I am apart of an online video game community with Xbox Live. This community allows me to be able to play games, chat, and talk to either possible teammates or opponents, depending on the game played. Being online and playing with people you don’t know but share the same interest is a fun experience. It is different from playing with people at your house. You still have to find people that is in you real world community that have interest in the same games because if they are not interest than most likely your experience wont be as eat. Internet communities differ from real world communities. The internet community seems to be a place Indi duals can go to either be accepted or find a community of individuals who share the same interest. For example, throughout my experiences being involved in an online community I am able to skip the entire introduction and get right to what my purpose is for joining the community. When you are in the real world it is a bit different to find people who have the same interest as you. The internet takes less effort and you can save your self some embarrassment when it comes to rejection. If you are rejected online, you probably won’t like but you won’t feel as embarrassed as you would if someone rejected you to your face. Being able to being online just allows you to be accepted without having to worry about stuff you would if you were around the people in the real world, like are they safe, do they think I’m attractive, depending on the community, things like that go through our minds when we are face to face with people.
In Wood and Smith, Nancy Baym’s five factors mentioned seem to stand true. Being able to come and go and participate at your own leisure is very important, being able to navigate the site, being comfortable with the community members. Your outside experiences can help bring certain members together which can make the community that much tighter, along with having the same purposes. These are great factors that help with joining an internet community. The cool thing about my internet community is the fact that people who are in your real world community can play with or against you online. This helps with convenience. Not having to wonder if your friend is going to come all the way from the other side of town to play games with you can be stressful. Being able to send a message asking to play while they are in the comfort of their home and you in the comfort of your own home create a great energy.
I believe it can be the only way to punish someone in the community unless you can just kick them out of the community. Not involving them is an effective strategy for punishing an individual who breaks the rules within the community. You have to understand the whole purpose of being involved with an online community is to be accepted not ignored. One time me and my roommate where playing a game that allowed four player to be on a team to survive and shoot through a city filled of zombies trying to eat you. Well, my roommate and I were playing online and when you start the game people can join at anytime if there is an open player available during the game but you can’t check the guys profile to see if he is a good teammate. Turns out this guy joining the game must have been bored because instead of him trying to help us beat the level we were on, he decide to shoot my roommate and I, which prolonged the game and kept us from completing the level. So when the level restarted we didn’t press any buttons or anything we just sat there and watched the screen and after awhile he got bored and quit.
I don’t think it is fair to limit membership but sometimes people are not on the same page and feel it maybe a waste of time communicating with someone who has no clue of what is going on. I don’t think interacting with individuals on the same topic that has the same viewpoint as you hinders your ability to think broadly about the topic but the conversation can die down a bit because everyone involved in the topic feels the same way; unless someone goes against the grain to spark the topic and that is where it maybe difficult to know who is truthful about where they stand on certain topics. When I am playing a sports game against someone online, I always check their profile to see if they even know how to play. If they don’t have any experience with the game then I deny their request to play and move on to someone with the same skill level or better.
