Mia Lindsay
Abstract
This paper examines the Facebook page Help a Sister Out, as an example of an online community and third place. It was created in 2015 as a page for women in Perth to ask for advice and seek connections with other women on the page. By observing it as a Web 2.0 third place, it can be seen that Help a Sister Out has certain features that facilitate positive communication and connections between members. This article highlights these features, how they fit within the third place criteria and the way this creates a safe and comfortable environment for it’s members.
Introduction
The creation of online communities in Web 2.0 has broadened the idea of an active ‘third place’, initiating a movement that has seen people from across the world join together to share common interests or ideas. Aldosemani, et al (2015) defines community as “a psychological condition of feeling close to groups of individuals who share membership, influence, common needs and emotional connection” (p.1020). Help A Sister Out in Perth! (No Boys Allowed), a Facebook group created by Ninya Lishus in 2015, allows exactly this. The page provides a forum that women in Perth can join to ask questions to other members, about anything from personal advice, to restaurant or hotel recommendations, to help using Photoshop, and so on. In the 3 years since its creation, the community has grown to over 32,000 members and has 8 active administrators. The page has in many ways become an active ‘third place’, defined by Oldenburg (1989) as neutral locations where users can voluntarily enter and participate that are outside of home, known as first place, and work, known as second place. Initially this meant cafes, restaurants, parks or clubs, but the generation of Web 2.0 has allowed online forums and communities such as Help A Sister Out, to become a kind of third place. The way friendships between strangers are formed, how help and advice is sought through weak ties in the network and the way the administrative services and guidelines of the page limit negative issues are all ways in which this community facilitates positive communication and connections in a Web 2.0 third place. While there are some dangers in taking unsolicited and often uneducated advice from strangers, particularly regarding medical or financial advice, overall the effect of Help a Sister Out as a third place appears to be a positive one.
Creating and maintaining friendships
“Today we are seeing the advent of social networks formed in cyberspace. People meet in online forums and through online dating services; they keep in touch with an unprecedentedly large number of people via electronic media” (Donath & Boyd, 2004, p.1). The online third place is an important sphere in which established friendships could be maintained and strengthened, and new friendships and relationships can blossom. Baker-Eveleth emphasises how “The places become a home away from home. The third place is a comfortable arena to revisit and interact with friends” (2003, p.17). Help a Sister Out creates a comfortable and inviting third place where members are encouraged to freely ask for and give advice to and from other members. It aims to be a no judgement space where people can connect and seek support without the stresses of home or work. The aim of the community is women helping and building up other women.
In terms of creating new friendships online, Oldenburg states, “Not even to its inhabitants is the third place a particularly intriguing or exciting locale. It is simply there, providing opportunities for experiences and relationships that are otherwise unavailable”. While many question the validity of friendships formed and maintained online, which will be discussed further in later paragraphs, there are many examples of how people are welcomed and common interests are shared on the page. This can lead to online friendships being born, and those online friendships can later become real life friendships.
A friendly environment in which regular visitors encourage quieter non-regulars to participate in conversation is a defining factor in a successful third place (Baker-Eveleth, 2003, p.16). Regular members on Help a Sister Out make the page seem much more like a community than just a forum that people join, and the friendliness of those members are vital to making a friendly environment that new members want to return to.
“Users may browse members’ profiles and statuses, view photo albums, follow links to recommended, and so forth. Exploration helps physically distant users discover similarities and establish social connections, repurposing their usage to meet individual needs”. Aldosemani, et al (2015) highlights how members can utilise the features of the page to their own social advantage, using it to make connections and forge friendships.
By definition, Web 2.0 enables social interaction through networking platforms such as email, chat room or social media forums (Murugesan, 2010). The growth of these networking platforms has reversed the original friendship flow, in which you are friends with someone in real life, and then you become friends on the Internet through various forums. Now it is becoming more common for friendships and relationships to begin online and graduate in to face-to-face. An example of this is one of the many posts on the page where women are looking to make new female friends in their area. They post about their general locations, likes and interests and what they are looking for in friendship, and invite people to connect with them, subsequently forging new friendships that begin online and can later become face-to-face.
