Helen-struggles-to-be-concise

A bittersweet post

2007-01-08T18:51:00.000Z

Yippee! This is it – this is the last piece of work I have to do before I graduate! What a wonderful feeling. I’ve spent the last 6 years of my life juggling a full time job, running a house (well running a duster around the place before firing up a games console!) and studying for a degree. I’ve been waiting for this moment for what seems like forever and yet, in a strange way, I’m going to miss studying; especially if there are more modules like this one.

Prior to taking this module I already had experience of online communities. I interacted in these communities in wide eyed innocence but now look at certain posts within the communities with a bit of a jaundiced eye. It has been interesting reading of other students' initial experiences, with online communities, which brought back memories of how I was as a newbie on the forums. Thanks to other students’ experiences I’m pleased that I never joined a group (although I did view some entries) as I simply couldn’t cope with having to trawl through the spam, which group members seem to have to go through, and I know that I will never again enter a chatroom but I suspected that before I joined IMVU for the sake of this course :D

I found it difficult to post on blogs outside of the student community either through a lack of confidence or not wishing to be repetitive of someone elses comment which so closely mirrored my own feelings. I also never actually found another blog that I would consider bookmarking or setting up a feed from. The student blogs were much easier to comment upon as we were, to a certain degree, covering the same topics but with differing experiences.

I have found that I am using my forums less and less though. It may well be a case of my tastes changing and maybe I am moving on or maybe I just haven’t had the time for them I used too. Only time will tell. The WebCT forum set up for the students seems to have been used by only a core selection of members but at least it was used in a more professional way than that of the previous year – if the transcript we worked on was anything to go by.

In conclusion this COOL module has been fun. Not necessarily the most professional description but definitely the most accurate. Whilst being in no way a novice at interacting within online communities I was amazed, and often amused, by exactly how vast and varied the different communities could be. I found this, after spending years wading through database jargon, to be a pleasurable way of concluding my degree. It's good to be alive now to be a part of, and interactively experience, the growth of online communities and to see where the internet will take us next.

Lost in Cyberspace and Found Ranting

2007-01-05T17:11:00.000Z

I logged into blogger, to reply to a comment, and while on the internet did a search for something but went from reading of conflict between Google and Ordinance Survey regarding a project called Virtual London (not what I was looking for), followed a link to another article with a blog, read the blog and comments, followed another link to another blog, watched a link to a YouTube short video, ended up on YouTube watching items to do with violence in video games and the effect it has in todays’ gaming community. I forget exactly what I was searching for – hence the title of this piece – but before I post my final thoughts on the module the YouTube video made me want to have a rant on behalf of the gaming community.

I wanted to say I don’t play these types of games but upon reflection I guess I do. Okay, I tried GTA: Vice City and, yes, I ran people over and killed them. Not in a manic kill mode but because I couldn’t control the direction that the cars were travelling in. I stopped playing it because it wasn’t my type of game. I never could get into the first person shooters and war games do not interest me either. However, I’ve killed mobs (monsters / enemies) in all my fantasy games and some were depicted as human (okay, they were defeated but never seemed to actually die and therefore no blood or gore) but there is still an element of violence in these games. I’ve instructed my characters to use swords, daggers, bows, axes, spears, clubs and fists to kill my ‘enemies’ and boost my stats but I’m not a violent person.

The majority of gamers involved with the more violent games seem to be male. Maybe it is a reaction from the men of our time rebelling against ‘being in touch in their feminist sides’ and taking back their hunter / predator roles, at least for a short time, in little pixelated worlds. Maybe violent games and films are desensitising our children but that is not necessarily a bad thing – bearing in mind I don’t have, nor will I ever have, children so am not in a position to be an expert on the subject even though I have an opinion.

Children do not buy these games but can put enormous pressure on their parents to buy them ‘because my best mate Joe’s got it’. It is the parents who buy the games for their children to play; either because they have made the decision that their little horror will not turn into a killer by being subjected to the power of killing and maiming a pixelated enemy, or through idleness or ignorance of the games’ content and stunning graphics.

