Mapping the culture of an online community
James Robertson of Column Two points to a fun report from Patrick Lambe that describes the "archetypes" present in the Act-KM online community (mailing list), Mapping the Culture of an Online Community (pdf). The drawings of each type are almost as good as the breakdown into these types:
- The Mediator
- The Energy Vampire
- The Lurker
- The Angry Little Man
- The Beginner
- The Hostage
- The Backstabber
- The Professor
- The Sophist
- The Visionary
- The Guru
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Whoa. Take a look at how the archetypes are gendered.
female: the energy vampire, the lurker, the newbie, the hostage. they are the unknowledgable, passive, disempowered members of the online community.
there are some negative archetypes that are male, but the very positive ones -- mediator, professor, visionary, guru -- are all illustrated as men. and the negative qualities illustrated as male are things like aggressiveness or show-offishness or social climbing.
sigh. rather disheartening, I think.