We are the subject of research
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:00 pm
Hey everyone,
My girlfriend, Kelly, is working on her Master's Degree in Anthropology, and a significant portion of her research involves, well... us. It is mostly focused on FFS, our weekly Starcraft II extravaganza, and it has already been discussed among players during the event. But FFS and Campaign Creations are certainly interconnected, and thus her research has brought her to this forum. So here is her pitch:
Also, as a part of this research, I have been gathering replays and running them through a little analyzer I made to have data on how active FFS players have been over time. As an example, here is a graph of my own activity within the group, represented as the percentage of events that I have attended per month:
My data spans 5 years and 136 players who have played at least two games during an FFS event (So there are many who only showed up for one or two events, but I weeded out people from publicly hosted games). If you have played SC2 with us during FFS in the past, then I have a graph with your name on it. I would like to post them all here, but I don't want to without getting permission. So if you want your graph posted here in the thread, let me know, I can add it in. If you want to see it, but don't want it posted, I can PM it to you.
An astute observer might notice that several months are missing from the x-axis. This is because I am missing data. I have replays covering the majority of the lifespan of FFS, thanks to the wonderful archival habits of Ricky, Q, and HighZealot. But there are a couple chunks of time for which I have no data. See this post I made about it, and if any of you have replays during the times that I am missing, I would really appreciate it if you could send them to me!
(I may also try to incorporate WC3 replays, if I can manage to find a replay parsing library for python)
My girlfriend, Kelly, is working on her Master's Degree in Anthropology, and a significant portion of her research involves, well... us. It is mostly focused on FFS, our weekly Starcraft II extravaganza, and it has already been discussed among players during the event. But FFS and Campaign Creations are certainly interconnected, and thus her research has brought her to this forum. So here is her pitch:
"I am doing research for my master's thesis in Anthropology. My research is looking at how online gaming communities are formed, maintained, and dissolved. Some sub-topics include the role of technology itself in creating opportunities and barriers for community building and the relevance of national identity online. Specifically, I am looking at SCII (as opposed to MMORPGs like WoW or virtual worlds like Second Life, which are more popular in the anthropological literature). Most of my research entails participant observation in terms of watching and playing SCII with a particular group of players. This phase of my research is nearly complete. I am also planning to talk about the role of gaming spaces outside of the game such as forums, wikis, YouTube, etc. in community building.
Talking about CC would be a relatively small, but important, contribution to that research as it relates to the group of players I am looking at. Mostly, I would like to talk about the history of the website in relation to the group - information I have already found on here (but have not incorporated into my writing, yet, due to lack of consent to use it). I would not be using any direct quotes or real screennames.
Also, I have already conducted a couple of interviews, but I am looking for at least two more participants. The only restriction is that you must be over 18 years old (although I am considering updating my IRB to allow for minors in my research - but I do not know if it's possible, yet). For those who play SCII during the weekly event that Honejasi hosts, I would love to talk to more people who have only been playing within the past 1-3 years. I could also use more information from people who are active here (or were in the past), but no longer attend the event (or are less active on here) to get an idea of why people come and go. If you are interested in being interviewed, you can either post here, let Billtheemu know, or email me at kflyte@gmu.edu. Interviews would ideally be conducted over IM, but I can do voice or email, too.
I am hoping to complete all of my research by the end of April (I've been working for quite some time now), and then have my thesis completely written (already in the works) by the end of June. It will be available for anyone who wants to read it once it is finished.
If it's cool with everyone here, feel free to ask me questions in this thread (I will be replying under Bill's name).
Also, as a part of this research, I have been gathering replays and running them through a little analyzer I made to have data on how active FFS players have been over time. As an example, here is a graph of my own activity within the group, represented as the percentage of events that I have attended per month:
My data spans 5 years and 136 players who have played at least two games during an FFS event (So there are many who only showed up for one or two events, but I weeded out people from publicly hosted games). If you have played SC2 with us during FFS in the past, then I have a graph with your name on it. I would like to post them all here, but I don't want to without getting permission. So if you want your graph posted here in the thread, let me know, I can add it in. If you want to see it, but don't want it posted, I can PM it to you.
An astute observer might notice that several months are missing from the x-axis. This is because I am missing data. I have replays covering the majority of the lifespan of FFS, thanks to the wonderful archival habits of Ricky, Q, and HighZealot. But there are a couple chunks of time for which I have no data. See this post I made about it, and if any of you have replays during the times that I am missing, I would really appreciate it if you could send them to me!
(I may also try to incorporate WC3 replays, if I can manage to find a replay parsing library for python)