New New Zealand Academic Site

Social Study Games.com collects research about social effects of MMORPGs. Many TN sources are linked there.  Brought to you by doctoral student Lisa Galarneau.

By the way, we encourage anyone mounting a site like this to send us the link for our resource list. Centralized info is good.

Comments

[Lisa Galarneau]

1.

Wow, thanks very much for the promotion! I would have mentioned it, but I'm still a bit embarrassed about its incompleteness. I'm slowly building the repository of resources as I encounter them. I did, however, build the site on a collaborative content management system, so anyone who signs up for an account (once approved) can contribute their own links, posts, etc.

And yes, I agree that centralising info is good. I figure if I can help other people find the resources more quickly and easily, it's to everyone's benefit. I love Terra Nova and other blogs, but I think it's unfortunate how older, still relevant conversations are buried in archives. I'd like to keep them bubbling near the surface where they can be readily accessed by anyone who happens to come along at any time. And there are so many great papers and other resources out there, but they are often on people's personal sites or hidden in journals and conference proceedings. It's fun to find them (and I spend a lot of time looking for them, fearing missing something that's relevant to my research!), but it can take a lot of time that other interested parties may not have. So, for them, one-stop shopping may be key.

But as I said, still lots of work to do! I'd adore anyone who'd like to help... otherwise, I'll keep plodding away at it, slowly but surely.

[Edward Castronova]

2.

Lisa> It's fun to find them (and I spend a lot of time looking for them, fearing missing something that's relevant to my research!), but it can take a lot of time that other interested parties may not have.

Yay! Someone who will do real editing!

Seriously, we've often discussed doing more with TN, but nobody has the time. So it's great that you're willing to systematize and catalog the literature and issues.

[ren]

3.

>I love Terra Nova and other blogs, but I think it's unfortunate how older, still relevant conversations are buried in archives.

I think that get to the blog vs listserve discussion. With MUD-DEV for example the threaded archive in my copy of Outlook makes discussions from the last several months instantly accessible and due to their presentation they feel more accessible, but with a blog they do seem to get lost very soon.

One neat thing that we have had here for ages but I totally missed till recently is the TN search:

http://www.google.com/swr?q=site:terranova.blogs.com&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&swrnum=405>http://www.google.com/swr?q=site:terranova.blogs.com&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&swrnum=405

>It's fun to find them (and I spend a lot of time looking for them, fearing missing something that's relevant to my research!),

TN is probably a home for obsessives like us. Pretty soon I’m going to do a major overhaul of my bibliography (www.ren-reynolds.com/bibliography.htm) and links (www.ren-reynolds.com/links.htm) pages. I’ll blog it when I do.

[greglas]

4.

It's a neat resource Lisa -- thanks for doing it.

Re lost threads here on TN -- I've thought about maybe putting into the left hand side bar a list of "favorite threads" that the authors could agree upon, or maybe letting each author keep one post "promoted" in that column. Of course, the ideal solution would be something along the lines of what Nick did with the DP and what other bloggers have done -- a separate page/site with a list of themes and links back to blog posts/data on those specific themes.

The only issue is free time and return on investment, but if a volunteer out there wants to take up the task and send the HTML, I think we'd be happy to create a "permanent post" with an index to past topics here.

[Richard Bartle]

5.

Lisa Galarneau>I think it's unfortunate how older, still relevant conversations are buried in archives.

I was thinking about this recently. In the early days of TN, I gained a reputation for harping on about how things had been discussed before on MUD-DEV and people should look at the archives (which, ironically, are off line at the moment). Now, we're getting in a position where TN itself is building up something of an archive, and newbies who want to say something run the risk of repeating a discussion we've already had. Old TN hands may know the arguments, but that doesn't mean newcomers will.

Maybe we should note some threads as "classics" that people new to the board should read in order to get up to speed? Then they can participate without fearing they're covering old ground.

Richard

[Lisa Galarneau]

6.

I've been thinking a bit about an easy way for the TerraNovans to build a repository... One of the issues I have is that sifting and cataloguing takes quite a bit of time. So I've resorted to 'folksonomy' approaches and am providing tons of stuff via del.icio.us, then sifting through that occasionally for stuff that is particularly noteworthy or relevant. Using del.icio.us is so easy that I tag just about everything I read that is remotely related to games, learning, etc. So I wonder... could the TerraNovans start using del.icio.us, tag all the old posts, then use the API to provide a listing of them in the TerraNova template (using a search like this... or by pivoting on a TerraNova tag) Then all of the old Terra Nova posts could be tagged by multiple people, allowing myriad paths to the same item, depending on one's perspective (including Richard's 'introductory reading', etc.). And it also allows TerraNovans to point out other relevant items, without having to go to the trouble to compose a post. Actually, anyone could, tagging something 'terra_nova' could be the message that the item is relevant to this community.

Another option would be to use a search engine like Eurekster to build a community-specific search. Then if you search for intellectual property, you'd only get vw-related references promoted by the community. The problem with this is that it involves committing to use Eurekster to build up the intelligence - I've tried and still keep gravitating to Google.