Battling the Wierdo's

Upon flicking through some blogs today, I came across a blog that included a link to an article on anonymity in Virtual Communities. Specifically, the article discussed how Frienster was being slammed for banning user anonymity when viewing member profiles. The reason I thought it so interesting was that the decision was made in response to user requests - so that they could see who was checking up on their member profiles to see what they were doing.

I think it was a good move because it can eliminate stalking. As in, people can know if they are being stalked by someone they either do not like, or do not know. I would definitely feel a little uncomfortable if my journey log was being tracked by someone I didn't know!

So this has got me thinking about ethics in online communities. I see an ethics code as the "glue" in an online community, where behaviour is monitored to protect those members who want to do the right thing. Ethicomp is a good website that sets out a code of ethics for online communities. It is definitely a challenge for online community moderators to establish member's trust in the community. Members need to feel they are cooperating with a site that is truthful with the content that they write, and will take disciplinary action against those members who will try to ruin the experience for the rest of the group.

Additionally, dishonesty is a problem that is difficult to overcome. As Neil Rowe highlights in his article on Virtual Communities, members are never likely to know the true identity of who they communicate with. If they ever do find out - do you think they would return to that online community again?

Definitely not! Their reputation would be tarnished. And I think that is what Friendster is trying to battle by refusing to let anonymous people read member profiles. There are a lot of weird ... I mean ... different people out there who have access to the internet, and many people are going to need that security in the end.

Success with an S!

"The audience is not a something, a pre-existing entity out there in the social landscape waiting to be enticed, seduced and explained. It is something to be built, dynamically negotiated and coordinated" (Banks, 2002, 191).

The Fan Forum server was down all over Easter and it finally came back up a couple of days ago. I didn't realise how much I had missed it! Oh jeez, I think I'm hooked. So instead I started next week's reading early.

Community development websites are starting to appear all over the internet. Just like this one. Guaranteed strategies for accumulating users and getting attention are hard to come by; most of the information you find is useful, but its exceptionally hard to target and maintain a regular, online audience seeing as there is a significant number of online companies that fail.

I come from a marketing background, and I do have to say I somewhat disagree with the above quote. Yes, community audiences do have to be built, but an audience is a pre-existing entity waiting to be enticed and seduced. Benton strongly emphasizes that members need a reason to keep coming back to your community. In saying that, members aren't going to go to your community at all if you don't satisfy a member's want or need. Members are going to go looking for places online where they can satisfy that want or need, not wait for someone to come to them.

Being able to keep the site running is harder. How would you go about funding? Although with our online community (we are calling it Fairfux, to publish the real news of Australia) I was just going to say advertisers would fund our website. But then I got thinking because John Banks mentioned users could ignore banner ads. So maybe advertising can't account for most of our costs? What's left then? Subscription fees? Selling T-shirts? Nah ... online advertising wouldn't be so huge if it didn't work!

If you had a really good online community, like Crikey! you could still keep advertisers, but rely on word-of-mouth to advertise your site. That way you would get a significant amount of traffic, maybe charge an annual fee, and you'll be set to pay your bills!

Amateur Filmmaking: Bright or Banal?

I finished reading Henry Jenkins "Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence and Participatory Culture" (the reading for week 7) a couple of days ago, and allowed myself a little time to think upon the idea of amateur filmmaking. I went to the lecture ... it was good, but covered what the reading was about anyway.

The choice of reading for this week was really easy to follow, which is a good thing!! I agreed with everything Jenkins explored in his article, and even did a little hunt of my own for some amateur films online. I stumbled across Something Different, where you can download Tie-tanic (discussed in the reading), Park Wars (Star Wars meets South Park) and hilarious spoofs about numerous companies like AOL. I wanted to see for myself the issues that Jenkins raised in the reading, especially those parodies of big-name films that were made by amateur's on small budgets and with various household items.

The most important issue's Jenkins raised however was that the internet has provided an "exhibition outlet which moves amateur filmmaking from private into public space" (Jenkins, p.13). The rise of the internet has obvious benefits to the dissemination of cultural products, even allowing for film students to make a name for themselves.

But the fact that some film companies try to halt fan cultural production? For what its worth, film companies should allow any fan cultural production (providing its not overtly sexual) because it adds to the hype surrounding the release of their film. Their return on investment in the movie probably wouldn't be so high if they didn't have fans creating cultural products that help to advertise the film, or encourage people to see it.

Obviously, the film industry is really hard to cut through. So to make this reading a double-sided debate, shouldn't some of these amateurs be putting all their time and effort into creating a film that is original, rather than using a released movie (which is somebody elses' idea) as a base plate to create comedy? Because after flicking over a few websites, anyone can see that there are a LOT of Star Wars parodies out there ... I mean ... the market (if you could call it that) is saturated.

In saying that however, I do realise creating parody films is good practice for up and coming film students, and it also places more creative works online. I could sit on the fence, but I'm going to be bold and say that although amateur film making should certainly continue, moving beyond amateur filmmaking to become a professional will take a lot more originality, creativity and flair.
Amateur's ideas are original and often funny, but there are just too many Star Wars parodies to see them all! If I were a filmmaker, I would definitely come up with something of my own work that would stand out from the clutter of everybody elses'. But that's just me ...

