unforum

[Wittgenstein]

Massively Multiplayer Science

[Mikeyj]

Yeah, it looks fascinating. I'm really sceptical, but would love to be proved wrong. It's hard to keep the front row awake at most scientific conferences I've been too. Unless an argument kicks off and then it's hard to keep them apart. How do you handle ornery old academics, much less play with them?!

I wonder whether there will be any parallels with WikiProfessional's efforts? What type of data, what sort of field?

[Wittgenstein]

I'm personally really interested in applying the ARG model to like..."important" stuff. I've actually playing with a political concept for the past few weeks. I'd really like to see how this turns out just as another model of "serious" work being done with the ARG model.

The idea of using the ARG model for future projection is interesting, but what about affecting change?

[Mikeyj]

What are the examples of serious work being done by an ARG? World Without Oil achieved awareness raising, (and a shiny award - congratulations ) but was there other work done?

ARGs can be used to do stuff, there's loads of evidence of that. Particularly if it involves building a community, writing a book, cracking a code. But then these are things that groups of people already did.

Science is highly collaborative, but also highly structured with peer review at all stages. It's also highly conservative and the whole system revolves around credibility. What is the type of scientific problem that you can tackle with an ARG whilst retaining credibility in what you produce?

And off we wonder into meta - maybe we should get a move

[Wittgenstein]

Certainly does look like we need a move.

I think that it's entirely reasonable to expect the X2 Club to produce a report on something or other, collaboratively, and have that report/paper be submitted for peer review a la traditional scientific processes. Why is a giant group of scientists any different than a smaller group of say, a dozen researchers, especially if they establish a collectively intelligent community? I don't see why not.

EDIT: here's something that big collectively intelligent communities would be good at: Project BudBurst. I wonder what the difference between Project BudBurst and the X2 Club is, under the skin?

I think the general public still thinks of gaming as a kind of hand-wavey kind of thing. I would be interested to see the relative value we place on things like building community, writing of books and cracking of codes...I kind of think of WWO as the first "socially serious" ARG.

I have been incubating the concept of using the ARG model for political organizing. I don't see why it isn't possible -- a good political movement requires a tightly-knit, informed, thoughtful community of disaffected people. Collective intelligence will only work to the advantage of such a 21st century populist movement. Of course it needs a lot of refining -- how would someone go about doing these things? But in all seriousness, I think that the "old model" of movement-starting is pretty tired, and people are pretty jaded about it; the ARG model could offer some resurgence in people's faith in that sort of thing. What do you think about that kind of serious work?

[krystyn]

Go ahead and start a new thread!