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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

J C Lawrence <claw at kanga.nu> writes:

> The 250 number has some grounding.  In particular it partially
> relates to Dunbar's number.  Dunbar's number itself derives from
> an academic paper by Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist at University
> College of London, entitled 'Co-evolution of neocortex size, group
> size and language in humans".  A pre-publication version of the
> paper can be found at:

>   http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/dunbar.html

As far as I can tell from glancing over the paper, it seems like his
main purpose isn't to establish 150 as a magic number, but to argue
that there is a relation between neocortex size and a convinient
group size in terms of coordination. So, he has to show that there
is at some relationship, thus the number. The number 150 being
common supports his hypothesis, but that does not imply that 150 is
a necessity...?

He also seem to acknowledge that tribes are in the numbers of
500-5000 (or whatever number he used).

Now, if you think about it, you probably handle more than 150. A
lecturer may have to grade 100 students, has 50 colleagues and then
you can add all the other people s/he keeps track of in media,
friends family etc... Of course the social network extends beyond
this... In other words, I don't think it is as tight. (But I don't
really have time to go deep into each paper either.) Of course, you
can just narrow down your requirements until you end up with some
magic number. Make it 80, 2, 40... ;^)

--
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/
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