Blog 7

Write a blog entry. The stock option: write an anthropogical examination of the communicative conventions of a blogging or other online social media subculture (for example, mommyblogs, right-wing politics blogs, Harry Potter fanfic blogs, model railroader discussion boards, et cetera: seek out a group that your classmates might not be familiar with), investigating who the members of the group are, what types of language they use, what types of arguments they make, how they use media, and what types of messages are acceptable or unacceptable in the group.

For this blog, I looked at the game chat for a phone game called Book of a Heroes. When looking through the chat channel it is as though the people that play make up a particular tight-knit community. Whenever a player of sorts, mostly high ranked or part of a guild, enters the chat the number of other players that recognize and acknowledge their presence is incredible. Even those who are in other guilds seem to know each other by name or at least know their personality like friends in reality outside of chat rooms. In this chat channel the use of multiple sentences or paragraphs is almost non-existent as most players tend to communicate in short sentences. Although, it is more like they are simply speaking instead of writing their thoughts. Most players in this particular chat room also use ~ to communicate an action or emotion of some kind. People will say, "haha noooooo way ~laughing hysterically~" or "wow shut up noob ~flips middle finger~". I also found that most of the people that play this game are of a more adult age than one would probably realize with most being older than 20 years of age. I think that most of these people though, use this chat because it is a place where people themselves aren't judged rather their character is. It allows those who may not be so popular outside the game to become leader of a guild and known throughout by tens if not hundreds of other players. The only type of messages that I have seen considered as unwanted are spam messages for guilds and raids. This being when a person advertises their guild in multiple messages one after the other after the other. One player told me that there was a general rule in the game chat in which it was ok to advertise whatever you want with the same message as long as they were spaced 2 minutes apart. So, by looking deeper into this game chat you find that this is an online community where majority of players know each other in-game, where certain rules and guidelines are applied, and where communication is quick and to the point. If you have the time and either a smartphone or tablet, I suggest that you download Book of Heroes and try it out. You won't be disappointed.

http://stephenportsmouthdtc375.blogspot.com/2014/03/post-7-online-communitie.html?showComment=1396028015303#c4959647577950697141