Helping each other out
The forming of friendships in these communities is not only beneficial emotionally, as discussed in the previous paragraph, but can also be beneficial in other areas of life. This is emphasised by Baker-Eveleth, who says “getting to know people and interacting with them helps create a network or web, broadening our exposure to other experiences” (2003, p.1). Donath and Boyd agree, describing social networks as “sources of emotional and financial support, and of information about jobs, other people and the world at large” (2004, p.1). Thompson (2008) discusses how the growth of weak ties through social media and online communities can help solve problems such as job hunts or information enquiries. Expanding networks beyond friends and family to distant acquaintances can be very useful because “they’re further afield, but still socially intimate enough to want to help you out”. The whole idea behind Help A Sister Out is based off this theory, as members of the group automatically feel willing to give help to people they feel associated with, usually with the knowledge that if the reverse situation was to occur, people on the page would be equally willing to help them.
With over 32,000 members, the Help A Sister Out community supports Gil de Zuniga and Valenzuela’s idea that weak ties within larger networks allow people access to information or opportunities not available within their immediate circle of family and friends (2011). The strength of these communities lies in the cycle of people forming weak ties and accessing information from them, which then encourages more participation in the community, which further forms more weak ties, and so on. Online communities in particular facilitate conversation between weak ties, as the social barriers of culture, race, gender or ethnicity, which so often stop these connections being formed offline, are not as present online.
Benefits of guidelines and administrative services
Aldosemani, et al (2015), highlight how with the inclusion of generally accepted rules and activities, an online space can also be considered a third space. The administrative services in the Help A Sister Out community play an important role in not only allowing it to become a third place, but also facilitating positive communication. Upon entering the Help A Sister Out page, there is a pinned list of rules that apply to all members of the group. These include rules such as; no meanness, nastiness or rudeness, no ‘name and shame’ posts, be polite, helpful, considerate and supportive, and all adult or sensitive posts must have a trigger warning at the top (Help A Sister Out, 2017).
Administrators have the ability to turn off comments on particular posts, delete posts and comment deemed outside of the page guidelines or remove members. These features help maintain a positive environment where women feel they can post and speak freely without fear of judgment or being attacked for their opinions, so long as those opinions aren’t hurtful. Guidelines for the framework of all online communities, not just Help A Sister Out, are important as they limit space for public humiliation or embarrassment and the sharing of private information on a public forum (Ewbank, et al, 2010, p.32). Ewbank, et al, encourage institution and community organizers to create a safe space online by revisiting and revising current codes and guidelines to limit the vulnerabilities of Web 2.0 community platforms before they become larger issues (2010, p.40).
Aldosemani, et al discuss how a third space should be “accessible and user friendly, designed to facilitate conversation, exhibit a low profile and ultimately reside on neutral ground where the organisation assumes a minimal role in fostering and monitoring conversation” (2015, p.1025). This criteria is reflected in the structure and rules of the page, in which all members are equal and the administrators play little to no role in starting conversations, but rather facilitate a forum for the conversations to occur on their own. But by monitoring the conversations and limiting negative or judgmental conversations, again there is more room created for constructive conversations.
Flaws in the community
Despite the positive conversations and connections being made on Help a Sister Out, there are some dangers to such an environment being built in a Web 2.0 third place. Members giving out unsolicited and uneducated advice on medical or financial issues can lead to a number of problems. For example, someone accepting advice on treatments for a sick child without seeking professional medical advice could very quickly go wrong if the child is wrongly diagnosed or treated. Psychologist Tony White (Ryan, 2015) warned members to be cautious when asking for advice on the page, not only for the risk of wrong advice but also that people can respond with hurtful comments if it’s a topic that may be seen as controversial (for example suicide, abortions, children’s vaccinations).