Those self-proclaimed do-gooders in our society – those staunch men and women who watch our morals and ethics, the reporters who sensationalise teenage murderers by declaring that the perpetrators have a copy of Grand Theft Auto on their shelves, so the game is obviously to blame for their behaviour, need a reality check. Do they intend in the long run to have a game burning much like the old book burnings? They state that the violent nature of these games encourage youngsters to go out and commit copycat crimes of those done in game. However, you are talking about a very, very small percentage of gamers out of the millions who play who commit these violent acts. It is easier to blame these games then look at the rot that has taken hold in society today. Violence is an inherent aspect of life and influence to commit violent acts used to be blamed on films and music in the not so distant past – it makes you wonder if Shakespeare had the same accusations levelled at him when he first put on his plays.

As well as taking on the might of the gaming industry they will have to take on the gaming community as a whole. I’m a gambler so I know when I see a safe bet and where I would put my money.

End rant.

What does the future hold for online communities?

2007-01-02T09:14:00.000Z

We are now well into the stages of web 2.0 where users of all ages are taking the internet from corporations and personalising pages upon pages with their own submissions but what next? Oh^^ Apparently web 3.0….. Yes, okay, that was obvious, but the context and contents of web 3.0 are already being visualised and designed so how long before the techheads consign web 2.0 to the history books? I have no intention of trying to answer that so instead let’s skip forward several(+) generations and try to visualise what happens then.

As well as technical advances consideration also needs to be given to human evolution. Currently humans have a deep seated need to interact in a physical environment and I’m not talking about propagating the species. We do need to hug, touch and kiss other people, to physically reach out and interact with another person and not via a camera. Maybe in the future people will be sick of being stuck behind a keyboard and screen and go back to interacting more in the offline communities. Maybe people will be so sick of always being contactable that there will be a massive revolution against mobile gadgets in public places – kind of like the stigma currently attached to smoking – and yet…

Mostly I have been looking at the interactions between users in what I class as the ‘fun’ sections of the internet but the way I see it other communities will come more online and the future belongs to Virtual Reality. Not the cumbersome equipment now available but a simple electrode attached to the skin and a pair of simple glasses (or maybe, even simpler, ‘plugging’ yourself into the system). Upon entering a virtual room you would immediately be surrounded by other people and the implications of this are enormous. Instead of having to fly half way around the world business meetings can be arranged in this virtual world. Language would be no barrier as speech is automatically translated and documents would be available for all to view at a touch of a screen. Well that theory would take care of the ‘space’ issues but there would be nothing you can do about the ‘time’ issues. Now imagine the same room being used to teach students – complex experiments can be carried out without harm – especially by the medical profession. This could have a tremendous impact and advantages. For example, not having to travel great distances would free up masses of time and the environment would thank us.

Now imagine being able to go anywhere in the world without leaving your bubble. Holidays, visits to relatives and friends… but hang on. Wouldn’t that turn us all into slugs? We’d lose the ability to move our limbs and end up being constantly in our VR. What about bodily sustenance and the removable of the bodies waste products? The machines in the Matrix films never did show how they managed that aspect of keeping humans and how come Keanu Reeves was so fit looking and clean when he was released – with a perfect hair cut?

And, and, and… is the brain of a 3rd year student supposed to start leaking out of their ears because I swear mine is!

Issues of resolving usability, surrounding software and hardware, moves forwards at such an astonishing speed. Designs and ideas are realised behind closed doors almost before a thought can be fully expressed. So maybe the future is closer than we realise.

What the... ??

2006-12-31T13:04:00.001Z

If you ever see a group of people all dancing around to music you can’t hear – look for the film cameras (it just MAY be a film someone is producing that the sound track hasn’t yet been dubbed on). If there are no cameras around then it is probably a mobile clubbing event. I was fascinated by this concept when I first heard about it. I would love to have been at any of the railway stations where one of these events have already taken place. I wouldn’t have joined in but would have sat there and ‘people watched’ to see the looks on the faces of the people passing by. However, that would be a one time opportunity. It’s the old ‘if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all’ adage for me so I just as quickly lost interest.

