Comments on: Extending Virtual World Affordances

By: Clark

Clark — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:34:33 +0000

Thanks, Aaron & Corrie. I see you both picking up on the possibilities that new affordances can emerge. Definitely we’re still seeing emergent phenomena, and the question is are they fundamental, or combinations of existing affordances. Still to be determined, but thought I’d take a stab.

Interesting idea, Aaron, allowing individuals to change the rules of the environment (Jeff Johannigman introduced me to the game Fluxx, a great lesson in that). That’d be interesting, to have a layer of rules on top of the kernel that define the policies and processes, and allowing that to emerge (maybe to a demonstrably responsible subgroup). I believe that’s what was happening in some of the MOOs.

Corrie, I thought that persona was the opposite of anonymity, and included the ability to represent yourself how you want visually as well as behaviorally. I think you’re right, however, that it’s emergent on top of social and persistent, and may be a parallel to reputation.

The alternate communication channels you both directly or indirectly mention I think of as augmentation, but you caution me to not take that as a given, but continue to track. THANKS!

By: Corrie Bergeron

Corrie Bergeron — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:46:43 +0000

Another affordance, perhaps linked to Reputation and Anonymity, is Persona. You can create an online presence that is markedly different from your real-world self. Social-science researchers are using this to explore body image, gender roles, racial identity, and so forth. Some data I’ve seen shows that a large percentage of Second Life residents have opposite-gender avatars. There are the fantasy avatars (vampire, babe, etc.) And then of course there are the non-human avatars, “furry” fetishists, etc.

Something else to consider is the communication affordances of VWs, both asynchronous and synchronous. I’ve noted a tendency to use text chat even when everyone in the group has voice capability. Mixed-more synchronous communication is an interesting phenomenon as well.

These aren’t unique to VWs, of course. People create personas in the real world all the time. Twitter or chat backchannels during conference presentations are becoming common. But looking at them in the context of VWs, together with the unique affordances of VWs, may be enlightening.

Regards,

Corrie

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:32:29 +0000

Well, Clark, I don’t see a lot of daylight between us here. I’m very much aligned with you on this topic.

Collective intelligence, enabled by having unfettered access to a small number of (not even complimentary) mechanisms for activity, and new behaviors form for the group. How complex or what kind of collective behavior results from that has much to do (IMHO) with the activity channels. Even when you design a social system and engineer it with certain end goals, there may be a lot of things people can do within the parameters you’ve set up that you haven’t counted on

That’s what we’re all doing when we’re intentionally building social structures. As emergent behaviors make themselves evident, you can tweak the activity channels and allow for different results, but it still requires the emergence of group behavior to make it clear what you’ve turned on.

What I find interesting is when a system is designed to allow the group in some way to alter the underpinnings of its own activities. There are concrete examples where there’s a collective consciousness that changes the system’s rules so that it affords different emergent behaviors, instead of a top-down arbitrage. Generally, we tend to look at those examples as revolutions.

Thanks for giving me something to stew on this morning, Clark!