Stewart (2010) also questions the validity of online friends in comparison to real life friends. Similarly, Thompson (2008) asks, “What sort of relationships are these? What does it mean to have hundreds of ‘friends’ on Facebook? What kind of friends are they, anyway?”. He thinks that it’s possible that having so many connections online, and viewing so much content makes a person spread their emotional energy too thin that they don’t have enough for real-life intimate relationships. Donath and Boyd (2004) imply that people seek more connections online in an attempt to boost their own status, verify their sense of personal identity or to maintain a certain reputation, and thus these public connections are not real. It is possible that for many online communities this may be the case, however Help A Sister Out appears for the most part to be about women supporting other women, answering questions they might not have been able ask in their circle of family and friends, and building friendships from weak ties that offline barriers may never allow.
Conclusion
The facilitation of positive communication and connections in a Web 2.0 third place is highlighted in the case study of Perth-based Facebook community, Help A Sister Out. Involvement in the Help a Sister Out community is an example of how actively participating in a third space can have a positive affect on the rest of a person’s life. Examples of the ways that the page encourages the maintenance of existing friendships and the blossoming of new ones, how engagement with weak ties within larger communities such as this can help individual members, and the role of administrators and community codes and guidelines show the way Help a Sister Out facilitates positive communication and connections in a Web 2.0 third place. While many hold doubts about the strength of friendships created online and the validity of the advice offered on pages such as these, overall it could be seen that the environment created in these communities is a constructive one. Help a Sister Out in Perth (No Boys Allowed) brings women together from across Perth in a community that encourages women lifting each other up and offering each other immediate, mobile and publicly accessible help, advice, support and friendship in a way that would never have been possible outside an online community.
References
Aldosemani, T. I., Shepherd, C. E., Gashim, I., & Dousay, T. (2015). Developing third places to foster sense of community in online instruction. British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(6), 1020-1031. doi:10.1111/bjet.12315
Baker-Eveleth, L. (2003, August). An online third place: emerging communities of practice.
Donath, J., & boyd, d. (2004). Public Displays of Connection. BT Technology Journal, 22(4), 71-82. DRAFT http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/socialnetdisplay.draft.pdf
Ewbank, A. D., Kay, A. G., Foulger, T. S., & Carter, H. L. (n.d.). Conceptualizing Codes of Conduct in Social Networking Communities. Social Computing. doi:10.4018/9781605669847.ch137
Gil de Zúñiga, H., & Valenzuela, S. (2010). The Mediating Path to a Stronger Citizenship: Online and Offline Networks, Weak Ties, and Civic Engagement. Communication Research, 38(3), 397-421. doi:10.1177/0093650210384984Help a Sister Out. (2017). In Facebook [group page]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/groups/1555723208012564/
Oldenburg, R., & Brissett, D. (1982). The third place. Qualitative Sociology, 5(4), 265-284. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/BF0098675
Ryan, K. (2015 July 18). Help a Sister Out in Perth: Facebook site becomes a support network for WA women. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-18/facebook-site-becomes-a-support-network-for-perth-women/6628318
Stewart, T. (2010). Online communities. Behaviour & Information Technology, 29(6), 555-556. Retrieved from https://doi-org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/10.1080/0144929X.2010.523615
Thompson, C. (2008). Brave New World of Digital Intimacy. The New York Times. 5 September. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=1.
Help A Sister Out: Forging positive connections on Web 2.0 by Mia Lindsay is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Hi Mia,
Really great paper, and an interesting read!
It is interesting how Web 2.0 has facilitated the growth of such positive communities, and how people are actively involved with these communities in their everyday lives. However, I completely agree with your point about the possible negative impacts of these communities, especially in relation to medical advice. Their is so much information on the web about medical issues, and this makes it rather difficult to tell the different between good advice and dangerous advice. Do you believe that the ‘Help A Sister Out’ community is doing enough to deter possible dangerous medical advice? It isn’t part of their list of rules, but do the admins attempt to control the posts asking for advice, or control the community members soliciting advice in the comments?
