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Forum Anthropology / Forum Ambassadors
Qingu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I just thought of a really interesting Penny Arcade Forum Experiment/Collaborative Project!
We should go to all the forums of the internet, read through their advice column, and collect the most interesting "Advice/Help" section question and answers.
It would be like Dear Abby, except way cooler! Also, cooler than Savage Love! Actually, now that I think about it, it's kind of like "Post Secret."
We could even study study how the demographics of the forum influence the kind of advice asked for/given. I think it's weird how different the problems and situations are on different forums, having seen Penny Arcade, Christian Guitar, Islam Forum, WhyDoesGodHateAmputees, and the Yahoo Answers Advice forums. Some of them are really personal, because it's kind of anonymous. It's like looking at anthropology reports from different countries or like ethnic tribes.
It's also interesting to see what kind of people become the best "advice-givers" in each forum. You could do interviews with them, because they actually probably hold a lot of power over their communities. And I wonder how many of them are "mods"—people who literally hold political power in the given forum.
It's also interesting to see what common "categories of topics" pop up in all these completely different forum communities. I see a lot of car advice, a lot of relationship and sexual advice; on the religious forums there was a lot of xenophobia and self-doubt advice ("How do you feel about gay people?" / "I'm having a lot of doubts about my religion, how do I keep the faith" were both common questions). Also: whether or not certain people are forbidden from giving advice on advice forums (Non-Muslims aren't allowed to give any advice on the Islam forum, though I remember non-Christians could give limited advice on the Christian forum, and the other ones I've looked at seem to be open, except to extremely unpopular or abusive people).
We should look at weird subculture communities too, like Stormfront (white power forum), Scorehero (the Guitar Hero forum), this weird super-evangelical Christian forum I heard of a while ago, political website forums ... I mean, we should really look at any forum that's popular enough to have an advice column. There can't be that many; we could maybe list them all and send ambassadors to each forum, asking for contributions from the Advice column regulars.
And hey, if this actually turns into a project, we could even exchange advice-givers across forums! Across cultures! We could spread copies of this thread throughout all the internet's forums! My friends! This could stop the culture wars! This could lead to world peace!
WHAT SAY YOU?
(edit: or is this weird? I realized I probably should just post this in PA's own advice forum instead of here. But then I realized that I know you people on this forum a lot better than the people on our Advice column, and I almost feel like it would be an invasion of their privacy to ask them for this stuff. In addition, v. high. What say you?)
We should go to all the forums of the internet, read through their advice column, and collect the most interesting "Advice/Help" section question and answers.
It would be like Dear Abby, except way cooler! Also, cooler than Savage Love! Actually, now that I think about it, it's kind of like "Post Secret."
We could even study study how the demographics of the forum influence the kind of advice asked for/given. I think it's weird how different the problems and situations are on different forums, having seen Penny Arcade, Christian Guitar, Islam Forum, WhyDoesGodHateAmputees, and the Yahoo Answers Advice forums. Some of them are really personal, because it's kind of anonymous. It's like looking at anthropology reports from different countries or like ethnic tribes.
It's also interesting to see what kind of people become the best "advice-givers" in each forum. You could do interviews with them, because they actually probably hold a lot of power over their communities. And I wonder how many of them are "mods"—people who literally hold political power in the given forum.
It's also interesting to see what common "categories of topics" pop up in all these completely different forum communities. I see a lot of car advice, a lot of relationship and sexual advice; on the religious forums there was a lot of xenophobia and self-doubt advice ("How do you feel about gay people?" / "I'm having a lot of doubts about my religion, how do I keep the faith" were both common questions). Also: whether or not certain people are forbidden from giving advice on advice forums (Non-Muslims aren't allowed to give any advice on the Islam forum, though I remember non-Christians could give limited advice on the Christian forum, and the other ones I've looked at seem to be open, except to extremely unpopular or abusive people).
We should look at weird subculture communities too, like Stormfront (white power forum), Scorehero (the Guitar Hero forum), this weird super-evangelical Christian forum I heard of a while ago, political website forums ... I mean, we should really look at any forum that's popular enough to have an advice column. There can't be that many; we could maybe list them all and send ambassadors to each forum, asking for contributions from the Advice column regulars.
And hey, if this actually turns into a project, we could even exchange advice-givers across forums! Across cultures! We could spread copies of this thread throughout all the internet's forums! My friends! This could stop the culture wars! This could lead to world peace!
WHAT SAY YOU?
(edit: or is this weird? I realized I probably should just post this in PA's own advice forum instead of here. But then I realized that I know you people on this forum a lot better than the people on our Advice column, and I almost feel like it would be an invasion of their privacy to ask them for this stuff. In addition, v. high. What say you?)
Qingu on
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On PA, we could even elect them, or appoint them, like mods. And we could have a bunch of them and each one could be assigned to a bunch of other forums that they have interest in. Ambassadors would be responsible for outreach, basically to establish communication with other, often hostile or strange, communities, and maybe get them to send some ambassadors over here every now and then.
My thesis is just being reviewed at the moment (quite favourably; it's been recommended for publication by the dean of the sociology department), and I'll be doing some minor editing to it based on the feedback I get from my advisor and reader, just to polish it off. Once I've done that, though, I plan on asking the H/A mods if I can post a link to it in the forum.
Like others have said before, H/A is one of the best/most interesting forums around I think.