The first flash mob arranged event was in the nature of an experiment by Bill Wasik, encompassing deindividuation, but it quickly took off around the globe (the UK has its own site) as simply fun events to join in with. The idea behind the flash mob has also spawned Pillow Fight Club and Mobile Clubbing, both with their own set of rules and if you check out flashmob.com you can see the original concept has expanded even further (poor teddy bears!). Whatever these events are and wherever these events occur, it is a perfect example of the online community gathering to take part in something which brings them together in an offline community event. All these events are arranged by email, mobile phones and the internet.

After researching these events further I have come to the conclusion that I have no desire to ever partake in any of these events myself - other than as an observer to this mad behaviour. Maybe I’m too old, maybe (because I am a social grouch) I’m just missing the fundamental point of these events or maybe, just maybe, I have no true desire to lose myself ‘in the crowd’.

My communities – an update

2006-12-10T15:32:00.000Z

I was asked recently by Craig Ramsey if I had been on relaywrite following my confession that I write short stories. The idea behind this site is to have different writers submitting stories and building upon other entries. I have looked at it but it appears to have never managed to get off the ground and has died a death, the last update being the 27th October 2006. The site itself has a message board but there is very little in this and, of the messages I did read, there was very little feedback. This led to bad grammar (see Janet, I can spell it :)) and spelling within the story entries not being corrected. The idea of writing collaborative stories is nothing new and I tried to find an old example from my old forum but got lost in the archives.

I did get brave and joined writingforums, not brave enough to post up one of my efforts yet but they have plenty of stories on there to comment on. They have a fun section where they do collaborate on stories which works well. They also make suggestions to improve the way a story reads and corrections to grammar / spelling, helping people all the time to improve their writing skills.

My two generic forums are operating in the same way they normally do; the gated forum has recently finished one collaborative story and started another. The writers within the forum give the story characters forum members’ names making them rather personal and fun to comment on.

I went onto my online game yesterday only to discover my linkshell has broken up (again^^). They seem to do this every few months as the founding member gets annoyed and just breaks us up. I still have no idea why it happened this time but several members from my old ls had already joined a new one and got me a pearl (membership) into it. I believe we are going to enjoy being members of this community as it is a long established one with many, many members. This community consists of many different game characters of differing levels and they help each other to achieve the game goals – which is the perfect way of playing this game.

I dared to walk the dark side….

2006-12-10T12:00:00.000Z

… of internet communities. Well not so much the dark side but I touched on it a little and fled.

My online persona, whether browsing or posting, lives in a fairly safe, secure bubble as mentioned in my original post. I joined one forum after reading their messages for a long time and voluntarily fled en masse with them to a second site. These two forums have always fulfilled my online browsing periods. They are, at any one time: - funny, intelligent, informative, creative or up for a spam session between ourselves.

However, in one of the forums, a link was submitted to a racist site (in disgust not as a place for us to join) and this got me thinking about the darker side of the internet. I’ve been browsing for racist sites this morning. I found the one that we had been linked to fairly easily, via a search engine, and while trying to find another I gave up on myself in disgust.

My intention was to see if there was a difference to the context in an extremist type forum to the forums I use. Actually I discovered that the forum is well used, there were many people browsing the site at the same time as me this morning (yes, I know, different time zones – but still..). Their posts were intelligent and they made their bias sound plausible. Of the few threads I browsed there was no spam or one line messages. There was much knowledgeable quoting of different sources, clarification of posts and they were very polite to one another.

However, the site itself left a bad taste in my mouth and I decided I didn’t want to know about any other sites. My next exploration was going to be into pornography but as I don’t even watch soft porn (I’m fairly prudish, okay, so shoot me!) I quickly changed my mind. I don’t even want to experiment with keywords in the search engines to find these kinds of sites, even with innocent or innocuous words.

Although I am studying Communities Online I am not being paid to do it. In fact I would have to be pretty broke to accept a job where I had to do a study of the kinds of communities I am not comfortable with. I confess to small mental struggle over these kinds of sites. I fully believe in the freedom of the Internet so I could never join any kind of bandwagon to ban these sites. After all, if we gave power to bar these types of sites en masse, I fully believe we would be giving power away to bar any type of site and we could lose something precious.