I also agree with your point about ‘Help A Sister Out’ being an example of ‘weak ties’ being formed between people who probably would not have met without the community. It is fascinating how face-to-face contact is no longer necessary for the building of meaningful friendships.
You briefly mentioned how the weak ties built in the community can transcend the online/offline divide. Are there ever instances within the community when members are encouraged to gather in real life? Or is it considered a taboo, are the members who meet offline outliers within the community?
I am interested to hear your thoughts!
Hi Cat,
Thanks for your comment!
I agree that perhaps the admin staff on HASO don’t do enough to limit the unsolicited medical advice given on the page. I think in part this is because while they try to restrict negative behaviour, they don’t like to limit the advice given, as that is the whole purpose of the community. Maybe in the future an option would be to set a GP as an admin to monitor posts about medical problems, although this in itself can create problems as they may not give correct advice with the information they have been given on the post.
It seems that while the majority of HASO members like to keep the interaction strictly online, there have been several posts over the years where members have suggested meet-ups, for people who are looking to make new friends or get to know each other, so I definitely wouldn’t say its taboo!
Hi Mia,
Yeah I agree with your point that members should be allowed the freedom to give medical advice, because in the end that’s what the whole community is about. The idea of a GP being allowed to admin the page is interesting, as it would allow an expert to give advice. However it is also problematic because the point of the community for sisters to share advice, and bringing in one expert could lead to the demand for other experts too.
I really like your point about weak ties, and I’m glad it’s not taboo for people to meet up offline. I guess friends made in HASO are easier to flow across into the physical world, because the group is made up of women in Perth exclusively.
Many people have stopped using Facebook, especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, do you believe this will be felt by the HASO community? Do you think it will continue to grow, or is Facebook (and therefore this Facebook group) on its last legs?
Hi Cat,
I don’t think Facebook is on it’s last legs. While it has taken a fairly severe blow over recent weeks, I think it has been more of a reminder to be careful with content shared. HASO is a fairly small community in the grand scheme of things, as it is mostly for people based in Perth, and therefore I think it is small, strong and close-knit enough to withstand the issues Facebook is having.
Mia, your conference paper is really interesting, I myself use HASO and always considered it just an online community but your explanation of it being an ‘active third place’ makes a lot more sense. Friendships form with no physical connection and groups like this provide a safe space for women to find the answers to questions they would more than likely not be able to find in their physical community. It is definitely true that this group creates and maintains friendships while keeping the third place a positive area, the admins ability to block and remove negative comments give them a bit of hierarchy over the other members, but I wouldn’t say this is in a negative way would you? In a positive group like this people are happy to have others control the environment, whereas there was an online group called BGA (I don’t know if you know it) and the hierarchy with admins seemed quite negative to me, they even referred to their admins as ‘queens’ and even that made for a negative association with the group.
Your paper is really interesting and is a good example of how online groups can be so beneficial for human interaction.
Hey Jenelle,
Thanks for your comment 🙂
I definitely agree that the admin in place on HASO have a positive role within the community. They are mainly there to limit negative activity, and don’t use their positions to gain power themselves or create a hierarchy. The women who are admin on the page are not paid, or at least not that I’m aware of anyway, so they must be pretty passionate about the community to be willing to volunteer their time to moderate comments, make anonymous posts, etc.
Hi Mia,
I loved this paper! I found it really interesting to read as I am also a member of the HASO community on Facebook. To see an analysis of this community and ‘third space’, as you phrased it was really enlightening. As I had beforehand just perceived HASO as a ‘page’, this really shed more light on the community and functionality of the online community and third space HASO is.
