Community Rejuvenation Made Possible by Community SNS[2]Yatsushiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture

Libellous and Abusive Comments Can Be Controlled with a SNS and Monitored by a “Grey Man” Supervisor

In April 2003, the local community website “Gorotto Yacchiro” was added to the improved Yatsushiro City website. It was more like a “supplement” to the information already being provided by the City to the local residents. Mr. Kobayashi called this “Version 1.”

Version 1 was a Groupware type portal site equipped with facilities such as e-mail, calendars, categories, links, message boards, advice, maps, groups and disaster information. In order to make an entry on a message board it was necessary to first register as a member and then login to the site with a password. In addition, all entries made by residents were monitored 24 hours a day by local government staff.

“The requirement of membership pre-registration and passwords to login is not very user-friendly. Furthermore, even though it was stated to be “24 hour monitoring,” in actual fact, the message board was only monitored when staff found the time. Checking entries during normal business hours proved to be quite a burden.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

From October 2003 until improvements were made in September the following year, “Gorotto Yacchiro” was accessed seven to ten thousand times per month and the City’s website was accessed twenty to twenty five thousand times per month. Furthermore, an average of 30 people registered as members every month but there were only about 50 active members.

If websites were not updated the number of active members and people who access the site would decrease. It soon became apparent that there were not enough community functions on the website such as categories, links and groups.

“We need to do something about this!” remarked Mr. Kobayashi.

From March until April 2004, the City began making arrangements to launch “Version 2.” It was at this time Mr. Kobayashi brought up the idea of creating an “SNS.”

Mr. Kobayashi has devoted himself to computers and the internet since his student days and even after becoming a staff member of Yatsushiro City, he has continued to create computer programs as a hobby. He has had knowledge of OSS from its early days through participating in online developer communities. As a result, Mr. Kobayashi was provided with the opportunity to get involved with the SNS type community site “mixi” which began in March the same year.

“The whole concept of SNS is “Friends of friends are everybody's friends.” In other words, participants invite their friends to join the website. Since all participants are known by someone, a trust relationship exists between members. Therefore, not only do SNS eradicate anonymity, libellous and abusive actions can be contained.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

The purpose of SNS is to eradicate anonymity but the main objective is specifying who may participate. However, the problem is that people will stop using the site if participants are required to use their real names and allowing the use of pseudonyms would ultimately serve no purpose. Therefore, the City decided to require participants to register their real name, address and sex with the website administrator and then only a “vague profile” would be displayed on the website. Furthermore, participants can choose whether to display information to “all members” or “friends.”

“People will be more encouraged to use the website if they are confident that they can control their own information. They may then actively want to register a member profile.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

Approximately six months were spent finalizing the outline of “Gorotto Yacchiro” but there were insufficient funds in the budget to outsource the development of the system.

“We understood this from the beginning. So we decided to do it ourselves.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

With this, Mr. Kobayashi launched the SNS as a part of “Version 2” and he then began to develop “Version 3” in September the following year (2005). Mr. Kobayashi decided to add a keyword search engine named “Gorotto WIKI” and an invitation and profile function to “Version 2,” and reconstruct the program module.

According to local government records, the Beta version was completed on the 19th of October and following minor alterations it was released to the public on the 1st of December. The website was first operated on the server that hosts the City’s homepage (the server’s OS was FreeBSD, the data base management system was PostgreSQL and the program was PHP). Three months were spent developing the system.

“Since the system base was OSS, we did not need to pay a licence fee. In fact, there were no costs incurred with developing the system because the staff from the local government gave up their free time without charge and we did not outsource. The only cost incurred was the wages of the Information Promotion Section staff.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

The main characteristic of Version 3 is the “SNS type Checking Function.” “We call this function the “Grey man.”

“This does not mean that we outsource monitoring to residents. The function is contained in the system.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

More specifically, once something is entered on a message board or diary (blog), it is automatically sent to the cell phone e-mail address of the administrator. As of the April 1st 2006, there have been over twenty entries made in diary, ten messages posted on the message board and seven to eight e-mails. Including other items, there have been a total of sixty to seventy postings. Although there have not been any major problems, checking is still a necessary function.

If the administrator determines that a posting “Requires Examination,” the posting will be turned “grey.” For the next 24 hour approval period, the posting will only be made available to the sender.

“In the event libellous or abusive comments or content that infringes upon the privacy of others is posted on the website, the sender will be warned and asked to withdraw the posting. If the sender refuses, the posting will be deleted.” (Mr. Kobayashi)

There have only been two instances where “Gray man” has been used. In both cases, discussions were held with the sender, resulting in the deletion of one message and the acceptance of the other. The very fact that participants know each other produces some degree of order.