What are the common aspects of these labor-sharing roles (in the following called simply roles)?
One common property of a role is that there is common knowledge by the involved persons about the role. Primarily, this shared understanding is about the tasks that can be expected to be performed by the agent acting in the role as well as about the goals to be achieved, and limits to be observed as well other expectations. These expectations are usually already common knowledge long beforehand or they are established when the agent takes on the role.
The second important aspect of a role is that it can be taken on and off or assigned. Sometimes this happens explicitly when an employee is designated or volunteers to be a moderator. Sometimes this happens automatically or habitually to perform certain actions e.g. when a forum moderator writes a comment as a regular poster or when a developer assumes root permissions (sudo lecture).
What are the common aspects of these labor-sharing roles (in the following called simply roles)?
One common property of a role is that there is common knowledge by the involved persons about the role. Primarily, this shared understanding is about the tasks that can be expected to be performed by the agent acting in the role as well as about the goals to be achieved, and limits to be observed as well other expectations. These expectations are usually already common knowledge long beforehand or they are established when the agent takes on the role.
The second important aspect of a role is that it can be taken on and off or assigned. Sometimes this happens explicitly when an employee is designated or volunteers to be a moderator. Sometimes this happens automatically or habitually to perform certain actions e.g. when a forum moderator writes a comment as a regular poster or when a developer assumes root permissions (sudo lecture).
Other aspects are of interest in the social sciences e.g. interactions between roles or the social function of roles.