I would agree with you that it is predominantly a positive and inspiring community. However, I was really interested in the section in which you discussed the flaws of HASO, in particular, the allowance of unprofessional medical advice. I myself have seen countless posts advising other members on how to treat themselves, others or even their pets medically.
It has made me wonder if perhaps there should be some sort of restriction on the nature of these kinds of posts, considering all of the moderation and rules that apply to HASO, Surely unprofessional medical advice could be added to the list?
Do you think HASO should restrict medical posts and advise users to go straight to the doctors or vet, especially considering the amount of time that could go by before the question is even approved and posted for others to advise. What if the medical situation is to worsen. Or do you believe medical posts still can be beneficial and should be applicable to the functionality of the website, considering it is all about giving advice and helping one another out?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts!
– Charis
Hi Charis,
Thanks for your comment! As you might have seen below, Cat also brought up the issue of unsolicited medical advice. While I can definitely see the dangers of this advice being shared through the community, I’m not sure that bringing in a professional or restricting the comments would be beneficial to the page. The whole idea of the page is for members to seek help or advice from other members, with the admin just being there to restrict negative behaviour. I feel as though restricting what questions members can or can’t post would make the HASO page lose support from it’s members, and we must keep in mind that if they can’t get answers from HASO, they can just as easily google their symptoms and get an equally inaccurate diagnosis. I guess it’s all part of the dangers of the internet.
The freedom of being able to ask advice is what makes HASO so strong, and limiting medical questions can mean that people who might have simple medical questions also can’t be answered.
Thanks again! Mia
Hello again, Mia,
Thanks for your reply and insight!
Very interesting points you’ve brought up, it is a hard question to answer. Especially when evaluating what is morally right and wrong when advising others online, particularly about issues the replier knows nothing about! But, as you have highlighted once again, it is in the nature of the page to help where you can (or at least attempt to! haha).
I guess this does bring up a lot of notions of trust within the community. For myself, Personally, If I knew something was wrong with my body or pet, the first call of action would be to seek medical advice from a professional, and not waste time and risk my health. It is rather inspiring to see so many individuals allowing themselves to trust a whole community online, with issues such as these. Although I still believe it would be worthwhile so seek some sort of method to reduce unsolicited medical advice being so predominant on the page, I can see how it is definitely within the nature of HASO!
Thanks for your thoughts,
Charis
Hi Mia, thanks for writing such an interesting paper. I was able to really connect with it as I am a member of Help a Sister Out and had never really given much thought to the way it worked. I really liked the part of your paper where you discussed the positive influence that weak ties can have on our lives. Usually when you think about weak ties they have quite a negative connotation but your paper has argued the point well that whilst having strong ties is important weak ties can also help to enrich a persons life and that would not be possible without the Web 2.0.
I also like the fact that you have address the flaws of the page too. Regarding the concerns of Stewart (2010) do you think that sometimes people might come to these pages to avoid facing issues they are having in their real lives?
I would be curious to see if any members have seen negative results from following advice from someone on the page.
Perri
Hi Perri,
Thanks for the comment! I actually also thought a lot more about the dynamics of HASO as a community than I ever have before, despite being a member of the page for a few years now.
I think that there would definitely be people who have had negative experiences, as no community is all sunshine and daisies, however I think any member of a forum where you ask advice from strangers needs to be taken with a grain of salt. While it is an amazing and supportive community, its important for members to remember that every one is different and lives in completely different situations, so advice that works for them may not work for others, and vice-versa.
Thanks! Mia
Hi Mia, thank you for sharing your paper!
It’s quite fascinating to see a strong self-sustaining online community form thanks to the affordances of social media, and how they can enrichen this third space which has just as validity as its equivalent in the offline world.
I have noted that yourself and some of the comments have addressed the topic of unsolicited medical or financial advice being discussed, and that’s definitely something fellow community members may need to be wary and mindful of, questioning the lack of credential and credibility in this regard when interacting online.
