Online "Guilds" Mirror Real Life Gangs

j-beda writes "In June 2009, Dr. Neil Johnson published a paper titled 'Human group formation in online guilds and offline gangs driven by a common team dynamic' in Physical Review E that found the way in which WoW 'guilds' form can be described by a mathematical model that can also be applied to an unrelated group of people: street gangs in Los Angeles. Since 'Any group that satisfies these fairly autonomous, competitive criteria would also (fit the model),' said Dr. Johnson, the findings are of interest to those combating international as well as local terrorist cells."

Comments

Wow...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Did somebody just rediscover the fact that humans have been forming little social groups, sometimes partially or wholly kin-based, other times simply social, for most of their evolutionary history?

This isn't a "Oh, look at those gamers and gangsters and terrorists, how exotic" thing. This is how humans have operated(and to a large extent continue to operate) until the very recent rise in formalized mechanisms of social organization(and even these tend to be infested by little social cliques of various sorts, if you scratch the surface).

Re:Wow...

[thesandtiger]

Did you miss the part about how there's a model for the interaction, and that model is valid for both groups (gangs and WoW guilds)?

While this is nowhere near the same in impact as Newton's work, your comment would be akin to someone saying, "Duh, dumbass, we already KNEW things would fall if you drop them!"

In other words, you seem to have missed the whole point - this is about a possible verification of a model for human group dynamics, not about the existence of group dynamics. There is a difference, rather a large one.

Not just gangs

[jaggeh]

Different games can generate different models

Eve Online uses a company stucture for its guilds/clans etc

However i dont think all guilds/clans/corps will evolve the same way, thats more down to the players involved and who has their hand on the collective rudder.

Read the abstract more carefully

[elrous0]

First of all, the abstract acknowledges that guilds are quite UNLIKE gangs in many important respects. They are much more varied in "backgrounds, age groups, and genders" than real gangs and they are rarely based on "like-seeking" (kinship).

Secondly, there are *many* more offline groups that are more closely related to street gangs in structure and practices than guilds, and no one seems too alarmist about that. Odds are your local church, your business, your college fraternity, even many of your local civic organizations have initiations/hazing/etc. that more closely resemble that of gangs than any guild I've ever been part of. And those are *certainly* more homogeneous in "backgrounds, age groups, and genders" (like most street gangs) than any WoW guild.

In other words, guilds bear a pretty piss-poor correlation to street gangs, compared to just about any small real-world organization. I suspect the authors were either reaching here or were so hopped up on the idea of studying online guilds that they lost their way (the famous line from PCU comes to mind "You can write your thesis on Gameboy if you can bullshit well enough."). And does anyone else find it academically strange that this came from a bunch of grad students in Physics?!?!?

Re:Read the abstract more carefully

[RockoTDF]

In that case, could you explain to me why this happens? (at least in physics). Is it a lack of funding for "real" experiments, getting bored with particles and phase transitions, pursuing their own interests, or what? Also, do you know how articles like this fit into the tenure game? It doesn't bother me so much when physicists get into life science problems (lets be honest, biology is getting more quantitative). However, as a cognitive/neural scientist grad student, it drives me nuts when I read papers where physicists try and tackle cognition or philosophy because it is pretty clear they have no idea what they are talking about. Don't mind them doing the neural stuff because they tend to have a good grasp on signal processing/information theory stuff, as well as dynamical systems theory.

As for economists, I'm pretty sure they just fall into the "when you only have a hammer all problems look like nails" thing.

gangstas

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who plays WoW is a gansta anyway.

Re:When you're a Goonswarm...

[Bicx]

because once you've got goonswarm in your employment history, no one else will take you! :D

Re:LFG...

[TheCarp]

Don't waste your time man. Recruit lvl 80 Bomb makers and strategists, and lvl 1 suicide bombers.

Suicide bombers never really make it to the high levels. Their characters are on a gimped build.

Re:LFG...

[sorak]

Too bad terrorist organizations aren't modelled after businesses:

Suicide Bomber (Entry Level)
Are you a people-oriented go-getter with a strong desire to work the competitive field of non-recurring thermal politics? Do you look at fireworks and think "That'll change people's minds"? If so, Al-Qaeda may be the place for you.

Benefits include:
    72 virgins
    401k
    Competitive pay

Qualifications:
    Master's Degree in hyperballistics
    three years experience working in suicide bombing or related field.
    Five years experience in use of public transportation.
    Ten years experience in cartography, GPS, or similar field.
    Fifteen years, oh screw it. If you don't know somebody, don't bother applying.

Re:Sarcastic question, answered honestly

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop upvoting fuckings old XKCD-links!