Online Communities (3rd Week) - Board Game Geek as an Online Community

Human nature compels people to seek the company of like-minded individuals every once in a while as feeling welcome, accepted and understood is definitely one of the strongest psychological drives people are subjected to. Hence the attribute, trait or a feature which may pose as an alienating one to the vast majority of ones immediate milieu (a person's social environment) can have the strongest unifying potential. The phenomena of online communities provides nearly perfect means and principles for bringing together individuals, based on a mutially shared characteristic(s), who wouldn't have/have hardly ever encountered each other otherwise. This distinctive fact combined with the relative familiarity of the community soon-to-be-at-hand were the forcible arguments for selection of Board Game Geek as the analysis subject.

Technological Progress. 
All online communities of prominent scale are only made possible thanks to the advance of technological progress - the wide availability of internet access devices, the affordability of such and that of network connection (and options to get an either free internet access or use a computer in a commune utilization), and, as importantly, the opportunity to store and service massive amounts of information at reasonable expenses. BGG is no exception, of course, as its current "girth" (over a quarter of a million users and more than a 30 000 games) and form are only possible due the named technological delights. As the community enables storage of officially unlimited number of pictures and is in quite an extensive simultaneous use it is understandable that such delights are crucial to allow for a reasonable storage (database principles, continuously developed optimization technologies...) and retrieval of information.

Option to Choose Different Characteristics. 
Not being an alter-ego creation centric like IMVU or Second life, BGG does, in fact, provide known means for creation of an internet personality representation tailored to ones desires and ends. For once, one may have a list of his or hers musical, cinematic, literate, television and general preferences specified for everyone to see and make opinions of, board game preferences naturally, a whole un-moderated (in the narrower sense) gallery of photos, an avatar icon, badges, proclaiming beliefs, likes and other statements of character. All in all, BGG enables its registered users to build a community persona through customizable features. 

Timeless Time
BGG is one great example of a community, which is always online as it is comprised of members from all over the globe, its inter nationality stressed out by a country flag always on display beside user avatar as well as by tolerance of the use of different posting languages (forums, reviews, personal profiles). Sure thing, it matters not whether it's the break of dawn or the death of the night where you are, there's always people online whom the day is in its prime for. Therefore, one wouldn't necessarily have to wait for certain conventional hours to get a an answer to a question, a feedback or reaction of any sort - timing essentially doesn't really matter - other factors come into play here (like the distribution of BGG members in different time zones).


The Ever-growing Unsatisfied Hunger for Communication
As it has already been mentioned, the differences evoking alienation from people in immediate surroundings can occur to be the similarities bringing individuals together, which is the case in BGG's instance. The community wears what once may have been a slightly offensive moniker with pride and affection, as a badge marking ones belonging to the group. And naturally, the members of the group have an understandable degree of predisposition towards each other, a positive prejudice that they're to be understood here, and - surprise, surprise - they generally are. Ostensibly, members of BGG community adore engaging in word-sparring and communication comes as a great delight to them, as number of individuals having something to say, more importantly, willing to say something just about anything is truly astonishing. Hence, it'd be righteous to state that community does exploit the opportunity to communicate with like-minded individuals to a great extent.

Educational Pursuits
BGG, though not having a vastly coherent educational potential, like, Wikipedia, for one, does have a few tricks up its imaginary sleeve, one only has to look closely. First and foremost, BGG's greatest value is its informativeness, which targets individuals knowledge of boardgames. Thereby it's effectively the best source of information on the subject, granting not only a multifaceted overview of a given game (community ratings, reviews, videos, pictures, rules breakdowns, session reports - instances of played games, providing one with better idea of the gameplay) but oftentimes in-depth strategy guidelines, contemplation and conscientious adoption of which exercises ones brains. Educational value of such exercise can hardly be overestimated. As a last resort, being a generally very mature (in the best sense of the word =)) and educated community, BGG often casually mentions things, investigation of which leads to enrichment of ones erudition.

An Opulence of Spare Time to Be Filled
As majority of people having enough leisure time and spare monetary resources to be invested in boardgaming hobby are bound to come from a relatively financially secure background it won't be a great stretch to assume members turn to BGG since they have the time resources to do so and desire to fill said time with something fascinating. Moreover, as a great number of people is now spending their workdays behind a computer "smoking pauses" tend to get filled with internet browsing. Individuals adopt a number of websites that are to be checked regularly, "regularly" being subject to different frequency interpretations. For instance, according to BGG polls, a significant portion of active users can visit the community page tenths of times per day.

The Need For Something Real, Even if Imaginary
As far as metaphysical and "intangible" matters are further concerned, BGG does offer a few options for self-establishment and public acclamation, as well as strict protection of humane values such as politeness, law-adherence and such. The former include a thumbing approval system, geek-of-the week "award" and an option to be tipped (with an imaginary Geek Gold currency) as a testament of great approval of one's actions. The latter manifest themselves through flagging system (aimed at exposure and subsequent penalties of inappropriate posts) and general tendencies of banishment copyright infringements - such accusations often being far-fetched. All in all, one indeed has a great ground for building up and/or tearing down one's alter-reputation, as well as adorning ones alter-self with friends, connections and, even foes? perhaps.

Occasional Altruism
Truth be told, the instance at hand is not the greatest showcase of altruism tendencies inherent in online communities, as the theme of the community does not provide the most fertile ground for this kind of selflessness. Though, compared to some other communities, especially to those  not united by common "weirdness",, member of BGG seem to have a greater flair for self-establishing through useful and goodnatured advice, whether one is or is not sought for. The described behavior can be observed all over BGG forum threads, comments and geeklists.