So does anyone have an objection to me nominating myself as an ambassador for Penny Arcade to these other forums? Wherein I represent the geek and videogame subculture?
but they're listening to every word I say
But this is a very interesting idea. I'd like to be at war with another forum.
The ambassador's portion, meh not so much. People are free to choose which groups they associate with on the internet. Treating other forums as semi-hostile nations makes people choose sides or create loyalty to one side or the other, and that seems wrong to me.
This is all actually rather relevant to me now, as I’m on a committee that among other things, has been tasked with improving a forum both with technical suggestions and on increasing the number of posters (as theoretically the community of possible users the overwhelming majority of whom are technically savy, eclipses the current membership). It also has certain circumstances that make it incredibly unusual, in so far as every member uses their real name, and a large number of people in the community (possibly the majority) are known by a number of other posters from a social setting. Seeing how this effects the dynamics of the forum is simply fascinating.
So, would this be a more interesting and productive direction to take the subject, or is that merely me?
Oh and Kate if Lokys, if possible I too would simply love to read your thesis.
So why don't we just all spread out, go lurk on various forums' advice subforums, and copy and paste a few of the most interesting questions/answers we find on here?
Then, if this takes off, and people start to hang out more at other forums, those people can start writing detailed ethnography reports about them, like who the mods are, how the political structure works.
This was actually my first idea; I only thought of the forum ambassadors because I was worried that this would be sort of an invasion of privacy and maybe it would work better with other forums' cooperation. But that could have been the ol' mary jane paranoia talking.
EDIT: You know, nevermind. The more I think about it, the better it would be if we actually had consent from the other forums' advice columns. It does feel like eavesdropping. And I think it would be fascinating to include people from other subcultures in this thing. I'm sticking with the ambassador plan, and if you guys don't like it you can fuck right off, bitchbuckets.
But Kate's paper sounds interesting, so I guess this thread hasn't been a total wash.
This often leads to echo-chamber ideas, and a kind of memetic subculture nationalism. And many subcultures really do see themselves "at war" with other subcultures—Stormfront is an obvious example, and many on the Islamic forum see themselves in hostile territory with the kufr (unbelievers/West).
I don't think forum ambassadors would reinforce these barriers; I think they'd help to break through them.
This idea of "forum ambassadors" though...aside from the forum raiding issues, sounds just a little pretentious to me...
This is not an attempt to export our ideas to other forums or to "convert" people. This is a way to foster communication between vastly different groups.
But if you have big criticisms of Islam why would you be an 'ambassador'?
Wouldn't you actually just be wanting to export your ideas, extremely carefully and subtly?
If you want to form connections with other groups they would best be other groups that are similar.
Maybe it's just the Obama campaign rubbing off on me or something. But I strongly disagree that you should "stick to your own" on the internet. I mean, individuals can choose to stick to their own, of course. But communities should not. Read Nonzero!
I think you'd have better luck forming a hegemony, and prosecuting a few pogroms against a scapegoat class, say anti-science fundies. That kind of thing can really bring people together.
Really though, we are a pretty diverse bunch on this forum, and we probably already have ambassadors to very many other forums online communities. Maybe just organize the people here who are already involved in those other communities a bit, but I'm not sure to what end.
Anyone is welcome to come here and express their ideas, and due to the relative anonymity the internet, they will be judged pretty much for those ideas. Same anywhere else online, for the most part.
We don't produce much. We don't need resources, other than new members. We don't compete over anything really. What is it that we need to communicate to other forums that we can't do just as individuals? What is gained if a forum for a gaming comic and an islamic forum have open channels of communication? What do we have to communicate with them as a forum?
I don't know. We've got folks involved in other forums. I think it would be neat if we had the kind of relationship with other forums where we could have a thread or rss feed or something with links to interesting discussions on other forums(without it turning into raiding, good luck there). Either insightful stuff or debates where an alternative view point is wanting. Obviously it would require admins from both places down with it. Something like that would be keen, and I suppose we could chose contacts for that sort of thing--rather than forcing the job on mod staff. Maybe eventually organize interforum events of some sort?
A meta-foruming sub-forum?
Yeah, I mean.... yeah. I really can't put it any better than what you've just said.
I think it's a bit silly that there is some kind of sub-culture divide on the PA forums to begin with.
I don't have time to read all of them to determine if they have stuff I care about. This might allow for a better way to find out about other interesting forums and an easier transition into them.
* totally made up number
Organizing this would be tough, but what I think we ought to do is assign each person who wants to get involved with analyzing a particular forum. Something simple, like tallying up the recurrence of questions, and the recurrence of 'types' of responses to those questions, would do well for a start. I mean, obviously there would be a lot of subjectivity involved, but we don't necessarily have to be entirely scientific about it.
I think the forum ambassador thing is dumb, though. I don't think online communities are nearly insular enough (though sometimes quite insular) to require that sort of thing.
Uh, yeah. If you do this, you better make it absolutely clear that you are not representing this forum in any official capacity, and that the rules apply to anyone regardless of how they came here.
I hope the idea isn't to bring some random jackholes to start threads explaining from "their side" why women should stay in the kitchen, and the unbelievers will burn in hell. I understand that some of you enjoy fundie forums, for some reason, and I'd advise you keep your masochistic habits to yourselves.
The Kindness of Strangers: Quantitative Observation and Discourse Analysis of Help-Seeking Activity in an Online Community