[arg_discuss] whitepaper:wiki, next version

[Brooke Thompson]

Wendy wrote: 

> I don't know who's still subscribed, and I don't know why there's not more

> participation. I don't think we can blame it entirely on leadership or the

> lack thereof. We are not sheep. This mailing list is whatever we want it

> to be. But I think I'll start a new thread on that topic.




You know, "we" may not be sheep, but who in the heck are "we"?

I honestly have no idea and that makes it near impossible to participate on
this list. And, I think, that is not "our" fault and is indicative of a lack
of leadership and direction.

When this issue first came up, publicly, last March (in the "Communities and
resources" thread), the leadership failed to help the group come to a
resolution on the issue. And that contributed to an "us vs them" divide.
Even more detrimental, we were left with what I mentioned in my earlier post
- players feeling unwelcome and developers feeling unable to participate.
How did we get there? It was not only because of the inability or
unwillingness of the leadership to resolve the issue, but by the conflicting
messages that they sent down in the process.


On the ARG SIG website, we're told that the aims of the list are:

"To bring together a wide spectrum of experts in the state-of-the-art of the
ARG genre, and to facilitate the sharing of their knowledge and promotion of
ARG's to mainstream games developers.

This SIG will also serve as an initial contact-point for the many
organizations who have trouble knowing where to look but want to work with
ARG developers both professional and hobbyist."

That makes us a whole lot of folks. Apparently "we" are experts, mainstream
games developers, organizations, professional developers, and/or hobbyist
developers.

Is it just me, or is that pretty darned confusing? What sort of messages am
I supposed to make to this list? Who am I addressing? What do they care
about? What do they want to know? What would be of interest? I'm supposed to
"share [my] knowledge" with other developers and "promote ARGs to mainstream
games developers" but, as a contractor always excited for that next job, I
need to be aware of what I'm saying and how I'm putting myself forward to
the many organizations who might want to make contact. (and yay me! today
we're showing that I can be contrary! Seriously, if you're from one of the
many organizations, erase these last few posts from your memory file or
remember that while I may be contrary at times, I do also work to find
solutions or, perhaps, the roots of a problem. I can be a good worker bee
but I'm not so great at that spin thing, obviously, which could be a good
thing as you'll get my honest opinions on the topics at hand.)

But, that's just what the website says and those are just the aims. The
actual "we" may be far different from the "we" the group is aiming for. So,
let's go to the list and see what we can find.

When the list was first getting started, there was a question of who to ask
to join. Andrea replied, "Come one, come all, tell all of your puppetmaster
friends!" This indicated to folks that this was a list for puppetmasters. It
was not for "experts" unless those experts were puppetmasters. That knocked
out experts such as the administrators of unfiction and the editors of ARGN
and many others who had devoted as many as five years of their lives on
building the genre and their knowledge of that genre. While many assumed and
hoped that was not her intent, a seed was planted. 

That seed grew drastically in March during the aforementioned "Communities
and resources" thread where Adam stated, "The ARG SIG was founded explicitly
to enable developers to talk freely on a large scale (as opposed to the
private conversations we tend to have on a one-on-one basis at conferences
etc). It was strongly felt that there wasn't really anywhere else where they
could do this."

Unfortunately, in my experience (and further solidified by the swelling
inbox today), it has done a great job of encouraging private conversations
on a one-on-one basis. There are a number of reasons for this but one is
that, unlike a number of other IGDA SIGs, the list archives are public. As
long as that is the case, many designers will not post potentially sensitive
information that could be later retrieved and held against them in some
fashion (by players, clients, potential employers, etc). One solution would
be to make the archives of the list only viewable to members. When this
solution was suggested, it was dismissed. And, furthermore, it does not
resolve the fact that players, clients, and potential employers would still
be able to subscribe to the list.

Adam's solution to that conundrum was that "[p]layers who do listen-in are
expected to respect that, and temper their reactions appropriately -
without, of course, letting it stifle their interaction. This was one of the
primary fears we had in the first place that lead to us moderating all posts
- we didn't want to be swamped by flames from people who came to the list
straight from, say, a UF post, and hadn't stopped to read the charter." This
is both confusing (I'm a player - am I only allowed to listen or can I
contribute? Does this mean I can interact with the list or does he mean that
I can't let it effect my interactions with games) but insulting (UFers will
bring flames!) to the player community. As we have seen in the
aforementioned unfiction thread, this disenfranchised a number of potential
contributors - many with great things to offer the SIG. There is a serious
problem when folks who have such value to add are made to feel unwelcome and
that their contributions would be insignificant and not of value to the
list. 

So, from the list, we learn that "we" are developers (though, unfortunately,
not the hobbyist developer as most of those consider themselves players or
players who make games). And, as long as the assumption that participation
on the list is seen as a liability, both because it is public and how it is
perceived - a fact further supported the number of emails that I received in
agreement of that earlier statement, the list isn't even for developers
anymore.

Through all of this, the academics have not been mentioned. They have never
been a part of the debate and that is why, I believe, that the level of
participation on this list, especially in the past few months, has been
academic in nature. Now, I have nothing against the academics. I was once an
aspiring one, myself. I think that ARGs have great potential in the academic
realm - I fully support any sort of research on the genre, both directly and
indirectly, and think that ARGs are amazing teaching tools. But when I think
about what I want in a list - it's something a bit more well-rounded and
celebrates the diversity and collaboration that has built the genre. I know
that I am not alone in that desire.

Unfortunately, the SIG leadership has not done anything to enable such a
list and has, in fact, discouraged it both in statements and actions made.
So "we" may not be able to blame the lack of participation entirely on the
leadership or lack thereof, but "I" certainly do think that they are
responsible for it and that, if they don't do something about it, the SIG
will continue to suffer from participation problems. I don't know that a
simple social change from us non-sheep is feasible at this point. There's an
underlying mistrust of those in power over the SIG and that is something
that will require action and change on a leadership level.