Slides from my presentation at the 2011 Association for Internet Researchers Conference, "The Rhetoric of Trust: Perceptions of Identity and Credibility in an Online Community." This presentation was part of a multidisciplinary panel on MetaFilter.com. Note: The slides don't make much sense without the audio, which will be posted online soon by one of the panel organizers.

1. The Rhetoric of Trust
Perceptions of Identity and Credibility
in an Online Community
Quinn Warnick
(@warnick)
St. Edward’s University
IR 12.0 | October 12, 2011

2. 3
three definitions

3. 1
one website

4. 4
four paradoxes

5. ήθος

6. ethos

7. essence
spirit
credibility
personality
character

8. essence customs
haunts spirit
credibility habitats
places personality
character habits

9. “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s
personal character when the speech is so
spoken as to make us think him credible.…
This kind of persuasion, like the others,
should be achieved by what the speaker
says, not by what people think of this
character before he begins to speak.”
—Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

10. one

11. “The man who wishes to persuade people will not be
negligent as to the matter of character; no, on the contrary,
he will apply himself above all to establish a most honorable
name among his fellow-citizens; for who does not know
that words carry greater conviction when spoken by men of
good repute than when spoken by men who live under a
cloud, and that the argument which is made by a man’s life
is more weight than that which is furnished by words?”
—Isocrates (Antidosis, 278)

12. “All this species of eloquence, however, requires the
speaker to be a man of good character and of pleasing
manners. The virtues which he ought to praise, if possible,
in his client, he should possess or be thought to possess
himself. Thus he will be a great support to the causes that
he undertakes, to which he will bring credit by his own
excellent qualities. But he who, while he speaks, is thought
a bad man, must certainly speak ineffectively, for he will not
be thought to speak sincerely; if he did, his ethos or
character would appear.”
—Quintilian (Institutes of Oratory, VI.ii.18)

13. vir bonus

15. vir bonus

16. two

17. “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s
personal character when the speech is so
spoken as to make us think him credible.…
This kind of persuasion, like the others,
should be achieved by what the speaker
says, not by what people think of this
character before he begins to speak.”
—Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

18. Aristotle “directs our attention away from an
understanding of ethos as a person’s well-
lived existence and toward an understanding
of ethos as an artistic accomplishment.”
—Michael J. Hyde

19. textual element

20. three

21. “The most concrete meaning given for the
term in the Greek lexicon is ‘a habitual
gathering place,’ and I suspect that it is
upon this image of people gathering
together in a public place, sharing
experiences and ideas, that its meaning as
character rests. To have ethos is to manifest
the virtues most valued by the culture to and
for which one speaks.”
—S. Michael Halloran

22. gathering place

25. ‣ “It’s like the core members of the debate team getting
together after a meet in a bar somewhere to hash out
what they did well, what they did poorly, why they
responded in a particular manner, and to accuse their
teammates of unsportsmanlike conduct at the event.”
‣ “MetaTalk is the place where you can walk around
without your pants.”
‣ “It's the police blotter of the site.”
‣ “It’s almost like the lunch table at work. People aren’t fully
removed from the business of things, but they are a bit
less inhibited.”
‣ “MetaTalk is kind of like the back alley behind the bar,
where people go after the bouncers tell them to take it
outside. It’s much dirtier and more personal.”
‣ “...sort of a gathering place.”

26. User participation in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections for 2009
16,000 14,861
14,000
12,219
12,000
10,000 9,337 9,019
8,500
8,000
6,000
3,906
4,000
2,295
2,000 813
0
All Sections Combined MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk
Dark columns indicate users making at least one comment.
Light columns indicate users making at least one post.

27. MetaTalk posts by category for 2009
MeFi Podcast: 18 Bugs: 110
(1.22%) (7.47%)
MetaFilter
Gatherings: 324 Feature Requests:
(22%) 177
(12.02%)
Etiquette/Policy: 269
(18.26%)
MetaFilter-related:
568 Uptime: 7
(38.56%) (1.22%)

28. Average number of comments per post for each MetaTalk category
180
160.10
160
140
120
100 87.71 83.55
80 71.58
60 51.33
45.48
40 26.45
20
0
Bugs Feature Etiquette/ Uptime MetaFilter- MetaFilter MeFi Podcast
Requests Policy related Gatherings
Average number of comments per post across all MetaTalk categories: 83.04

29. Average length of MetaTalk comments for each MetaTalk category
450
410.22
400
339.08
350
302.54
300
253.34
250 223.89
190.73 198.78
200
150
100
50
0
Bugs Feature Etiquette/ Uptime MetaFilter- MetaFilter MeFi Podcast
Requests Policy related Gatherings
Average length of all MetaTalk comments: 328.9

30. Number of comments per user for all users who made more than 100 MetaTalk comments
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0

31. Number of comments made by moderators in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections
3500
3,024
3000
2500
2,032
2000
1,520
1500
1000 888
598 554
420
500
216 234 237
116 84 132
6 8
0
mathowie jessamyn cortex pb vacapinta
MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk

55. 4
four paradoxes

56. Ethos resides in the
text—except when it
doesn’t.

57. Collective ethos is
the work of a few.

58. The best dictators
have no rules.

59. Serious communities
are powered by
silliness.

60. “Virtual communities are social aggregations
that emerge from the [Internet] when enough
people carry on those public discussions
long enough, with sufficient human feeling,
to form webs of personal relationships in
cyberspace.”
—Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community

62. The Rhetoric of Trust
Perceptions of Identity and Credibility
in an Online Community
Questions? Comments?
quinnwarnick@gmail.com | quinnwarnick.com | @warnick