Politics and the Online Community

2006-12-08T15:32:00.000Z

Okay here we go. Although ‘politics’ can send me into a deep coma, blogging combined with politics is keeping me awake – just – but it is also stopping me blogging other things. I promised myself I get this done so here goes…..

*deep breath*

Where to start? Search engines I guess are good places .... maybe not. I’m obviously searching for the wrong thing. So far I seen new photos of Marilyn Monroe, read about Darwinist and ID, about the stripping of poorer countries of doctors and nurses for our NHS (well that’s political!) then found myself more interested in reading Showbiz gossip (which I NEVER read) before fleeing into the safer sanctuary of the sporting headlines.

Where to start – part 2. Let's try taking a comment from the tutorial notes which covered a report by Brian Wheeler. He is reported to have challenged the online community to provide more opportunities for “people to try to understand the real trade-offs that politicians face and the real dilemmas that citizens face”. Hey! Never mind challenging the online community, how about challenging the offline community first? Political news journalists’ views always lean from far left to far right and everything betwixt and between. They report that ‘the other side is doing this wrong’ or ‘the other side is hiding this information from us" or "that there has been critical mismanagement of a certain area of public interest". However, these journalists are employed to reflect the political leanings of their own and their papers' respective owners. No wonder the voting public are jaded and lethargic about politics. The blogging community at least have their own voice and the means to have their own views known. It matters not that these views are ultimately overlooked by the politicians – for now.

Creative Commons

2006-11-29T15:44:00.000Z

New technologies afford us such tremendous opportunities to express ourselves artistically and Creative Commons allows you to share that creativity. This can be simply done online by answering a few questions on their licensing section and a license is issued there and then for you.

Here is a simple video explaining exactly what Creative Commons is. While here is a list of all their current videos.

Have a question? Then check here FAQs but make sure you know which question you wish answered ‘cos that is an extremely long document!

Okay, I’ll stop linking now otherwise I’m going to link you to every page on their site :D

I am fascinated by this simple introduction to a new copyright law and what the capacity for exploration and sharing, by musicians and artists, this enables within the online community. However, prior to a recent tutorial at university I had not heard of this law nor even come across any works on the internet protected by it. So the word about this new copyright law is slowly getting around. Had you heard about it before?

I write short stories that I upload onto the internet - why are you laughing? That wasn't supposed to be a joke! Okay, okay, I concede.... I have made several 'attempts' at writing short stories, have uploaded them onto the internet (happier now?) and I've often wondered how the copyright law affects these works. I was pleased to learn that they are automatically copyrighted under the "all rights reserved" copyright law. Not that I suspect anyone of borrowing any of my work and claiming credit for it (they are seriously not that good!) but I would be extremely upset if I ever discovered this had happened.

No longer sad...

2006-11-28T02:16:00.000Z

Yippee! I have just managed to edit my post of Tuesday November 7th and get the screenshots uploaded at last. Thank you Photobucket

Also spent a short while tidying up the blog overall in readiness for my thoughts on CC (excellent) and Politics (if I can stay awake long enough!)

Can you truly have an Internet Addiction?

2006-11-13T21:08:00.000Z

Any human being can be capable of becoming addicted, obsessed or ruled by a compulsion; it is part of human nature. Most people are lucky and never discover that one little aspect that can set them on the road to obsession. Some end up collectors of the most bizarre items but for a small percentage obsession becomes addiction with dire consequences to themselves and others. However, can you truly have an addiction to the Internet?

There are two camps of thought on the reality of Internet Addiction. On one side you have the people would do believe this is a real disorder e.g. Dr. Kimberly Young and on the other side those who ridicule the idea e.g. Jonathan Bishop

Are the professionals just splitting hairs? One side claiming there is such an addiction and a (costly I’m sure) cure and one side claiming that such an addiction cannot possibly be given any credit as the Internet is a medium or gateway only. Anyone who is addicted to Brandy is not called a Brandy addict just like anyone who is addicted to Cognac is not called a Cognac addict. Yet they are both addicts under the umbrella of alcohol. The same lack of distinction is applied to drug addicts. Surely it is therefore conceivable that if you are addicted to online gaming, online gambling, online auctions and / or chat rooms that you are addicted to the Internet. It is not possible to partake in any of these listed actions without access to the Internet itself.

