Let the arguments begin!

Gaming and Community REPOST

2004-07-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

Blogger.com screwed up my first posting of this yesterday so here I go trying to post again.

The relationship between gaming and community is really something that goes together. Back before games became multiplayer, gaming was looked at as a hobby that wasn't very social. This makes sense though although there was still sometimes communities centered around a particular single player game if it was good. People would identify with the story line or maybe a particular puzzle and share those experiences with other people who enjoyed the game as well. Games then became multiplayer and the internet provided easier ways for users to meet each other with services supplied by the game manufacturers or forums to post information. This created an atmosphere where online communities prospered. Something about myself, I was the creator and host of a group in Vancouver called VANGG (Vancouver Area Network Gaming Group) over 10 years ago. Before the internet made it as easy to meet online as it is today, I hosted local network meetings that friends could bring their computers to and spend a day gaming and conversing. More so than the act of gaming, the time spent talking and sharing ideas and experiences was much more important. This in itself could be called a community. I still network with friends in person from time to time, but it's much more common and convenient to log on the net to interface with communities that share an interest in a specific game. In regards to MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) like Everquest, I have played these as well. They can be quite fun, but like anything they can draw time away from real work duties if you let them consume all of your time. In gaming environments like Everquest though, you not only have the large Everquest community, but you have sub-communities for everything. You belong to a particular guild of people so you talk with them, perhaps you are a wizard so you belong to a wizards onine forum, and your race might be an Elf making you amiable to any other Elfs you meet. Lastly, it becomes evident how important community is to a game when the community starts shrinking. Once the community has moved onto the next newer and cooler game and there are too few people left to be called a community, the old game itself seems to fade into oblivion like darwinism at it's best. Today community is online gaming and online gaming is community.

Gaming and Community

2004-07-29T16:25:00.001-07:00

Gaming and Community

2004-07-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

The relationship between gaming and community is really something that goes together. Back before games became multiplayer, gaming was looked at as a hobby that wasn't very social. This makes sense though although there was still sometimes communities centered around a particular single player game if it was good. People would identify with the story line or maybe a particular puzzle and share those experiences with other people who enjoyed the game as well.

Games then became multiplayer and the internet provided easier ways for users to meet each other with services supplied by the game manufacturers or forums to post information. This created an atmosphere where online communities prospered. Something about myself, I was the creator and host of a group in Vancouver called VANGG (Vancouver Area Network Gaming Group) over 10 years ago. Before the internet made it as easy to meet online as it is today, I hosted local network meetings that friends could bring their computers to and spend a day gaming and conversing. More so than the act of gaming, the time spent talking and sharing ideas and experiences was much more important. This in itself could be called a community. I still network with friends in person from time to time, but it's much more common and convenient to log on the net to interface with communities that share an interest in a specific game.

In regards to MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) like Everquest, I have played these as well. They can be quite fun, but like anything they can draw time away from real work duties if you let them consume all of your time. In gaming environments like Everquest though, you not only have the large Everquest community, but you have sub-communities for everything. You belong to a particular guild of people so you talk with them, perhaps you are a wizard so you belong to a wizards onine forum, and your race might be an Elf making you amiable to any other Elfs you meet.

Lastly, it becomes evident how important community is to a game when the community starts shrinking. Once the community has moved onto the next newer and cooler game and there are too few people left to be called a community, the old game itself seems to fade into oblivion like darwinism at it's best. Today community is online gaming and online gaming is community.

Online Identity

2004-07-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

I chose this topic as it is something I feel I have a lot of experience with. What does someone become when they go online, and is it something different than what they are in real life. I've been online for the last 10 years, and the first thing you do when you interact anywhere is chose new names. This alone is the first step to both anonymity and creating a new identity. This also frees your new real life persona from most online forms of responsibility. Any responsibility that is accrued is put on this new name. Accrue too much responsibility or garner a bad reputation, just change names as easily as you change clothes.

The flip side to this is that most people want their personas to accrue respect and reputation, two things anyone would want for their real name. You do this by not tarnishing the name you have chosen and keeping with it as long as you can. Of course, you always have the backdoor of escaping with another name if things go bad (try changing your face in real life as easily) but then a lot of your hard work ends up being no longer useful.

