Social translucence is a term that was proposed by Thomas Erickson and Wendy A. Kellogg to refer to "design digital systems that support coherent behavior by making participants and their activities visible to one another".

Social translucence represents a tool for transparency, which function is to

• stimulate online participation
  Online participation
  Several motivations lead people to contribute to virtual communities. Various online media , are becoming ever greater knowledge-sharing resources. Many of these communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture...
  
  
• facilitate collaboration (via collaborative filtering
  Collaborative filtering
  Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...
  
   but also by helping the construction of trust)
• facilitate navigation (social navigation)

Social transluscence is in particular a core element in Online social networking such as FaceBook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 or LinkedIn

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...

, in which they intervene in the possibility for people to expose their online identity

Online identity

An online identity, internet identity, or internet persona is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites...

, but also in the creation of awareness of other people activities, that are for instance present in the activity feeds that these systems make available.

Social translucence mechanisms have been made available in many web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

 systems such as:

• Online communities
• Online social networking
• Wikis 

See also

• Collaborative filtering
  Collaborative filtering
  Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...
  
  
• Digital traces
• Online communities
• Online identity
  Online identity
  An online identity, internet identity, or internet persona is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites...
  
  
• Online participation
  Online participation
  Several motivations lead people to contribute to virtual communities. Various online media , are becoming ever greater knowledge-sharing resources. Many of these communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture...
  
  
• Reputation system
  Reputation system
  A reputation system computes and publishes reputation scores for a set of objects within a community or domain, based on a collection of opinions that other entities hold about the objects...