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ARG SIG Whitepaper
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aliendial
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Joined: 29 Sep 2002
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Location: Far Far Away. Nowhere Near You. Really.

 		*blinks*

Wow. High expectations for a trade association white paper. Granted the spelling and grammar problems are unacceptable, but peer review? White papers can be many things. A summary of all. A summary of just one person's views. A stalking horse to start a discourse. A good start to staking out territory about which there is not yet much written from the industry viewpoint.

The next one will probably be better. If they can get any volunteers willing to help.

I may not agree with all of it, what was left in, what was left out, but I don't have a problem with these authors making those choices. If I cared enough I'd go on record with them - "hey next time I think the interaction section should also address X" and skip the charges of bias.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 8:53 am
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Cortana
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jamesi wrote:
Cortana wrote:
1) Actual Peer Review and Editing
2) How to write next year's version

Both of those are productive.


Both of these should have been done before publishing the paper, imo.


Yeah, I agree that the editorial practice here appears to have mostly consisted of "let me skim this and make sure this isn't a paper on weasel-stomping." and could have benefitted from some copy-editing and some real ownership (I understand getting people to write, and getting many of the writers to turn in their work, was like pulling teeth.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:28 am
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Cortana
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colin wrote:
The remaining 10% were live, with considerably more interaction than any example given in the telephone section. Which is an even better reason it should be cited in addition to the other examples.

The argument just doesn't hold. I Love Bees should have appeared.

Cortana wrote:
The charge of bias is really quite off the mark. I'm really upset to hear people claiming it's a biased piece. Could it use peer-review? yes, it could, but bias? No, sorry, that dog don't hunt.

I'm really displeased with the personal tone that this entire thing has come with


I don't think Andrea is biased. I also don't really want to argue her integrity. As far as I'm concerned that's not what this is about. What I do want to argue is the content of the White Paper. When I read that section, the omission of ILB leads me to think it's biased.


Andrea wrote as part of her introduction:

"No simple list will cover every single possible mechanic to be found in every game, because the mechanics are constrained only by real-world limitations and resources, and by the designers' imaginations. Providing an exhaustive list of methods and mechanics that could be used in an ARG would be no less difficult than providing such a list of all of the ways that human beings use to interact with one another. "

The paper is not given to being a canonical list of which games accomplished which puzzles in which subsections of interaction or exposition, etc. Again, charges of bias here are laughable. From my onboard dictionary: "Bias is a predisposition either for or against something; one can have a bias against police officers or a bias for French food and wines." I do not see here a specific predisposition either for or against something.

Are there potential omissions? Yes. Jackie's criticism regarding the lack of forum play mentioned is highly significant and a certain omission. However, I do not think this was done *intentionally*, which would indicate bias.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:32 am
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rowan
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Joined: 12 Apr 2004
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Cortana wrote:
"let me skim this and make sure this isn't a paper on weasel-stomping."

Why would anyone write a paper on weasel-stomping? What has a weasel ever done to anyone except bring joy and love and hide their shinies underneath the couch? Sad
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:48 am
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Cortana
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rowan wrote:
Cortana wrote:
"let me skim this and make sure this isn't a paper on weasel-stomping."

Why would anyone write a paper on weasel-stomping? What has a weasel ever done to anyone except bring joy and love and hide their shinies underneath the couch? :(


Ask Weird Al.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:59 am
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xnbomb
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Joined: 13 Oct 2003
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 		Please take one step forward
aliendial wrote:
If they can get any volunteers willing to help.

I have the distinct impression (from discussions with various parties and from reading SIG communications with my own two eyes) that there were people who were ready, willing, and able to participate in the SIG (and consequently the authorship of the whitepaper) who were discouraged from doing so in the early going, when the SIG was being formed. The impression that was given by the management of the SIG was that if you were not a professional or experienced developer of ARGs or an academic who works in the field of games, then you were not suitably qualified. This had the effect of excluding a lot of people from participating, many of whom could likely have contributed to making the published whitepaper a better document.

So while I have some limited sympathy for the 'it was a volunteer effort' argument, it really is quite limited. Efforts that rely on volunteerism to proceed cannot afford to exclude the ready and willing like that, not without also implicitly making the statement that they really don't need anyone else's help because they 'have it covered'. In a very young field (such as ARGs), there are often going to be a lot of very knowledgable and able individuals who are not going to fit within the narrow definition of being acknowledged professionals in that field. I think a major step towards being able to do better next time would be to recognize this fact, and to welcome that expertise with open arms.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:19 pm
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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 		white paper volunteers
i felt welcome to contribute
I can't speak for anyone else but it would be unfair to not share my experience. I volunteered to work on the ARG White Paper and was welcomed to do so. It was my own fault that I didn't follow through with it. I never for a moment felt unwelcomed because I wasn't a game designer.

