Possible Failures for User Generated Systems

Its always interesting to speculate on what the reasons for why something does not work. I remember when we were trying to generate a blog at the library for interoffice use. After about three months the blog stopped being used by anyone in branch and was never heard from again. I have talked to a few people about the reasons for this after the fact. Most of them discuss the fact that it was not being used by anyone else and saw no reason why they should get on it anymore to check on it. Furthermore, we already had an email account to connect with people at the branch. Why should we have to use anything else?

All of the various reasons made sense, but I think the reasons go deeper than that. Part of the problem is that there was one person spearheading the effort, and she had mental and emotional turmoil going on after starting it about three months. She did not have the time or energy to use it. There was no second person responsible for maintaining the blog. As it was no one else's responsibility, it fell to neglect. And no one else took it up to keep it going. By the time the person in charge had righted the ship, she had other things on her mind and did not take it up again.

So when considering the reasons why something that would be user generated would fail, there are the obvious reasons, and then there are the reasons that you have to dig a little deeper to find. The most obvious reason for something user generated not working is a lack of user support. As with anything you have to be able to get multiple people involved in the process. It cannot be left up to one person or its not really a community effort to develop a platform. And actively involved does not mean to simply get on the site and see what other people have done. These people have to publish to the site and be come involved as part of the process.

While participation is an obvious reason for something not working there are many other possible reasons for failure. Aside from participation, language is often a barrier to a community working together for something. Everyone has to be able to have the same way of saying things. Something may have local appeal but not have an appeal nationally because the way people communicate change from society to society. Also, the platform that people have to comment on something can make something not work long term. There has to be a way to get feedback about what is being written and said. Also, someone who is overzealous in editing what is allowed on a site can make a collaborative effort fail. If someone deletes everything that is being written, than people will stop being interested in participating of the writing or commenting on the site.

Whatever the possible reasons there maybe, one thing I have found universally is that someone needs to be flexible in what they are creating in order for it to work. If someone is too rigid in what they want or expect, people will be turned off the the item and the process. Flexibility is a virtue that is vastly underrated.