Jonathan Bishops’ argument against Internet Addiction is very weak. If you regularly go to a pub with a friend and you discover that you can no longer gain access to that pub then guess what? You would go down the road to the next pub, with your friend, and carry on where you left off. If you feel your whole life revolves around an element of the Internet and then you can no longer gain access to your cyberspace life the consequences can be far-reaching.

Whether you feel you are isolated from the real world through lack of self confidence or live, what is socially classed as, a stable and fulfilling life offline – the internet can be a highly addictive and dangerous environment. The spread of technology into homes, the speed of access to the internet itself, combined with the vast amount of information that is available online and the high levels of users that you can interact with; any time of night or day, are all elements that millions of people take advantage of. With only yourself to police your usage then it should come as no surprise that Internet Addiction is a real concern and will become more prevalent in a society that becomes ever more dependent on technology.

Internet Addiction Test

2006-11-09T18:49:00.000Z

Several weeks ago I came across an online internet addiction test and, amusingly enough, the same test turned up in one of the tutorials. So I thought I’d take a more in depth look at the test and the questions themselves. There is a very good generic article on Wikipedia about Internet Addiction Disorder. The test can be found by following the link at the end of the article.

There is a disclaimer on the site stating that the tests are for fun and educational purposes only. They may raise awareness of a problem but the results are not to be taken as a diagnosis. Thank goodness for that! If I’d scored one more point I would have been told that I may have a problem…..

You score your test by adding up points (0 – 5) depending on your given answers – much like the magazine tests you take to occupy yourself at the dentist and just as painful. Why exactly? You total up your scores and submit them for a ‘conclusion’ but there is no context to the questions and there are only + points so it’s not even a true reflection of your usage. For example, let’s tackle question 1:

How often do you stay on line longer than you intended?

Rarely
Occasionally
Frequently
Often
Always
Does not apply

Now you may tick Often (+4) or Always (+5) but where are the why questions?

Why?
Because my computer is so old and slow it takes me a long time to do things (-5)
Because I only have dial up (-4)
Because I can never remember my passwords and have to sort through all the scraps of paper on my desk until I find the right one (-3)
Because I am often interrupted (-2)
Because my broadband crashes often (-1)
Because I cannot leave my online game as I have ‘just another five minutes syndrome’ (+5)
Because I waste my time doing meaningless online surveys (+10)

Score your answers and commence reading the physcobabble! There is even a response for scoring 0 – 19 which basically accuses you of being in denial. A better answer would have been ‘You think you have a problem? You have but it is paranoia not addiction. In fact we are surprised you could turn the computer on.’ (Tsk, tsk Helen! Remember your HCI module – don’t pick on the users^^)

Of course after you’ve taken this test you can take your concerns further but after this point it will, naturally, cost you money.

Most of the test questions are so generic that they could be applied to almost any type of addiction. Also the results are not produced pro rata – if you answer ‘does not apply’ and score 0 for that question then any result has to be looked upon as very dubious. It was also pointed out, as an example by our lecturer (Janet Finlay), that most of these questions could be applied to reading a good book. I tried it out and to be honest scored much the same. This means that I am addicted to reading good books as well as being on the internet – so how I find time to work / eat / sleep / socialise is beyond me.

Oh and just one final observation. The irony of taking an internet addiction test ‘online’ did not escape me :)

I'm sad :(

2006-11-09T17:23:00.000Z

Many hours work and 8 pages of the Word document I put together - wasted!!

The post was full of screen shots from my favourite forum along with my own observations but I cannot, for some obscure reason, load the screen shots so they can be viewed within the original blog.

I'm going to have to rethink how I do the entry and edit the original post.

Oh well - upwards and onwards....

A forum - up close and personal

2006-11-07T18:49:00.000Z

Following the first lecture and our introduction to online communities I posed a simple question to the forum I use most often:

They (the users) did a pretty good job of analysing the community as a whole so I will let some of them speak. Please accept my apologies in advance – any screenshots that contain more than one post need to be read bottom up not top down (I forgot to reverse the thread prior to taking the screenshots!)

