[MUD-Dev] UO rants

[Dan Merillat]

Brad Wyble writes:

> There are very real differences between face to face and "virtual
> communities".  People behave very differently in the two circumstances and
> I think it is a mistake to ignore that difference through nomenclature.  
> 
> I think the word "virtual" is a bad choice though, indicating an
> artificial community of some kind.  Would you be happy with "online
> communities"?

Actually, even that's probably a flawed assumption.

The argument was made comparing a multiperson interaction to phones.
Phones don't (generally) change the social dynamics between people,
so the extension was made that online interaction would follow.

The answer is, surprisingly, yes.  If the social dynamics of phones
are extended to online, the same behaviors follow.

To wit: Phonecalls are generally between people who have a RL
relationship.  (ignore telemarketing, it's just an attempt to
turn your phone into a TV.  I'm talking bidirectional communication)

Thus, Bob is Stacy's friend.  Joe is trying to win a contract with Jim,
and Phil is ordering for Pat's pizza.  All of these things are fully
RL interactions.    

Online, it's the same.  Bob emails Stacy, Joe emails Jim, Phil hits Pat's
website.  The difference comes about when there's no RL interaction between
people.  That's where 31337 D00d jumps into IRC and takes over Bob and Stacy's
chat channel.  Neither of them know d00d, nor does he know them.  He just enjoys
asserting his power over people.   And, with names like Bob and Stacy, they're
easy targets, unlikely to know how to combat him.

In this interaction, there IS no community between B&S and d00d.  So it can't
be said that it's a "virtual community" or an "online community".  An online
community is really just a RL community that happens to interact online.
Perhaps it extends somewhat due to pronounced networking affects... I.E. Bob's
friends with Joe so he joins them online, even though Stacy has never met him
RL. 

Attempting to call a large group of people with no RL interaction a "community"
of any kind simply because they are all interacting in the same system online
is a mistake.  A community may for, or multiple communities, but the whole thing
is a collection of people interacting with people that have nearly no impact on
their RL lives.   Fairly obvious why grief playing is so common, no?

--Dan




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