What I have listed is just something that seems to go with all territories but now you get to chose what you want to actually do with it. The most basic of these things is to either hold a conversation or express yourself through text. It doesn't matter if you are male or female, old or young, healthy or disabled. You can "roleplay" any combination of these things. I would say the majority of people stick to a similar style to who they are in real life, but there are those who act something they are not either out of entertainment or deceit. With that in mind, it is always a good idea to treat other online personas with a grain of salt (notice my western idiom). Like any part of the web, it's chock full of information and littered with land mind fallacies at ever turn.

My favorite case of an identity change is that of my friend who used to play a particular online game. His game "callsign" (persona) was well respected by other gamers in that community as someone good at the game and not particularly outspoken. His online persona he chose to speak through in this communities forums was that of something entirely different. With a different name, and an identity not linked to the other more respected one, he could debate furiously with the community without tarnishing the other. This persona was rude and obnoxious out of entertainment. He is not the type of internet "troll" (derogatory term for those who hang out in forums and flame people) that is there to make people feel bad, but he did push buttons for those who do not learn the important lesson to not take online personas literally.

Defining Cyberfeminism

2004-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

Upon visiting the first site listed on the suggested website handout (www.obn.org/cfundef/faith_def.html) it became clear that defining Cyberfeminism was something the post was not going to make easy for me. The articles author actually explicitly makes clear that defining this term was somehow counterproductive to their goals. They seem to rather explain their goals with what they like to talk about and how it is important. The main subject being the overly masculine content and layout of the internet. In their eyes this is a bad thing. These views, as well as the views of this website seem to fall into the category of radical feminism.

Another site (home.gwu.edu/~marcial/cyberfem.html) says there are three types of feminism. These being radical, social, and postmodern. From the first site, the radical point of view can be seen in some of the following exerpts.

It is up to cyberfeminists to use feminist theoretical insights and strategic tools and join
them with cybertechniques to battle the very real sexism, racism, and militarism encoded in
the software and hardware of the Net, thus politicizing this environment.
While brilliant consumer marketing has suceeded in making ownership of a PC seem as
imperative as having a telephone, computers are in fact powerful tools possession of which
can provide a political advantage (the personal computer is the political computer).

The author of the second site is quoted as saying the following about postmodern feminists with the following.

In contrast to socialist and radical feminist perspectives, postmodern accounts of cyberspace tend to focus on interpretation rather than activism. This perspective is not as concerned with the problem of differential access to these technologies, for example, but with analyzing identities in cyberspace.

So what is Cyberfeminism, well the first (radical) site gives it a flowery abstract definition. "(Cyber)Feminism is a browser through which to see life." Kudos to them for feeling it important to change the way we see life. How they actually want us to see it (and saying how they don't want us to see it, i.e. masculine, I feel isn't sufficient an answer) is up in the air.

What is feminism? The second site has this take on it. "The political theory and practice that seeks to understand and subvert systems of gender inequality."

Online Religion Midterm topic

2004-07-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

My thesis was - Christian religious propaganda has evolved over time to find the internet as a new medium to strengthen its audience.

The works I used to support this thesis were the book by Brenda Brasher Give Me That ONLINE RELIGION and the two following websites.

Chick Publications www.chick.com
Dial-the-Truth Ministries www.av1611.org

These two sites share the viewpoint of Christian fundamentalists. Major beliefs being-
The King James version of the bible being only the true bible and it is as true today as it ever was.
All mankind are sinners as a result of the voluntary transgression of Adam.
God is one, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Like Brasher I believe the internet is a very powerful medium to express and interact with religious thought. Unlike Brasher though, I do not promote the action of protecting and supporting it, which I only mention as a matter of fact rather than relating it having a bearing on my specific thesis. The two sites I list support my thesis have origins in media before their use of the internet. Jack Chick from www.chick.com has been publishing tracts (comic pamphlets) for over 40 years now. Dial-the-Truth ministries set up a phone answering service that would speak the gospel over a decade ago. Both of these have expanded their user base by propagating their information on their respective websites. This evolution is both logical and beneficial to them.

