communities in cyberspace; the view 12 years ago

http://www.connectedaction.net/2009/12/15/book-communities-in-cyberspace-ten-years-later/

"When the late Peter Kollock and I published Communities in Cyberspace with Routledge in 1999 there were few broadband connections, no iPhones, and little WiFi.  Today, there is an ebook version of the book and Amazon sells a version for the Kindle, a device it was hard to even imagine when the book was written.  Google lets you browse most of it and search all of it.  But the key ideas of the volume:  identity, interaction, collective action and emergent order remain relevant in a wireless broadband netbook mobile social network real-time web world. "

It's useful to look back and see how ICA and its beginnings were viewed in the early stages of research into the subject.  I haven't read this book yet (unfortunately, I'm only able to read one book at a time).  One thing I do see is this:

“Identity plays a key role in virtual communities. In communication, which is the primary activity, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. Yet in the disembodied world of the virtual community, identity is also ambiguous. Many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent. The goal of this paper is to understand how identity is established in an online community and to examine the effects of identity deception and the conditions that give rise to it.”

Is identity really all that important? There are people I regularly interact with on IRC that I still don't know much about. Is this person male or female?  Where do they live?  I've found that those things don't really matter in many interactions online.  I know the person's position on our general topic. I know how informed he or she is. I know that he or she is bright and has useful insight into our discussions. Do I really need to establish an exact identity of this person?  For me, no.  What matters to me is, is this person reliable?  Informed?  Contributes to the discussion?  Most other things don't matter.