I recently asked for input on what being a part of a community means to you, and I promised I would provide my answer when I posted the results of the survey. So pull up a chair, prop up your feet, grab a cup of coffee, and settle in for a candid chat wherein I’ll attempt to explain a number of things as I perceive them.

First, the Survey Results

Note, I promised that emails would remain private and so I’m going to paraphrase some sentiments that were expressed.

Most of the responses fell into one of two categories, the viewpoints paraphrased into the two quotes below:

“I see the community as a group of people who write about the same topic, nothing more.”

“I see the community as a group of people who want to interact with each other. They suggest shared ideas as a way of developing conversations and promoting each other.”

I also received a couple of responses that were fairly negative, but since those were the extreme minority of responses I’ll assume they were either aimed at previous comments I’ve made or people who simply are negative by nature. Regardless, that was less than one percent of respondents, so among those who did take the time to respond it’s fairly irrelevant. What is concerning, though, is that the real number of people who view things as these couple of responses did may be much higher than my sampling indicates.

How do you view the World of Warcraft blogger community?

Once upon a time I would have stated that we were a friendly, enthusiastic group of people who were proud to consider ourselves a community. We respected what each other had to say, even in disagreement. We interacted with each other in ways that were not aimed at intentionally offending or personally attacking another. We created an environment where people felt welcome to jump in and become involved, and if a mistake was made we pointed out such a mistake respectfully in an effort to educate each other. In short, we behaved much like a small to medium sized guild.

Nowadays I find myself questioning when that community lost so many residents and gained so many new members that those concepts are, seemingly, lost. There are only a handful of people who work together to try to create any sense of camaraderie, and even more alarming is the increase in disrespectful comments (and sometimes downright personal attacks). I see hostility and frustration, burnout, and many questioning whether they even want to be a part of that community any longer. In short, I no longer see a community. I see a city teeming with different subcultures and sub-communities.

Things change. And with that change comes the decision on whether to be a part of that change or to work toward creating something more, something that fits a person’s goals or ideas better than the current situation, but more on this in a moment.

What does it mean, to you, to be a part of that community?

Very simply, to be a part of something where civility and social responsibility are primary factors in interactions regardless of the nature of the interaction. In essence, respectful behavior is the norm instead of the exception. It is really a simple concept, and yet as I look through a number of things within the current iteration of the community it is a concept that seems alien.

To change one’s self or to change one’s situation?

I’ve reached the conclusion that the community, as it currently exists, is not the community I want to be a part of. There is nothing wrong with the community per se (if it works for you, great!), it just isn’t for me. I want an environment where we discuss all sorts of topics, encourage each other to explore ideas and concepts, associate with each other as people instead of websites, and maintain a basic level of respect for each other that isn’t looked upon as censorship or negatively impacting someone’s persona/writing.

I’m sure part of my detachment from the community is due to no longer being a “World of Warcraft centric” blog. Once you broaden the scope of a blog you lose some identification with the community interaction that surrounds a topic-centric space.

I’m certainly not going to close up shop or quit writing. There will be a number of changes, however, that are based around trying to provide the type of community environment that I want to be a part of. Some of those changes will include restructuring outbound links (and if my idea is appealing to you please let me know), spending more time working on the forums here to get them moving in the direction of providing the type of community interaction I’m searching for, and simply working to create a location where people can feel as though they belong and want to jump into discussions. The only rule is to be respectful of others, and I’m struggling to understand why such a simple concept is so profoundly appalling to so many people.