Here are the notes from the Afternoon community panel featuring some friends of mine including Giff Constable, Betsy Book, and Robin Harper to name a few.
One of the strong ties that bind together communities is
fandom, but what creates the community is not the topic but the exchanges about
the everyday life. Virtual worlds are spaces that are ripe as the mediums for
this kind of discussions. Voice chat has been one of the real powerful tools
that help facilitate community building. One of the neat things is using the
chat tool as a back-channel to voice conversations. Making communication tools
easier and more prevalent is the key to getting the community to gel and bond.
Part of the availability of the online space provides an amazing opportunity for cultural sharing. Moreover having the ability to communicate across native languages using translator programs provides a potential for person to person global diplomacy. In certain areas you can delineate and mark spaces and it is more of a human factor. The goal is to continue to keep the relationships in world alive while they are out of world.
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