I may be one of the only players here who actually posts (though rarely) to the IGDA forums and occasionally attends IGDA events. I am not sure if my being an IGDA member (it doesn't cost much to join) made a difference or not, but I can definitely say that I felt more than welcomed to be a part of the SIG and to contribute to the White paper.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:07 pm
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 		Re: Please take one step forward
xnbomb wrote:
aliendial wrote:
If they can get any volunteers willing to help.

I have the distinct impression (from discussions with various parties and from reading SIG communications with my own two eyes) that there were people who were ready, willing, and able to participate in the SIG (and consequently the authorship of the whitepaper) who were discouraged from doing so in the early going, when the SIG was being formed.


As the chair of the SIG, I would *greatly* appreciate you emailing me the specific examples of this (arg_sig @ igda.org would be fine). I would be extremely unhappy if this had happened. I suspect that it was - in the end - the individuals themselves who privately admitted they didn't have time to carry on with what they'd started, and we then had to work hard to find replacements - which is fine, since people are being asked to volunteer their time and if they find that they cannot live up to that, then there is no reason for them to be blamed for that - the fact that they even tried in the first place is something to be proud of. I personally have spent in the region of 40+ hours alone in trying to get more people to volunteer their contributions to the paper. Not just one but two announcements on ARGN, announcements on IGDA's 10,000 member email list, and frequent requests to the full email list of the SIG (IIRC 4 separate calls for contributors) - not to mention the people who blogged the RFP's that went out. I can, if necessary, give the statistics on how many (or, more accurately, how few) people responded at all, let alone actually sent in any proposals (and my thanks go out to every one of them, even those who later had to drop out due to force of circumstance).

In the end, several of the contributors were only there because I cold-emailed them and asked them if they'd be willing to spend some of their time dealing with topics that *no-one else had even offered to write about*. Also ... bear in mind I got turned down by a lot of people - usually because they simply didn't have time - before I found the few willing and able to commit time to this venture.

I will accept many criticisms, but the claim that we didn't try to be as inclusive as possible is one that I absolutely refute in every way, shape, and form. To date, it seems many people are more than willing to attack this paper, yet totally uninterested in taking the content and running with it - which, after all, was the one thing we cared about more than any other. At the end of the day, more than anything else, we would all *love* for more people to contribute next time, but this time fewer than 20 people were willing to contribute their time and of those almost half had to drop out because of their existing commitments (their jobs, their family, etc).

PostPosted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:39 pm
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xnbomb
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Joined: 13 Oct 2003
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 		Clarification
Adam Martin wrote:
As the chair of the SIG, I would *greatly* appreciate you emailing me the specific examples of this (arg_sig @ igda.org would be fine).

If by specific examples you mean identifying individuals who have not chosen to identify themselves, sorry, no. Most people that I know around here have keen minds and quick fingers, so if they have something to say about this, whether in public or private, they can choose if and when to do so. Take it as given that I am expressing (at the minimum) my own point of view here, and (after reading my post) decide for yourself if it is indeed possible that there are others that feel the same way.

I'm afraid you have misunderstood the gist of my previous post, so I will try to clarify. There are people who might have lent their time and energy to this project, but never became involved because they did not feel welcome to participate in the SIG. In your response above, you seem to have missed a key point that might help you understand why this was the case, namely when some were turned away:

xnbomb (above) wrote:
who were discouraged from doing so in the early going

Back before the Whitepaper was a widespread concern, and the ARG SIG was defining its role and discussing ARG-related issues in its mailing list, there were signals being given that only certain segments of the ARG community were fully welcome as participants. Here's one specific example that encapsulates the issue as well as any:

Adam Martin (in the ARG SIG Mailing List) wrote:
The ARG SIG was founded explicitly to enable developers to talk freely on a large scale (as opposed to the private conversations we tend to have on a one-on-one basis at conferences etc). It was strongly felt that there wasn't really anywhere else [*] where they could do this.

Players who do listen-in are expected to respect that, and temper their reactions appropriately - without, of course, letting it stifle their interaction. This was one of the primary fears we had in the first place that lead to us moderating all posts - we didn't want to be swamped by flames from people who came to the list straight from, say, a UF post, and hadn't stopped to read the charter.

This appears not to be a problem - we've been around for 3 months, plenty of time for explorative ARG players to have discovered and infiltrated us Wink, but it seems the overwhelming majority are happy to
leave us alone to do what we do.