However it does seem as though the positives outweigh the negatives significantly for this community, and it has convinced me to join!
Cheers,
Teresa
Hi Teresa,
Thanks for your comment! I’m happy to see that my paper has convinced you to join such a positive and supportive community. I have actually been a member for several years and have found it helpful for pretty much anything I could ever need advice on 🙂
Mia
Hi Mia,
I really enjoyed reading your paper. I first heard about this group a few years ago when my friend said she used it for recommendations for a nail technician. It’s amazing how fast it has transformed to the more personal community it is today and the breadth of subject matters discussed today including relationship advice etc..
Web 2.0 has definitely provided the platform for these communities as without it these women, who were strangers to each other in the beginning, would interact on such an intimate level otherwise.
A lot of people don’t reach out for help through the intended channels (Helpline, R U OK?) for numerous reasons so it’s nice that these women comfortable enough to reach out in this “safe space” made possible with this third place. However, it worries me (just like you and everyone who has commented on the paper have pointed out) that sometimes people can be given misleading advice which could exacerbate the situation. I do think that the positives far outweigh the negatives in this situation and hopefully common sense prevails when it comes to the person receiving the advice.
Thanks,
Emma!
Hi Emma,
Thanks! I agree that the positives of the page outweigh the negatives, and therefore restricting what people can or can’t ask on the page wouldn’t be beneficial to the sense of community and the idea of the page itself. It could, however, be beneficial for links to be put in the information section to websites such as Beyond Blue, R U OK?, or Helpline (as you mentioned) for people who feel they need further advice and don’t know where to turn to get it.
Mia
Mia
Hey Mia,
I really enjoyed reading your paper as I too am a member of Help A Sister Out and can relate to everything you’ve said. Though I’ve never considered it being a ‘third place’ which you’ve explained really well, and this has enlightened my view on it. Help A Sister Out has definitely formed a community of women all over Perth, and has formed weak ties between the members as they seek advice from women they don’t even know. I also agree that this platform can be a safe and unsafe place as it allows women to give their opinion on matters they may or may not know anything about. When there is a post which allows people to give their own medical advice, it’s usually people sharing their personal experiences. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing as people have different experiences and it allows the person to see all point of views, which their doctor might not tell them. Though I do agree that its unsafe if a person specifically states what drug the person should take, as they’re not a doctor, but there is a difference between the two and I think most users are aware of what they should and should not listen to.
Your paper has definitely allowed for a good discussion as most people have also commented on this factor, so good job!
Shannon
Hi Mia,
I really enjoyed reading your paper! The topic caught my eye since I have seen this group on FaceBook although I haven’t joined it, I’ve always meant to!
These kinds of groups I believe are becoming more popular for sure, and are very appealing to someone like myself who moved here hardly knowing anyone. It’s a comforting feeling that these groups exist and what makes me feel even better is knowing there are other people out there who are from here and are still seeking out social connections which makes me feel less weird haha.
I really resonate with this statement: “weak ties within larger networks allow people access to information or opportunities not available within their immediate circle of family and friends”.
I liked that your arguments were all backed up by scholars talking about the positives these kinds of groups can bring to individuals. I can definitely think of some friendships that have been formed online which to this day I would consider true friendships and also agree that my online experiences are some that I would have never had the opportunity in real life to have due to some of the boundaries you mentioned.
Just curious, would you say you knew a lot of people on the page from before you joined? Or was that one of the reasons you joined, because you wanted to connect with people from outside your social circle?
Thanks Mia!
Rachel
Hi Rachel, thanks for your comment!
I originally joined the page because a friend recommended it to me, and while I wasn’t necessarily looking to connect with people, I have come in contact with quite a few people on the page. I do journalism at Uni and have often posted about stories I am writing and whether people would be willing to be interviewed for them. So in this way I have broadened my contacts just by being on the page despite not actively joining to make new connections.