people.”
At the core of this definition is the linking of information to identity. That is, information is associated with people, and, for the purposes of social computing, the association of information with identity matters. “Identity” does not necessarily