(Incidentally, this is a current concern - that we could do with a few more players on the list, as a sounding board, a second opinion, etc. If the list membership jumps by a thousand people overnight, I'll regret saying this Wink, but IMHO it would be good if we could all encourage some more "audience participation")

The message here is mixed. At one point in the above quote, players are portrayed as the possible enemies of fruitful discourse; tolerated participants in some cases, but potentially unruly and as likely to flame as to read the charter and contribute positively (and cited as the reason that list moderation was felt to be required in the first instance). Later in the quote, players are described as mostly absent but needed, acknowledging that a climate had developed in the SIG mailing list where few felt comfortable enough to participate. Some of the knowledgeable and able individuals that I referred to in my previous post either are (exclusively) players and/or identify strongly with players, perhaps more so than they do with developers. Sure, some wear multiple hats (such as creating games and/or taking on a variety of other responsibilities) in the ARG community, but they remember being players and recognize that much of their understanding of ARGs comes from having been, and continuing to identify with, players.

Adam Martin wrote:
I personally have spent in the region of 40+ hours alone in trying to get more people to volunteer their contributions to the paper. Not just one but two announcements on ARGN, announcements on IGDA's 10,000 member email list, and frequent requests to the full email list of the SIG (IIRC 4 separate calls for contributors) - not to mention the people who blogged the RFP's that went out.

There is no disputing that you did a great deal to make the community aware that a paper was being written, and volunteers were needed to get it done. But that's not at issue, and not what I was trying to address in my previous post. Nor was I trying to discuss the issue of 'the difficulties of volunteer author retention' (for lack of a better descriptor). What I am trying to get across is that some of the other people who might have been likely to volunteer were aware of what had been written on the ARG SIG mailing list about the status of players in the SIG before the widespread call for participation in the Whitepaper. They had been given the impression that their presence in the SIG was not entirely welcomed, and their ability to contribute positively had been preemptively called into question. Offering some of your potential volunteer authors a seat at the table, provided they behave themselves, is not the way to express to them that you value their input. It is the way to tell them that you expect them to be seen and not heard, because you have doubts about their ability to contribute constructively to the discourse.

I've chosen to post about this issue here, in response to Aliendial's notion about the potential dearth of volunteers, specifically because I am thinking about the next iteration of this, a.k.a. taking the content and running with it. I am trying to emphasize the importance of the SIG making it clear henceforth that participation and contribution from the broad spectrum of the ARG community is welcomed and desired by the SIG, because this was not clearly the case in the first go round to myself and to others with whom I have discussed this issue.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:50 pm
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catherwood
I Have 100 Cats and Smell of Wee

Joined: 25 Sep 2002
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 		I am not a game developer, and therefore am not a member of the IGDA. The SIG which wrote the whitepaper is a special interest group within the IGDA -- a place for game developers with a special interest in ARGs. They are within their rights to limit active membership to game developers.

Their group published a paper. I wouldn't expect them to say, "Let's get someone outside of our group to volunteer to work on it." I think we're saying it could have been improved if they had done some research beyond their group and gotten some input from a wider variety of sources, including many fine people here, both players and PMs. But final authorship of the paper rests on the group members.

Whether or not IGDA membership should be open to anyone with a special interest in ARGs is a separate discussion. Whether or not non-members are free to post to their mailing list is yet another issue. I do lurk and read the mailing list via their web archive, mostly because I have a personal interest in meta topics. But I respect that the group is a subset of a professional organization, of which I am not a member, so I do not post. (I have, however on rare occasion, emailed a member directly.)

When I saw a call for volunteers posted to that mailing list, I did not feel they were addressing me. I missed seeing the open call for volunteers posted to ARGN, so I'm looking at them now:
Calling All ARG Academia -- Needed: Academics who have investigated Alternate Reality Games
Alternate Reality Gaming SIG Whitepaper -- this one lists specific topics in need of authors, no credentials necessary, and even asks for suggestions for other topics

I don't know how much of a response they got from either of those items. I certainly am no academic. I didn't catch any later request for proofreaders or editorial review. Would I have volunteered if I had seen one? I can't be sure. The end product wasn't intended to speak for me, so I probably didn't want to get involved. Right or wrong, I have to be honest. Unfiction is my special interest group, not the IGDA.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:18 am
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Gupfee
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Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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Location: Massachusetts

 		I want to support xnbomb here--I am one of the people he chatted with, and he has very eloquently stated many of the concerns I had/have about the ARG SIG and the white paper.

My initial enthusiasm for the announcement of the ARG SIG was dampened by comments made on the SIG mailing list about players that were ambivalent at best, and bordered on hostility. I think xnbomb has outlined them enough so I won't repeat specifics. Unfiction members were disparaged as well.

Seeing that Unfiction and ARGN are a large part of my involvement in ARGs, I decided the SIG was not for me, and became a lurker. It was very disappointing to feel like I was not welcome there, because I do have experience running and writing grassroots games, and it would have been my pleasure to share that with the SIG members who seemed to have more interest in ARGs than actual practical experience.

If you decide to change/clarify the function of the SIG to make it more of a community discussion of meta issues and game dynamics and mechanics, please do let us know.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:13 pm
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