The SparkQuest Dialectic
The SparkCrafters have started to work again on building a gamer community. In the next few weeks we’ll be upgrading the server, polishing up the on-boarding, and beginning to invite members.
As part of the process, we’re working on community design using [7] The Mandorla and [7] Emergent Leadership. We hope to develop a missional community that serves the gamer community and be a place for children and youth to build real community and make a real impact.
The process starts with using [2] The Dialectic to outline Alphas and Betas, push and pull, “what we want” vs. “what the situation demands”. We watched the videos on Building Gamer Communities and then brainstormed about the tensions in what we want to do. After about 30 minute we had a pretty good list:
| Area | Alpha (What I/we want) | Beta (Situation Demands) |
|---|---|---|
| Running own little country/kingdom | Anarchy, finding people for your team | |
| Playing together | Boredom, Hostile communities | |
| Low (contained) griefing | Disrespect for creations/players | |
| Making New Friends | Loneliness, Need friend moderation | |
| More time with current friends | Distance – Time separation from friends | |
| Peace and Justice system | Fighting: lack of skills, lack of maturity, lack of moderators | |
| Bettering learning systems | Inefficient / Abusive Learning Systems | |
| Building Social Networks | Barriers to Social Networks | |
| Relational power for everyone | Relational Politics (cliquishness) | |
| Finding the people who like what I like | Different Interests (locating costs) |
Once you have a list like this, you try to think about what larger systems form the commonalty between everything you came up with. It’s then worthwhile to do some research on what people are saying are the systemic issues with those systems.
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