Visit O'Rielly to see what I mean and read about moving beyond an 'amateur'.

Fanatical Fan Forum!

Here's a little story about how I came to choose an online community: When I was in grade 10, my best friend and I had a massive obsession with Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ok well I still have an obsession with Buffy but continuing on: we could never stop talking - even when we got home from school. The internet was our way of talking to each other all afternoon and all evening before school the next day (we both got banned from the phone pretty quickly). My friend stumbled upon this website called FanForum where we eventually became addicted members to this online community. FanForum was extremely diverse, covering topics like movies, celebrities, tv shows, games, news, fanfiction, fanart etc etc and we both spent our afternoons chatting through this online community (instead of doing homework) with other friends we had made there.

So KCB201 is how I come to be re-acquanted with FanForum. I like how there are so many diverse threads and topics with which to argue/chat with other people about. It's typical fandom, and is for the most obsessive of obsessed fans of who are not strangers to cultural products like fan art, fan fiction and role playing.

FanForum is a pure example of how fans use privatized cultural materials: by treating popular film and TV segments as raw materials with which to create their own personal products. View this fanart thread or even this one. Notice how GOOD they are with photo editing?!?! Anyone can that there is a lot of time and effort in creating those pieces.

Fans refuse to acknowledge any control on intellectual property. This is a fan fiction website about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As Jenkins (2004, p.7) states, “Fan fiction helps to broaden the potential interest in a series by pulling its content toward fantasies that are unlikely to gain widespread distribution.” FanForum shows how fans increase the cultural value of a film or series – keeping the interest/obsession alive. Jenkins (2004, p.7) highlighted that media conglomerates respond to participatory culture by shutting down fan sites. But I think if media conglomerates were more vigilant towards the distribution of fan art/fiction, inside or outside forums, they would realise how much fans do in advertising the film/series. They then may not be so quick to shut them down!

I can’t do fan art, and didn’t really want to try fan fiction just yet. So the first thing I did was go to the News and Politics thread where I straight away got into a debate about Gay Marriage Rights. I try not to stir up too much trouble ... but considering I support Gay Marriage, it gave me the opportunity to have a rant at the people that challenged my opinions! Ahhh I love a good debate ...

Multi-Media Online Games

... "People who are nerds and social retards in real life can be good at something. They can be socially respected online, and thus enjoy heightened self esteem through these online games."
(Sal Humphries, 2006)


Ok, well I'm back again. Albeit later than expected, but I've a lot of the usual this week (assignments). But I still had time to make it to the lecture on wednesday evening (week 6). The topic was Multi-Media Online Game (MMOG) players, and Sal certainly changed my opinion towards this crowd of people.

To be blatantly honest: playing online games like a full time job substracts too much time from social interaction (between real humans, not virtual). As Sal Humphreys stated, "players spend on average twenty-one to twenty-four hours a week playing," (2005, p39). That is a considerable amount!

The restaurant I work at is situated right in front of 'The Bunker,' an internet cafe situated under the Queen St. Mall (yes in the ground!). My workmates and I never see anyone coming out of there until about 9pm at night when all of them re-emerge (like 40 of 'em) to face reality! But the thing is ... I recognise a lot of them as their re-emergence is routine!

I guess I place a lot of emphasis on person-to-person interaction. I just find that unless I'm going to get into a good debate with a person, communicating in a game is just not for me. But I do understand that everyone has different interests and have fun in different ways. Just do what makes you happy ... even if it means being glued to a screen and spending your days in a virtual world full of virtual characters.

At first, I initially considered continuous online game playing as reserved for adolescents with a social anxiety/awkwardness. Don't get me wrong here: I play The Sims 2 sometimes which is a virtual world itself, but I don't play it every single day (maybe once a month).

I think Sal struck a chord with me when she mentioned using online games to build self-esteem.
I just think these players are gradually losing touch with reality the more they spend inside these games! Using it to build your self-esteem means you find it difficult to feel self-worthy in real situations, so people will probably remain in these virtual world's a long time! Players invest enormous amounts of time and effort into conquering one area of the game (building a character up to top level). It's like ... players are contructing a character in an online, virtual world and play this character almost like it is themself. It's okay to escape reality sometimes to have a little "me" time, but escaping all the time is too much.

I do NOT agree with what one girl in my tutorial group (friday 1-2.30pm) said about online games: that they are a form of gambling. There is no relation whatsoever because gamblers are addicted to spending money because of the chance they may win lots of money back. They have a diagnosed problem. Online gamers don't win money.

Since online players spend so much time creating characters, it is no wonder gamers want to feel ownership over their characters. However, there does need to be a line to keep owners in control of the material inside the games that they own. Players merely pay to hire the tools to create characters, but essentially what they create still needs to be owned by the provider of the game. That way moderators can ban people who may damage the game-playing experience for other people.

The same goes with machinima and fan art created around the game: although restrictions against players creating and doing what they want inside the game should be relaxed a fair bit. Otherwise players may feel too restricted and swap to another rival game.