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Ritual in Online Communities: A Study of Post-Voting in MOOC Discussion Forums

ABSTRACT When building a community, whether online or offline, rituals are key. They guide social interaction by expressing standards of behavior and social boundaries through patterned series of symbolic words and acts. With Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a case study, this article demonstrates how post-voting in online discussion forums—including those in education contexts—can both enforce and undermine the development of community precisely because of the ritual power such mechanisms assume, inclusive and exclusive. Anyone seeking to cultivate communities online through the use of discussion forums should be wary of this issue with regard to user interaction.