NiIL: Why NaNo Doesn't Have Regs

    NaNoWriMo, as I explained in my previous NiIL, relies primarily on a forum set up for users to interact and create a community of practice. However, this forum itself is structured very differently than stereotypical forums and creates an entirely different environment than one normally sees. To explain this, I must first explain a little bit of internet speak.

     A newbie is, rather obviously, a person who is new to a forum. They generally don't know the rules, are somewhat naive and post threads that are off-topic or just generally disliked. An oldbie or oldie is someone who has been around the forum for a while. There isn't usually a specific time frame wherein this transition occurs. A newbie simply evolves into an oldbie when they have assimilated the culture and custom of the forum.

   The culmination of these internet evolutions is the reg, or regular. This person is generally found in one section of the forum, like the Writer's or Chatterbox in my Gaiaonline example. They are extremely knowledgable about the forum structure, information and dynamics. In some forums, an oldbie and a reg are interchangeable. However, for this, I will stick to the usage with which I am most familiar- reg being a more respected version of an oldbie.

     This dynamic occurs in forums because of their longevity. Unlike chatrooms, which happen in real time only as long as members are present, forum discussions can last for days, months and even years. Depending on how much of your time, your life, you dedicate to the forum is roughly equivalent to your status in its cultural heirarchy.

     This dynamic is almost nowhere to be found in the NaNo forums. The only place I found mention of "newbies" was in the forum specifically created for first time WriMos. While I haven't been able to search through every post ever made, but I shouldn't have to. Dynamics and phrases surrounding the newbie/oldbie dichotomy are nearly ubiquitous to forum culture, seen in the forums of kid's websites like Neopets, not just internet cesspools like 4chan.

     Why then might NaNo be immune to the innate desire of the internet to classify people? What makes it so special? Some forums escape this by being very tiny (roleplay and fan forums created using the website Proboards come to mind). But NaNo is not tiny, not to say the least. Hundreds of thousands of members use these forums every year and each year the number of participating members increases drastically.

     NaNo actually gets its classless internet society from something very unusual to forums. Every year the Office of Letters and Light, or OLL, wipes the forums clean starting in late September. This probably occurs due to the OLL's status as a charitable organization. They dedicate time and money not only to NaNoWriMo every November, but to school writing programs, building and filling libraries and otherwise bringing writing to those with less privilege. They survive off of donations, donations that undoubtedly won't cover the bandwidth needed to support not only the millions of new threads posted in November, but all the old ones too.

     Along with this comes the idea of a "clean slate"; wiping the forums clean allows people with questions about their current project not to be lost in a sea of "What is my character wearing?" from 4 years back. And this "clean slate" is what effectively removes any classification based on time. No one can prove they've dedicated years to these forums, because there is no evidence left- it is all wiped in September. You can't tell who is a newbie or who is an oldbie on the forums. It doesn't show how many years they've participated or how dedicated they are. Everyone starts out as a newbie, together, each year. Some show their hand by participating in the Newbies! forum, but even then, no one is judged for their newness.

NiIL: What is a Forum?

To kick off NaNoWriMo in Internet Land, I wanted to cover a very basic topic. What is a forum? What affordances of the Internet does it use? What makes it different from a chat room? This will set up the context for the rest of my analysis on the NaNoWriMo forums.

What is a Forum?

Once upon a time, a forum was a gathering of people, or the place they gathered in, to discuss certain topics. Greece was famous for its forums, especially in Athens, discussing politics and philosophy. A quick Google search defines it as this: "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" or "an internet message board". 

A forum is a space on the internet in which users can interact via nested text boxes, in a manner somewhat similar to Ancient Greek forums. There a separate spaces for different conversation topics. A (non-NaNo) example would be the Gaia Online forums. There are topic headings like "Hot Topics" or the "Artist's Corner". Within those are the actual forums: "US Presidential Election", "Adventure Time" or "Lolita Fashion", in "Hot Topics". These forums all contain hundreds of "threads" dedicated to different topics within that forum "header".

Usually one user can create a thread within which others can reply to the topic.  Threads tend to be long-lived, lasting days, to months, even to years, in the case of certain websites I frequent. They utilize the ability of the internet to store information by allowing users to post replies that can then be seen at any time. In less frequented forums, a reply to your post may not come for days. Often, in the more popular ones, you will wait a few minutes to a few hours.

Some forums may be private, meaning only specific people, like members of the site, can read what has been posted. Many more are public, which means anyone can read, or even reply to, the ongoing conversation.


How is a forum different from a chat room?

The two major ways to communicate via the internet are forums and chat rooms.  Chat rooms can be hosted on a specific website, to allow members to communicate, or may be a service in and of themselves (One may look at AIM or Omegle as an example of a chat room platform that is its own specific entity.)

Chat rooms occur in real time. Members enter the chat room at the same time to talk. Often, they have no specific topics or guidelines. They rely on the speed of the internet, but not its long-term storage of the conversations. Chat rooms provide an instant connection.

Often times, a forum will have a "chat space". Either a forum specifically dedicated to this "instant" kind of conversation (while still maintaining the forum structure of long-term, nested replies) or a separate chat "feature" that functions more similarly to a true chat room (generally a widget that is imbedded into the site).

Both have uses to the website in question. A chat space or feature allows members of the site to bond simply by talking to each other. They talk about anything and everything, with whoever is around at the moment. this strengthens to relationship between members and increases their happiness with the site. A forum, or as it usually occurs, many forums, allow the members to discuss specific topics of interest to them. It builds a repertoire of information that users can go back and look at, instead of bringing up the same questions over and over.


HONRS 201: Forums VS Chat Rooms

To put this in the context of academia, the first part of my project, I will use a classroom analogy. A forum is a class discussion, lead by the professor, to understand a specific portion of the syllabus. This would be structured and allow one student to respond to another, or multiple students, one at a time. A chat room is what happens before class starts or after it ends. It is a cacophony. It is everyone talking to their friends about whatever it is they want. Both are important to the students, but one is more useful to the overall understanding of the class.

Intro: NaNoWriMo in Internet Land

Part of my thesis project was to understand NaNoWriMo as a community of practice. The first part of looking at that was determining what makes NaNo different from regular creative writing classes. The way students interact in a class is completely different than the way WriMos interact on the forums. What was different? Why did it develop this way?

Well, it came down to the emphasis. Creative writing courses are trying to teach you fundamentals. NaNo? Not so much. By focusing solely on getting words on the page (and turning off one's evil Inner Editor), NaNoWriMo brought together a community of people defined by their love of writing, no matter how good, bad, or indifferent the quality of that work.

But there is more to this question than that. You see, NaNoWriMo provides a perfect intersection between the Internet and Academia. NaNoWriMo is very different from Academia, but it is also very different from the Internet. This series, lovingly shortened to NiIL, will look into that difference. How are the NaNo forums different? Why don't we see stereotypical "regs" vs "newbs"? Why are the forums structured the way they are? What amount of control do the users have on the actual infrastructure of the site? These questions and more, coming up in...

ADVENTURES IN INTERNET LAND