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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."
The relation I've noticed (being a soccer player) is with soccer teams. I've seen the exact same cycles of drama and team splits. Its just like an online guild, but in slow motion (as they don't spend as much time together in a week).
About the students in Physics bit: The results are often somewhat unfortunate; but there is an entire genre of papers, across a variety of subjects, generated by physicists' belief that, as long as they can develop a mathematical model, they can write on just about anything. There is a similar behavior in economists, who figure that, if they can assign dollar values to the major variables, they are on safe ground.
Sometimes the results are genuinely interesting, or even downright superior, if the area has been bogged down in excessive qualitative handwaving. Other times, you get breathtaking exercises in over-reduction, ignorant of a variety of messy details that have been common knowledge, among people who actually study the subject, for decades.
One use I could perhaps see what they'd could use this research for is to justify offering something of either deterrence or rehabilitation through the use of guilds. Give guys who feel a need to belong and a need to whack shit with a weapon and you could *maybe* have something of a replacement with something like WoW. Hey, it's a stretch, but it's all I got. Worth noting: I have a little brother who seems to not mind the juvenile justice system all that much and is a relatively frequent visitor - however, once I got him into gaming and into things like Tribes, Priston Tale, and whatnot where clans/guilds existed his desire to go outside and henceforth get into trouble dropped significantly. Granted, it's just a patch for other socio/economic issues, but it could still have a somewhat positive effect. I'd much rather lazy gamers than violent gang members.