Hierarchy is needful to a successful community though. Recognition and status afforded to users who are key to the effort, and the continuous perpetuation, of the success of the community as a whole.

Cliques within cliques? Personally I don’t feel that I belong to a clique outside of the forum as a whole. Although I am a ‘daytimer’ I’ve never felt excluded from posting in threads that have been added during the evening or felt that I couldn’t interact or get involved in any of the threads that interest me.

Newbies (new users) are an integral part of a growing community. Without new input from these users a forum can become stale and stagnate. As current members move on due to other interests and commitments; new life must be breathed into the forum otherwise it would fade and die.

(Phew! Thank goodness!!)

This can actually be a problem to any new user who tries to join a new community, especially a long established one, and how members treat newbies. Truly the forum as a whole would not treat newbies so harshly unless as Gamesfreak said (post time 11.04 am)

Elitists? Probably but we are hardly idiots. As technology becomes available to more of the populace access to and use of forums and blogs (especially blogs) has become easier. So why is it that newbie users are shunned from certain communities? Surely it is not just elitism and more a certain intolerance. New users are expected, to a certain degree, to already have gained an impression of the feel of a forum simply by reading existing threads. There again some forum members have no time or patience to teach new users the etiquette of the forum.

Finally on the subject of new users a word from our creator:

In-jokes and the tight knit community:

Any established forum will have in-jokes which new users will never understand but this doesn’t mean they are excluded from the forum and are often part of new in-jokes. Then the process starts again and newer users are excluded from the existing again etc.

The post by Stryke (17.53 pm) gives an indication that although we are cliquey there are obviously some users who do not like other users. There can be a slight degree of nastiness within the forum between certain members and deindividuation is noticeable in these cases. However the bonds of the forum seem to be strong enough so that this behaviour is ignored to a greater extent as the posters move to different threads.

A good indication of the difference between online and offline communities:

My reply to the original question.

Two of the more in-depth replies to the original question and the growth of forums in general.

As is normal with quite a few forum topics the replies I received kept going off topic and then coming back to the original question.

60 pages and 898 replies later…

The users used the thread to discuss the original topic but also discussed:

Suits
The best kind of sauce
Sandwiches (BLT being the king of all sandwiches :))
Online couples marrying
Eating brains^^
What everyone was having for tea that day
Whisky and generally drinking ‘alone’
What type of girls they prefer
Plus several other ‘off-topic’ conversations which I won’t mention :D

Some final posts:

From the creators own fingers :)

RBS kindly works out the forum visitors that day for me :)

Ten out of ten for observation :D

Okayyyyy…

So the bottom line is the place is cliquey and has cliques within the clique with only one new member (recommended) in the months since its conception. The forum has both quantitative and qualitative content, is busy, and used regularly. At the moment there is no need to change and grow but as to what the future holds who knows. I like it just the way it is.

The fall and rise of a forum

2006-10-30T17:03:00.000Z

The forum I currently post most in is private and gated. According to a table based on Arrow et al (2000) group emergence ‘space’ this forum is also Planned / Internal. We were all originally members of another successful and busy forum which had grown from an online shop for games and peripherals – Special Reserve. To cut a very long story short this online company was originally tied to another (Freeola) but they split the companies. Then whispers started about the demise of SR and several people set up quick forums for us to join in an effort to keep us together – then SR went bust. One day, without any respect to its users or official warning, we went to post on the forum and ‘poof’ nothing. All our threads, some extremely long, many involving a lot of personal effort were no more.

How did I feel when the whispers started of impending closure? Physically sick. How would I cope? There were so many online personas I would miss. Even if I hadn’t posted in threads they created; I found them to be informative and amusing. Visiting that forum and reading / posting in there had been an integral part of my day. I was addicted.

How did I feel in the new ‘home’? When the whispers started several new forums sprang up in an effort to keep us together. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief as most of the people who posted made the transition. Also a sadness for some who hadn’t made it, for the lost threads and hours of work that had been put into making the original place the successful forum it had been. We settled down into our new home and things began to carry on as normal. Then Freeola opened up the SR forum for us to return to and post in.

