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

Re:I knew it wasn't me!

[Ethanol-fueled]

The article tries to make guilds sound "cool" by comparing them to violent street gangs, even though gangs and guilds are just cases of infantile "nyah-nyah, we're cooler than you are" schoolyard children.

Only the gangs drink malt liquor and go on raids in real life.

Re:Using WoW to fight terrorism?

[brkello]

*whoosh*