Collaboration swarming
View Patent ↗A swarm can develop around a piece of content. The swarm can include the original content, changes to the original content, the persons contributing the changes, and metadata, such as comments contributed by members of the swarm. A swarm can also include statistics generated about the content, such as the size of the swarm, the growth and/or death rates of the swarm, the longevity of the swarm, the intensity of the swarm, the persistence of the swarm, and the direction of the swarm. Swarms and their behaviors can be used to validate or invalidate content.
1. A method residing in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for execution on a processor to perform the method, comprising:
detecting, by the processor, content that is to be associated with a swarm;
initiating, by the processor, the swarm for the content;
tracking, by the processor, the swarm to record information regarding: the content, additional content provided by members of the swarm, member information for the members, and activity information for actions by the members on the content;
recording, by the processor, statistics for the swarm, wherein the statistics for the swarm include one or more of: a size of the swarm, a growth rate of the swarm, a death rate of the swarm, an intensity of the swarm, a longevity of the swarm, a direction of the swarm relative to the content, and a persistence of the swarm;
including, by the processor, the statistics as metadata for the content, wherein the metadata is part of the swarm;
freezing, by the processor, the swarm to prevent changes to the swarm based on the metadata indicating that the swarm has a number of activities for a threshold amount of time and determined from the statistics; and
unfreezing, by the processor, the swarm based on a request from a swarm user that is permitted by policy.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, using, by the processor, the swarm to validate the content.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting further includes receiving the content from a particular member.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein detecting further includes finding the content being posted at a network site being monitored.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein recording further includes maintaining the statistics as one or more of: a total number of the members for the swarm, a growth rate for the swarm, a death rate for the swarm, a longevity rate for the swarm, an activity intensity rate for the swarm, a direction of the swarm, and a persistence rate for the swarm.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising, invalidating, by the processor, a portion of the content, when a modification being attempted to the portion goes against a stated direction for the swarm.
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising, validating, by the processor the content based on a current direction of the swarm.
8. An article, comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, said storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed by a machine, result in:
identifying a piece of content associated with multiple members;
tracking a development of the piece of content and actions of the multiple members;
developing a swarm around the piece of content for the tracking;
maintaining statistics for the swarm, wherein the statistics for the swarm include one or more of: a size of the swarm, a growth rate of the swarm, a death rate of the swarm, an intensity of the swarm, a longevity of the swarm, a direction of the swarm relative to content associated with the swarm, and a persistence of the swarm, and including the statistics as metadata for the content, and wherein the metadata is part of the swarm;
freezing the swarm to prevent changes to the swarm based on the metadata indicating that the swarm a number of activities for a threshold amount of time and determined based on the statistics; and
unfreezing the swarm based on a request from a swarm user that is permitted by policy.
9. The article of claim 8 , wherein the identifying instructions further include receiving the piece of content from an initial authoring member of the content.
10. The article of claim 8 , wherein identifying instructions further include automatically identifying the piece of content by detecting its presence on a network site or network service being actively monitored.