How did I feel when I returned to the original forum? In all honesty a sense of joy especially when the original posts were still there. Why? There was nothing earth shatteringly important on the forum. The forum was generic covering a wide range of everyday topics. In order to answer that honestly we have to look at:

How did I feel when the new owners of the forum eventually wiped all the old threads? Devastated and angry. There was one particular forum we used to post stories in. What had started out as a small forum competition to write a short story several years ago, with the prize being the setting and judging of the next competition, had been more successful than anticipated. Using a forum thread can be self perpetuating and addictive and this is what happened. The particular competitiveness that the story writing encouraged eventually had SR re-open an old forum especially for us to post in (we were irritating other users in the Intelligent Discussion forum when they had to scroll down half a page to find something that wasn’t a story). It wasn’t the loss of my work within the forum that had me so angry but the loss of access to a large variety of different stories, a lot of them extremely good, by other writers who had taken part.

I cannot fully remember what happened to eventually drive most of the good users to another home. I seem to recall that the new regime decided to make changes to the forum but why and what changes is forgotten and behind me. I do remember that their management of change was not professional, was not needed, and was to include no involvement from their user base. User comments were encouraged and then ultimately ignored. The forum was a non-profit making part of the business and any management has the right to make changes and improvements as they consider there needs to be. However, no consideration was given to the fact that the users ‘believed’ the forum belonged to them. It is, after all, the users that make a forum a success or failure. There were a lot of teddies thrown out of their cots at that time and many acrimonious posts made where before there had been harmony and fun. The upshot of that was Freeola pulled the plug on the old forum completely and started anew. At this point many users left permanently to go to a new forum set up specifically for us.

The management had taken several months to re-open the old forum. What bad decisions had they made during the time that the forum was offline? What made them believe that opening the forum again exactly has it had been and then making changes enmass wouldn't have been met with resistance by the user base? Their best course of action would have been to open the forum again, already changed and wiped as a fait accompli, with an opening post of a warm welcome, a simply apology and a hope that the forum could once again become the success it had been.

Chat rooms and txt talk? No thank you...

2006-10-22T21:30:00.000+01:00

While searching for other communities to join I signed up for IMVU – a chat room that allows you to interact with other users via an avator - http://www.imvu.com

*Shudders* I have a MSN account but no longer use this so I know that I don’t like chat rooms. I tried again for the sake of the module but I’m sorry I will not interact in that environment again.

It is down to a personal dislike of the environment. I immediately started a conversation with another user and one of the first questions they asked was a/s/l (age/sex/location). I don’t care to share that information with strangers and personally I am not interested in your age, gender or location only in discovering if we share common interests and sense of humour.

I have a personal dislike of txt spk which seems to be used a lot in chat rooms. I understand and concede that language is not static and is ever changing as words go in and out of use. I also acknowledge that text talk will become more the vogue within schools and eventually within the community as a new generation takes over from the old. I cannot always read what has been typed and that irritates me. I like my written language and find it sad that the shortened words are becoming more and more prevalent but I personally will never join in with this new language revolution.

Racism, Sexism and Ageism on the Internet

2006-10-21T22:07:00.000+01:00

I’d like to clarify further my comment of “I believe there is a lack of racism, sexism and ageism on the internet” as this may statement may not be as black and white as it sounds. I am not talking about truly viscous close-minded instances of the above but rather the gently misconceptions that occur.

Racism – I seriously haven’t come across any but I would be foolish indeed to believe it doesn’t exist. I’d like to believe that by interacting with someone of a different colour or creed, prior to discovering that fact, certain prejudices would be broken and a greater tolerance of others would take its place.

Sexism – I had to smile at this after the tutorial on Friday afternoon. I’m guilty of it, as are others, because I automatically assume that people on the internet are male – and I’m female! This is especially true within a forum where the user has a non-gender specific name. I had been posting on a forum for approximately 8 months before I posted a comment that made other users say ‘hang on! You’re female? I didn’t know’. This fact did not alter the way people interacted with me within the forum hence the lack of sexism in my experience.

