[MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens

[Tess Lowe]

Jon Lambert wrote:
> I've always thought that diversity is antithetical to community building.
> Strong communities form because of commonly held values.  The more
> diverse a community is the less commonly held values it has.

In my experience a community only requires one 'thing' in common to form
itself around. This could be anything from a common location, to common
values or goals, or even purely the desire to build and experience
community. This 'thing' in common defines the boundaries for the community.
Some people will be 'in community' and some will not.

It may seem reasonable then to claim that a group with boundaries defining
'in' and 'out' cannot cherish diversity, because if they did, they would
have no such boundaries.

Personally I feel it is important to make a distinction between the
boundaries created by a community self-definition, and those created by a
lack of diversity. So long as the primary raison d'etre of the community
(values and/or goals) is not violated, increasing diversity is a very
positive thing, and not antithetical to community at all.

For example, if the reason for existence for a community is that we all work
together in the same company and wish to maximise the success of that
organisation, then clearly we must have boundaries that exclude those who do
not share that goal. However, beyond that, Diversity in all other areas such
as cultural background, gender, political views, religious faith and so on,
I believe is a Good Thing. This is because perhaps *the* fundamental feature
of that elusive sense of community is *not* that its members have a lot in
common, but that they have learned to accept and appreciate Difference.

When a group has learned to accept difference, its members can be
themselves, in these and other areas too - perhaps previously unmentioned -
without fear of ridicule or rejection. This is the point at which that
awesome sense of truly feeling part of a community really becomes tangible.

Jon concluded:
> Peer pressure does scale with size, it does not scale with diversity.
> So the issue is one of managing diversity, not necessarily size.

It is my belief that conformity is the antithesis of community, not
diversity. And peer pressure is the propagation of conformity through fear.

It's certainly been my experience that where community is formed, conformity
is disrupted (and vice versa). For example, in Dark Ages, many older players
attempted to impose conformity on newbies to be strictly IC. This community
peer pressure did nothing but destroy the community itself. And what's more,
wherever a sense of community prevailed among players, such 'rules' were
invariably dropped anyway.

I certainly fully understand the temptation there is in online worlds to
impose conformity and discourage diversity in an attempt to preserve
community. I have succumbed to that temptation myself far too often. But I
fear that such an approach can only destroy that which it seeks valiantly to
protect.

~Tess

ps For an in-character essay on community in Dark Ages, see
http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/fernywood/community.htm
which I based on the RL community-building work of M. Scott Peck
http://www.fce-community.org/about.html#community
"A community is a group of two or more people who have been able to accept
and transcend their differences regardless of the diversity of their
backgrounds (social, spiritual, educational, ethnic, economic, political,
etc.). This enables them to communicate effectively and openly and to work
together toward goals identified as being for their common good."








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