Doing some ethnographic observations: The Final Stage

Post by **sensei** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 5:21 pm

Just a heads up to regular members: I've finally cleared some boards and gotten myself ready to do some academic analysis of something that's intrigued me for a long time: how virtual communities manage to remain active over long periods of time. I sat on a Ph.D. committee some years ago for a candidate who had studied a British football fan group that had remained in touch, despite being in many parts of the former colonies, with the help of one of the early email listservs.

The dissertation made some very interesting points about the ways in which healthy communities continued by providing just enough drama to keep a core group coming back repeatedly, and yet being moderated firmly enough that the drama didn't turn into centripedal flamewars. Anime-Beta is made up of people who are devoted to an unusually competitive pastime, in which one and only one person can own any given desirable cel or sketch. So it makes a more interesting test case than the British football group, which is committed to the same desire (to see their team achieve victory).

One would expect the the common interest in good animation art to be regularly fractured by personal resentments over being outbid or outhustled by another collector. Yes, it hurts to have something you really want within your grasp, and then lose it to a snipe bid or simply to a determined rival with deeper pockets.

Yet a little tally I took this morning bears out the overall stability of this forum. Thinking to narrow down my scope to a "core group," I decided to look through the "Memberlist" and identify people who had been registered Betarians for more than five years, and who had also visited the site in the fifty days since the beginning of 2011. That should give me a dozen or so names of truly committed participants in this community, ne?

Actually several dozen: I counted no fewer than 107 Betarians who met both these conditions, about 11% of all the people who have ever registered here. That's a surprisingly large number and percentage for a virtual community, and right away it signals a continuity and social healthiness that deserve to be looked at more closely.

Anyhow, you'll notice my name as "online" pretty commonly over the next few weeks. That's because I'll be reviewing some old threads that relate to the issues I'm defining, and compiling some statistics from the memberlist. And I'll also be putting up some polls, often revivals of old poll questions I've found to try to see how the demographics of the group have evolved over time. Finally, I'll be contacting some individuals through PMs to see if they would be willing to share some personal insights into what they see as distinctive about the dynamics of this group and how it's changed.

If anyone does NOT want to participate or have his/her posts reviewed, please let me know by PM. Obviously, I will contact everyone whose post or PM I use in any way in the final essay. But if you feel uncomfortable about being "observed," then I will honor your request not to be part of the project from the very beginning by systematically overlooking your contributions. (I may still respond to them as a fellow cel collector; I just won't take notes on them as an ethnographer.)

Finally, I'll share what I come up with regularly, so you can feel that you have input in the final direction this study takes.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 5:55 pm

Sounds interesting. If I can be of any help, let me know.

Post by **sensei** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 6:08 pm

You're one of the One-Hundred-and-Seven Legendary Betarians, so I'll definitely be picking your brain, as I have before. Thanks for your support.

teggacat · Post by **teggacat** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 7:58 pm

sounds fascinating!

looking forward your to progress reports

animeobsessed · Post by **animeobsessed** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:22 pm

Interesting project...I hope you share your results.

JuniorMintKiss · Post by **JuniorMintKiss** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:55 pm

Yay! I have been wondering about your project since reading your RS blog some time ago. I'm glad that's it's finally getting underway. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Post by **sensei** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 9:00 am

Thanks, all. I'm going to ask a select group by PM if you're willing to respond to some open-ended questions I'm generating. Some of these I may later put up as threads. Thanks to all who responded: look to be randomly selected to participate.

Yeah, retirement led to some interesting routine changes, mostly (as you can imagine) dealing with money. But I've done some useful things in the last six months that have gotten the household on firmer ground, and that then gives me some elbow room to do some writing that I've wanted to do.

One insight I can share so far is there's quite a bit of diversity in the number of posts made by the 109 Legendary Betarians. Eighteen have made more than 2000 posts. Twenty have made fewer than 150. Two persons, who registered more than five years ago and have visited the forum in the last two months have never made a post. The median or middle Betarian, has made a total of 346 posts, which works out to an average of just about one post per week. That means half the group participates less frequently than that, and half more frequently.

So the dynamics are about what I'd have predicted from my colleague's more detailed statistical analysis: a small bunch of talkative regulars, a small bunch of attentive lurkers, and a fairly robust group of people who show up regularly and drop in their 50 yen once in a while when they think it's appropriate.

I'd guess that if you did an ethnographic analysis of your favorite bar, you'd probably see a similar pattern. (Not an original insight: the colleague who did the dissertation made a similar analogy.)

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 4:19 pm

Howdy Bill,

I have tons of curve graphics/geographic maps that may fit your interests and save long, very long mornings of works

Additionnaly, you have to integer the fact that non understandable profile may come from Bots registrations for spam e-mail database.

Joost · Post by **Joost** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 4:24 pm

This is nice stuff to read! Keep up the work, don't forget to mention that one Belgian guy, you know, from that small country that still does not have a government

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 6:19 pm

This sounds interesting, sensei. If I can help at all, let me know

.

Sui Kune · Post by **Sui Kune** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 6:21 pm

I admit this is really piquing my interest, I'm really excited to see what you might find.

I'm still such a newbie so to speak, and really eager to learn!

eyes0nme19 · Post by **eyes0nme19** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 7:36 pm

Sounds fun

Definitely interested to know how the polls turn out.
Got to give you props for working out the statistics,
I know I wouldn't be able to! Me + math =

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 7:02 pm

I always love to see things like this. I find them interesting.

Good luck! And let us know what we can do to help.

glorff · Post by **glorff** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 5:11 pm

It will be interesting to see if there is anything that shows about how we have changed in the last couple of years because of the economy. I know I have not been adding to my collection for the last couple of years, but I have not sold anything either.

Post by **sensei** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:59 pm

Just a heads-up that I have a draft of the ethnography essay and have shared it with the editor. He liked it ("powerhouse work" was his phrase) but needless to say it's a mess in lots of ways. The statistics that I'm using need to be rounded up and presented more cleanly in a way that most readers can skip, and the argument needs to be tightened up. That's pretty normal for a first draft.

(My freshman writers were always looking for the secret to writing a first draft that was OK to hand in the way it was. When I said I was still looking for that secret after 40-something years of being a writer, they always looked disappointed and figured they'd been put in the wrong section. But it's true: if I'd found the secret, I'd have put it in a textbook and lived in my seaside penthouse on the royalties.)

It's been enjoyable and stimulating to be able to stretch out like this on an intellectual project. I am genuinely pleased and honored to have gotten so much support. Now I'm sending PMs to many of you asking for clearances for the quotes and paraphrases I used in the draft.

Please feel free to correct me in my paraphrases or even decline to be used in this context. This includes a number of quotes from public threads, as well as the surveys.

If you get only one little quote, please don't feel ignored. I wish I could have quoted more people at more length. As I revise, I might put more in, and then I'll send out more. But the essay is already lengthy, and much of the information I got was backed up by several Betarians. So many of your answers, even if not quoted, will nevertheless make their presence felt in the final argument.

If you want your name used, let me know, and I'll include it in the credits. Otherwise, I'll assume that you'd prefer to be referred to by screen name only. If I don't have an age or a state/country of residence, I'll ask. You don't have to tell me.

As I clean up this matter, I'll share an abstract of the piece, and find a way to make a fuller draft available as I get it in shape enough to share widely.