Virtual world & Communities as I see it
Ever since Edison first made it possible to communicate over distance electronically we have continued to become more immersed in a virtual world, your phone records are a representation of your communications with others, [adjective] being actually such in almost every respect.
We sometimes on our quest forget these principles but instead emerse ourselves in the world which is in favour at the moment in my case secondlife, and other world platforms.
The web, or the electronic media which makes up most of our communications at present I will refer to as the grid “because it has connotations to many a SciFi movie we have all watched” has in its own way tried to correct us, by creating pathways to and from all its respective comunities be it by feeds, Blog links, social network applications, and most inportant the “real you” etc.
I was recently asked to “create” a community or community spirit within secondlife, and have come to the conclusion that only in the re connect between “all” form’s of these pathways would you be able to come close to a unified community, as there will always be members of your commuinty who are beyond the bounderies of one or more of these pathways.
I would also mention that community in world, on whatever platform you are using, is only a community there, and without the interconnect is “only” that, and is not in itself a community in its truest form.
So here is my pennies worth on Community building.
Your presence
Be you an avatar, Tag, etc. by mentaining your digital presence, with no connect to the other interconects, you have a comunity bound by the rules of that community, and cannot say you are in “the comunity whole” It is only when your real life presence is known, and the connect is complete and real world name , and personality traits and other human traits are present can you say so.
Your connections
Your connections “are” your presence in the larger comunity, you cannot possibly be trusted or taken at face value if you are “digi sexstar” in one comunity, and “theory Logic” in unother, unless through comunication and needs of the relavant communities, you make it clear you are “Jolly Goodfellow” after all, and all you say and do points to you as the individual that you are and can be recognised as.
The community whole
When above two points are established and stable, you have already by this point have a community, and will have formed consensus with members of that community as to where you meet be it in a pub having a drink, in secondlife conversing or working on project, on facebook, writing wishing members happy birthday or throwing sheep at you get my drift. You would also have found people who have similar interests to you and you can relate to and can then go on to form groups which enhance your existence.
There are some who feel this interconnect is dangerous, wrought with pitfalls, etc and will go to great lengths to hide parts of there community presence, my opinion, is yes there are dangers, and with communications as fast as they are in to days world, when danger comes it comes faster than before, but as with the real world, you can run, but you cannot hide, and communication between you and your fellow man, far out ways any negatives you will encounter.
My Community presence
Kwame Oh is my avatar in secondlife I see him as my real life presence there, if I could have afforded my real name, my avatars name would have been Julius Sowu, but have not won the Lotto yet. What I would say is his profile is more real life than secondlife. Facebook name Julius Sowu again my real name, and where I connect with members of my community , specifically family and friends who do not yet see the need to be in virtual world platform such as secondlife. Skype juliussowu, where I meet when the visual clues which I find missing “well to date, though voice technology helped” in the virtual world platforms I use, that is looking into the face of a friend when talking.
Conclusion
Some will already have come to the same conclusions I have, and some will totally disagree, both are proof that as you read this you are part of my community, and can respond, regect, and god forbid, tell me what an idiot I am. but all good, as you are in fact participating in “the community” and as such through such dialoge will directly or indirectly chart a course in to which we shall sail, and as such would love to hear any comments so as to enlighten me.
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Julius, Thank you for this deep and inspiring tract. You have inspired me to think more deeply than I have recently been accustomed, so I look forward to seeing more of these inspirational words from you.
What is a community?
I agree that a community is a group of people with a common interest. Community is formed by commonality, social cohesion depends on common values.
Common values
Common values make us close, a bond, a friendship, a passion for a common good or even something as fickle as the appreciation of the same author or flavour of ice cream. Occasionally it is something worth fighting or even dying for – such as liberty or family – something that arises out of need, desire or desperation. It is notable that communities draw more closely together in times of crisis, such as flood and war. Differences are then set aside for the common good. Generally, in non-crisis times, individuals have interspersed intents, beliefs, resources, preferences, needs and risks . In times of trouble these are overlooked and all share through the medium of ‘community’.
What then does oneself represent inside a community?
What face do we wear, the answer to this is that we present a different face to everyone, depending on our relationship with them and stereotyping of them. Family, friends, strangers all get a different perspective of an individual and that is interpreted through their own prejudices which also depends on their own stereotyping and classifications that come from their own upbringing and environment. Consistency of identity is unusual. We hide one facet of our personality from one person and expose it to others, even sometimes to ourselves.
So how do we fit into a ‘community’ if we feel, behave and react so differently to each person. We ‘wing it’. We try to fit into whatever mould we can to be approved of by the people we want to impress. Even Hitler did it to win the favour of the German nation.
Belonging is an important human trait, while the group we want to belong to serves out needs we attach ourselves to it. When those needs expire so does the need to belong to that group. Belonging to a group is transient – it can last a few moments or can last a lifetime, as in a family group. Thus, increased inter-dependency within a group increases the cohesion of that group. Whether it is a group of a few or of many common interests will help people find one another, as an example abusers find victims and victims find abusers.
We tend to retain parts of our inherent nature and many of our likes / dislikes remain with us throughout our lives. Therefore communities we adopt often remain with us throughout our lifetimes, especially when geographically located and with many interactions. Interaction is the lifeblood of a community and we are part of that interaction, whatever façade we choose to wear.
Does community depend on interaction?
The grid is a useful analogy for a community. Another analogy is the brain, a similar concept to the grid, yet connected through synapses – some which are linked, others which are not, and yet others still which die off because of lack of connections.
Connections then are the essence of community, as blood flows between organs to give them life, so does communication give life to individuals and sustain a community.
As individuals can have many facets, communities are niche to serve these various aspects of a personality. They have a common cause for their instigation between individuals – without that common ground, there is no community. These communities can self generated between individuals or be created deliberately (around a brand such as Arsenal Football team, World of Warcraft or Coca Cola).
By their very nature then, communities are divergent, you cannot bring communities together unless there is common ground for doing so.
A hub or central focal ‘mega-community’ such as a nation, around which smaller more niche communities orbit is needed, to bring diverse individuals together so they can assess their needs and join the communities that serve these needs.
The point is
To finally get to the point, I agree that transparency of identity is paramount. Without this, people are even disassociate from themselves, splitting into one or more ’selves’ separate and disconnected from the rest of their ’selves’. This causes confusion both within oneself (Who am I in this relationship and how should I respond – a task normally very difficult to navigate and even more strenuous when keeping one’s ‘true identity’ hidden) and without and can be damaging for individuals themselves as well as for others.
Many psychotic illnesses derive from the need to hide or reveal certain aspects of one self and I believe that we may see a rise in these dis-eases (my interpretation ‘not at ease with oneself’) if we do not adhere to a global presence of authenticity in ones identity.
Therefore, I believe that a true community, even of cyber-individuals, should have an organic base from which is it centred. Cohesion of identity and authenticity are primary to an online presence within any virtual community.