Community… What Do You Mean By That?
This is meant as thought experiment (I’ll publish generalized results in a later post as long as enough people participate to have a large enough data pool to generate results from). Feel free to respond in the comments, privately via email (emails will remain private), on your own blog (just place a link in the comments so I can go look), or any other way in which you feel works.
The overall questions are simple:
- How do you view the World of Warcraft blogger community? No specific groups or blogs, but the community as a whole.
- What does it mean, to you, to be a part of that community?
I don’t want to influence results any more than I have with past articles or discussions, so I’ll prepare my response and publish it with the results. If you’re uncertain how to proceed please feel free to ask and I’ll try to provide some neutral questions to get you started, though I imagine most people can elaborate on the original two questions pretty well 
Disclaimer: All information gathered will remain anonymous unless the person posts publicly.
My contact info (is located in the top right section of the web page, but for those reading in a feed reader this makes it easier):
- Comments (For this one you’ll have to click through)
- Email: byaghro at diabolicalminds dot com
- Twitter: twitter.com/jthart
Interesting topic and can’t wait to read the results.
I thiink I’ve made my point on this issue pretty clear recently so I’ll sit back and wait for the follow-up!
Good Luck!
So nebulous…got any specifics?
My take on ‘community’.. hmm.. generally, a group of people in the same area (location, like a village, or interest like WoW bloggers) who share a common interest to accept that they are part of the same group of people, perhaps taking part in various events, and helping each other out.
1. The WoW blogging community I’ve always seen as a place to get advice and share information. It feels more like a guild to me, almost, at times.
2. To me.. I like to welcome and help the new guys, even though often they probably know better than I do, I like to help people and make them feel welcome to join in. I join in with events and shared topics, because I like to not because I’m obliged to. I find it fun to be a part of.
.-= Jaedia´s last blog ..The Explorer Task =-.
@Brigwyn, heh, yes you have. I’m hoping to have enough feedback to have my take (which has been stated pretty openly anyway) as well as these results later this week, though it may end up being next week depending on how things go.
@Poneria, it’s kind of meant to be. “Community” means a lot of different things to different people, so I’m trying to remain as vague as I can in asking what everyones’ perceptions are. Think of things such as “what made me want to join the community in the first place” or “if we were in a physical region how would you describe our community to others.” It’s meant to get everyone to think about what it means to be or not be a part of the community, and what exactly that idea of community is or is not. Sort of makes it tough to get to specific when it’s the overall concept that I’m asking about
@Jaedia, thanks! I’m sure you know my opinions anyway, but I don’t want to respond now and bias any discussion
Well, specific blogs & groups are part of my view, but you said no specific blogs groups…so…?
It feels kind of like you’re asking asking “tell me about the WoW community, except you can’t mention raiding or roleplaying or leveling or guilds (all of which are groups).” At which point I go, “bwuh? what’s the question then?”
.-= Poneria´s last blog ..Roleplaying Realms Rundown =-.
Specifics are certainly fine if it helps illustrate a point. I was mainly just meaning that I didn’t want to go into “who’s an example of what you think the community is and who is not” type of responses, because that doesn’t go into why you consider that a part of the community.
Maybe this is a better way to phrase it: “When you think of the WoW Blogging Community, what comes to mind?”
That certainly provides room for specific examples, but try to describe them for the attributes that make them examples (for example: intelligent, unintelligent, well-versed, possibly misguided, insightful, positive, negative, etc.).
The goal is, really, to get people to think about why it is called a community and what that label means to them. Why isn’t it called an association instead, for instance? Or an organization? Or a commune? Or a circle of loosely affiliated and harshly critical banterers (I couldn’t think of a single word to describe that one, heh)?
Association I see as something concerning (one of those various meanings of “ad” from Latin) people or concerning/for some cause. We blog, but we don’t really push for blogging like say PETA pushes for animal rights. So I can’t really call it that.
An organization? Well, organum (Latin again) is “instrument,” particularly of the musical kind, but it came to mean instrument of means. Same with association; I see a different between welcoming new bloggers and pushing for people to blog.
I see the word “community” meaning more of “together-worlds”–”co+mundis,” though I know that’s not the actual Latin root. You have different people or different groups of people who happen to exist near each other and they share things, good, bad, ugly, neutral, with each other. Things one does affects the other, to miniscule or grand degrees. You can’t be part of a community and pursue your own thing that affects only you, like an association or an organization does. Example: college club chapters can do things for themselves that don’t affect the national conglomerate of that club, but if I go theorycraft some for myself, that’s going to prompt Nibuca or Fulguralis or Millea or Jagoex or whatever warlock passes by my blog to discuss it anyway.
Oh hey, another word: conglomerate. Makes it feel like blogs latching on to each other. We don’t latch onto each other, we coexist, I think.
Associations and organizations feel restrictive to me: you join them for a purpose. Communities, on the other hand, I feel like you join more for the people and the atmosphere than any purpose in particular. There may be a purpose from time to time, but I personally join a community because it felt welcoming and I stay because it feels home-like (nurturing, relaxing, restful, familiar, etc.).
Maybe more free pondering later, but I do better with prompts/specific questions.
.-= Poneria´s last blog ..Roleplaying Realms Rundown =-.
LOL, I meant conglomerate feels like *blobs* latching onto each other, but whatever, “blogs” works too.
.-= Poneria´s last blog ..Roleplaying Realms Rundown =-.
“Maybe more free pondering later, but I do better with prompts/specific questions.”
I think we all do, but then I wouldn’t be able to draw out the theoretical concepts I’m after because I’d be specifically asking “which is better, (x) or (y)” instead of “how would you describe (x)”
Of course, I’m also a behavioral sciences person, so I tend to like to gather more of an individualistic perspective than a generic concept people could generally associate with when talking about things like this. It makes it tough to really gather enough feedback to generate accurate results, and opens them up to interpretation, but I’m not going after an empirical study in this case anyway (just a thought study and resulting discussion).
“I think we all do, but then I wouldn’t be able to draw out the theoretical concepts I’m after because I’d be specifically asking “which is better, (x) or (y)” instead of “how would you describe (x)” ”
Mmm, well, my generic state is all sorts of tangents rolling around in my head, so if you go “hey general view” I’m sitting there going, “Okay, if you’ll still be here in the next millennium,” and then I gotta decide how to organize saying it so people aren’t either bored to death or misunderstanding what I want to say…
So somebody with a specific tangent lets me pick in a way, and I can go off on it. But also, what’s the (y)? Since apparently that’s the question you want to ask, but you’re asking only about (x)… (unless that was just an example, in which case I’ll go back to my corner of being awkward)
.-= Poneria´s last blog ..Rambling =-.
Haha, yes that was just an example. I didn’t want to rephrase the question in a way that might have someone else come across it and say “oh, I have an answer for that” out of context