Community Peeps & Parents: Jargonbuster!

Sometimes it may seem as though you need a translator to understand what your teenager is talking about. With a new slang word seemingly invented every week; many parents find it difficult to keep up with the latest phrases and sayings. This is why we’ve come up with a teen-speak jargon buster. Put together by teenagers and parents, this dictionary of ‘teenglish’ (complete with definitions) should help break down the language barrier.

GotATeenager – Jargon Buster

For those boosting up their chat/phrase filters – here’s a UK tool that will help you stay on top of the times!  I digg it (see what I did there – “digg” being a social bookmarking device… and dig, as in- i like this tool… Okay, I’m a dork)

Props to ypulse for the find!

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Community Managers on MMO communities…

Anyone who has played an MMO or participated in any online forum or service knows that anonymity creates problems — and large groupings of people invites those with psychological issues to act them out on the larger populace. A group of MMO community managers and psychologists from the University of Texas came together at GDC Austin to examine common scenarios — and take a peek into why these problems persist, and maybe come up with new ways to solve them.

The panel was comprised of moderator Sean Dahlberg from BioWare Austin, Troy Hewitt of Flying Lab Software, Meghan Rodberg of Turbine, and Dr. Sam Gosling and Dr. James Pennebaker, of the University of Texas.

Though both of the psychologists admitted that they are not personally gamers, they clearly find the subject of MMO audiences fascinating — and not in a clinical way. They showed empathy for the issues, but worried that some of the tactics commonly undertaken by the community mangers are “just attending to the symptoms,” in the words of Dr. Gosling.

Gamasutra – AGDC: The Psychology Of MMO Players: Community Managers, Psychologists Speak

This is a great article.  Wish I could ramble.  Perhaps later?  Cheers and check it out!

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