Aside from simply informing others of their doctrine, they also sell all types of media and merchandise to sponsor their beliefs. Online stores are a trademark sign of the internet no matter where you go, including these religious sites. I tie this in with how this is another means to both strengthen current believers and convert non-believers with propaganda. Outside of my paper I make this side note - you could probably say that buying Mickey mouse merchandise strengthens your favor with Disney. This is true, but on a personal not I think this is a lot more sterile as Disney does not tell you how to live your life unquestioningly by a book.

In summary I felt I did an adequate job (if not in this post) of giving proof that online religion is an evolution of the traditional ways of passing their message on. This online presence in turn strengthens its user base by providing information that one may never have come across as well as current believers who use it as an online shop to spread propaganda. I believe this holds true for the Christian fundamentalist sites I visited as well as many other religious sites no matter what the doctrine.

Whiteness, invisibility, dominant culture:

2004-07-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

As I read some of the questions given for this particular topic I feel that maybe I should have asked for more clarification from the instructor to make sure I'm heading in the right direction. With that in mind, I shall head in a direction and answer these the best I can interpret.

Online, when do I feel invisible. Seeing how this topic deals with white privilege, and being white myself, I really don't feel any more invisible than anyone else. This may partly be explained by Michelle's statement "I can be fairly certain that people I meet online are my race unless they tell me different." Another of her statements that match this are "I can assume without stating it that people I meet online will know what color I am." Does this hold true for non-whites who use the internet as well? Do they also assume who they interact with is white? Do they subconsciously expect those who interact with them, to assume they are white or just not care?

When do I feel like I'm normal?
This begs the question what is the definition of feeling like normal before I can answer it further. I will assume to feel normal is to feel like the majority. The problem with that is that the majority can feel so many different things about so many different subjects at any point of time, the norm is always changing as well as the majority. This holds true for real life as well as cyber space. What this question might be driving at is that the concept people seem to have, true or not, is that white dominant culture is more the norm than anything else globally and it shows through in cyber space. If such statements by Michelle like "I can be certain that nearly all relevant or interesting sites will be in my [English] language." are true, then you could say it's true that I feel normal whenever I log onto the web.

What criteria do you think the diverse audience of the web uses to decide whether you "belong" or not?
Going both by Michelle's points and my experiences I can list a few criteria. First and foremost to express yourself in the English language is paramount. Not only will this let your message be heard by other non-native English speakers who understand English, but it is sometimes required if you would like to online chat in particular public domains. The only other thing I could think of is something that would also happen in a meeting of foreign people. That being something like explaining an idea with a cultural specific idiom. You'll find this all the time with White/American idioms on the internet (i.e. brownie points, catch-22). I would say it is both rare and often misunderstood even by non-whites if someone were to post their cultures idiom without also posting some lengthy explanation. This would more than likely also remove the effect of using an idiom in the first place.

I find a lot of what Michelle has listed to be true more often than not. The main experience I have to the contrary regarding the point "I can be fairly certain that people I meet online are my race unless they tell me differently." I would say this holds true most of the time except when I play a particular online game that has a huge Korean following. It is not uncommon to have either one of us expect the other to be Korean although we both type in English to each other.

The utility of religion or lack thereof

2004-06-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

The positive -
Religion can bring about a sense of belonging. You participate in a belief others share and build strength and community. It can bring about hope for those who feel they have despair. It is argued that religion instills a set of ethics or morals into it's practicioners. It can give a sense of past or history to it's followers, as well as give direction to their futures.

The negative -
I think it can also bring a segregation of one faction's people alienating anothers. Perhaps it is a false hope of salvation that is promised upon practice of any one religions principles, which these principles could be questioned from time to time as well. Feelings of guilt and less-worth when practioners are in violation of a religions doctorine. Feeling that their actions can be forgiven by their diety when it is in accord with their doctorine although harms their fellow man.

What should religion do?
I cannot help but be biased as I am not a practicioner of religion. I wish for the results of everything that I have listed under the positive for humanity, but feel such things can be accomplished without religion because it can bring about the negatives I have listed. So it is a paradox that I say religion should do the positive without actually being what it is.

My first blog post

2004-06-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, thanks for dropping by. Tell me something about yourself, like what is keeping you busy this summer.