MMO Communities (was RE: [MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky isfalling?)

[Aaron Switzer]

On Wed, 2004-07-21 at 00:31, Sean Howard wrote:
> "Derek Licciardi" <kressilac at insightbb.com> wrote:

>> I'm still not convinced that a 250 person group is the maximum
>> group size one can have.

> I'm not either. That number feels arbitrary to me. But I agree
> with the sentiment that the larger the groups get, the more they
> break down into smaller groups. You can push it, but eventually,
> it HAS to break down. I don't know where that point is, and it may
> differ based on community, but I'd say that 10,000 people is
> probably too big no matter how you scratch it.

Just because a community breaks down into smaller communities
doesn't mean that the larger community ceases to exist.  Yes, in
every group or community sub-groups will form, but a lot of the time
that only serves to strengthen the larger community.

For example, let's step out of the MMO realm and look at the FPS
communities, specifically the Mod communities.  There is no doubt
that these people form sub-groups within that community in the way
of clans and competitive teams.  This is a case were the sub-groups
actually strengthen the overall community, not break it apart.  The
same can be said for MMOGs, but I feel that MOD communities tend to
much more tightly knit even though the number of members can be
roughly equivalent in some cases.

>> What then is the whole idea of nationalism if it is not a large
>> scale community guided by a simple but bonding relationship
>> between its members?

> If you want to change the subject to something else dealing with
> public opinion, I'll play. But I'm not touching nationalism
> rationally when the feelings around it are anything but.

I don't think that he was changing the subject here.  The bond of
nationalism can be very strong, especially when the nation in
question is threatened in some way.  And if the common act of voting
doesn't constitute a community then I don't know what does.

>> There are way too many real world communities that break the 250
>> person law that we have set for ourselves.

> I believe you have been blindsided by this "250" number. Ignore
> the number and concentrate on what it is trying to say. It could
> be 250. It could be 2500. But it will break down without better
> social organization.

I'm curious about your allusion to "better social organization",
would something like Friendster allow for more scalable communities
in your eyes?

>> Sure within those large communities there are sub communities but
>> it's hard to tell me that the Teamsters union isn't really a
>> community when the entire lot of them threatens to strike on UPS.

> I believe that the union is made up of dozens, if not hundreds, of
> smaller local unions.

Which doesn't take away from the fact that if one teamster were to
travel to another city and attend a meeting of another local union
that they would be greeted as a member.  This to me is a community.

>> The Laws of Online World Design are a wonderful thing to think
>> about but continually challenging them is how they evolve and we
>> finally have the technology to really test the 250 person
>> community law.

> I love challenging ideas. However, I'm not sure you can challenge
> the logic of a situation. Let's say you have 10,000 pieces of
> paper in front of you. You can't figure out how to deal with them
> all, so you organize them. You put them in "in" piles and "out"
> piles, and in filing cabinets with labels for each folder. That is
> how you can "govern" those paper and give attention to the part
> which need attention best. You can just have a pile of 10,000
> papers, but it will be pretty much useless to you.

Ok, so let's say that those 10,000 papers are accounting documents,
so they have a common theme or "community".  Once you have organized
those documents into file folders and placed those folders into a
cabinet, would you point to that cabinet and say "That's just a
bunch of papers that have been organized" or would you say "Those
are the accounting documents".  So even though you have broken that
"community" into smaller groups, those papers have not lost their
common theme, and can still be commonly refered to by that theme.

>> Don't get me wrong, the law is pretty sound for the types of
>> communities that it was intended for.

> I think you are getting distracted by this "law" again. Sometimes,
> people put ideas out there to challenge your perception of the
> world. I don't think that the guy who wrote the law would even
> argue that 250 was arrive at through study or even observation. He
> probably just picked a number that was large enough and small
> enough to make the point.

I had actually heard this talked about before but the number was 150
and the author claimed that it was based on research.  Unfortunately
I don't have a link though.

A lot of what this discusion breaks down to is semantics (as most do
:-).  I believe that what you are talking about Sean is more of a
"circle of friends" than a "community".  A circle of friends can
only get so big before managing all of the relationships gets too
big.  But a community only needs a strong bond that brings people
together for a common purpose.

- Aaron Switzer
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