Understanding User Engagement: Why People Comment on Memorial Benches in the OpenBenches Project
By
sedboyz
Front-window bakery material. Catches the eye, delivers the goods.
Summary
The article discusses the OpenBenches project, a crowd-sourced repository of memorial benches where people upload geotagged photos of bench plaques. The author reflects on why people leave comments on these benches, exploring the human desire for connection and memorialization through digital platforms. The piece examines the motivations behind user engagement with this niche community project that has cataloged around 39,000 benches worldwide over 8 years.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledI'm still a believer in the promise of Web 2.0. The idea that giving people a curated space to chat produces tiny sparks of magic.
My wife Liz and I have been running the OpenBenches project for about 8 years - it's a crowd-sourced repository of memorial benches.
People take a geotagged photo of a bench's plaque, upload it to our site, and we share it with the world.
Might sound a bit niche, but we have around thirty-nine thousand benches catalogued from all over the world.
From the start, we had a comment form under each bench. Of course, we pre-moderate any comments.
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