Ageism – I’m guilty of this but not towards other people rather towards myself. I am not a teenage, nor am I still in my twenties. I believe my ageism stems originally from outside the internet environment. I do enjoy playing console / online games and my family and friends cannot understand my interest – because of my age. My nephew thinks it’s wonderful and often calls me if he is stuck within a game he knows I own for help. This makes me wary of admitting my age online. Why exactly? I’m not bothered about it out in the real world so why online? It’s down to a confliction of emotions and fear. I do not want ‘friends’ online to change their attitude to me or stop posting anything to me because of my age. However, in my online game I have told people my age and they all think it’s ‘cool’ or ‘neat’. They haven’t changed their attitude to me and don’t care but I can’t help but think sometimes ‘you wouldn’t discuss this with your mother!’ This does have positive ramifications though. They do ‘know’ an older person who they can talk to if they need to.

Community - your questions, my answers

2006-10-21T07:53:00.000+01:00

What is community?
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

2. a locality inhabited by such a group.

3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually prec. by the): the business community; the community of scholars.

4. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe.

5. Ecclesiastical. a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule.

6. Ecology. an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area.

7. joint possession, enjoyment, liability, etc.: community of property.

8. similar character; agreement; identity: community of interests.

9. the community, the public; society: the needs of the community.

Taken from Dictionary.com

What communities (online or off) do you belong to?
I am a member of 2 generic forums covering a wide range of different topics and interests. This means that there is usually something posted that you would join in with without the need to be interested in everything being discussed. One is public and easy to join while the second forum is gated and private. This forum I will blog in greater detail.

I also play Final Fantasy Online. If you wish to progress in the game you are forced to interact and get help from others within the game. There are also linkshells - groups of people who can talk to each other easily without everyone else in the game seeing what you are saying - and friend lists where you can see which of your 'friends' are online at the same time as you.

Offline? I am part of the Business community. Although I am a student I never considered myself part of the Student community as, until this module, I never fully interacted with the community. I also do not actively take part in my own local community.

Lastly, because of the nature of this module, I actively take part in the webCT forum (private, university based).

I need to browse around the internet for a forum unlike those mentioned above for comparison on the way interaction takes place.

What are the key attributes of a (good) community?
Common interests, support and advice if troubled, humour. Even in the saddest of communities, e.g. severe medical conditions, humour can be great release. It can take time to become attuned to how people 'act' within an community, especially an online one, and it can be that you will join and leave several before joining one that you are comfortable with and confident enough to stay in.

However, there are some people who use the anonymity afforded by sitting behind a computer screen to deliberate goad and insult within an online community and rarely, if ever, add anything of interest or value.

In our webCT forum we have been asked to read the rules of the forum and decide on the one we considered the most important. A lot of people seem to have gone for ‘respect what other people write’. I strongly disagree with the sentiment after all I would not respect someone automatically offline why should I do it online? By the same merit I wouldn’t call someone an idiot because of their post. I would do 1 of two things:

1. Ask for clarification of their post and try to illicit a decent discussion on our difference of opinions

OR

2. Ignore them completely.

How do online communities differ from real world communities?
I believe they really can be more supportive and easier to share your troubles with - no matter how trivia your problem may be. I believe there is a lack of racism, sexism and ageism on the internet but I may have been lucky and just not come across any of these. When joining a forum you do tend to be interacting with your peers or like minded people.

2006-10-02T19:24:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my worl... um, blog

Hello :)

My first blog entry – ever! I’ve never kept a diary before and do not feel the urge to keep one now so why this entry? My final university module decrees that I must and as I would like to finish my degree with an excellent (or very good) mark I am stuck with it. The hardest part of this module will be the fact that my friends – who dragged me kicking and screaming to this final hurdle – have either already qualified or are doing different modules. So I guess I am on my own for this :D

The module is called ‘Communities Online’ and until I am certain of what exactly it is that is expected of me I will not post anything else at the moment. There is a word limit of a maximum 4000 words (I’ve written longer ‘short’ stories than that!) so the need for further entries to be concise and to the point must take precedent of my natural urge to write.

The first thing that stuck in my mind from the first tutorial was the discussion on the question ‘Is MSN a community?’ I confess I put my hand up for yes only to have it pointed out that MSN is actually a tool (and yes, I felt like one!) that supports a community. Lesson number 1 is pay attention to semantics.