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| | Shirky: Social Software and the Politics of Groups |
 | | Earlier generations of social software, from mailing lists to MUDs, were created when the network's population could be measured in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of millions, and the users were mostly young, male, and technologically savvy. |
 | | The network is now a global metropolis, vast and heterogeneous, and in this environment groups need protection from too-rapid growth and from being hijacked by anything from off-topic conversations to spam. |
 | | In fact, most of the work on mailing list software has been around making it easier to set up and administer, rather than making it easier for the group using the software to accomplish anything. |
| www.shirky.com /writings/group_politics.html (1900 words) |
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