Caledon

As I am each third Tuesday, I will be at home tomorrow for conversation. The March topic is drawn from “The beauty of life,” an address delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design on February 19, 1880, by William Morris:

‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’

What is the relevance of this “golden rule” to our first or second lives?

Please join me at Ormsby Hall, Caledon Murdann, on Tuesday 18 March, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm SLT.

Last night while acting as the Radio Riel host for a treehousewarming party for the Davies clan in Steelhead Harborside, I was quite overcome by fabulousness. (No, not mine, the home’s and the assembled company’s!) Luckily for me, Miss Myfanwy Davies was prepared to assist not only her guests but her event staff:

Just for the sake of a modicum of self-defense regarding the outfit, I plead temporary insanity by virtue of being egged on in Caledon state chat by Lady Edwina Heron and Lady Diamanda Gustafson earlier in the day. (The Caledon Second Anniversary treasure hunt prepared by said ladies and their minions being an enormous success and the occasion for the foolish chatter on the state channel.)

I’m sorry not to have gotten a photo that would do justice to the tiara and <ahem> lovely hair sent to me by Lady Edwina to accompany the tutu, similarly gifted. I was also holding a rather large, winged steampunk wand for most of the evening.

Fascinating blog post at Phasing Grace: Dunbar’s Number - Groups in [our favorite virtual world]. (Dunbar’s Number is a theoretical ceiling to the number of stable social relationships an individual can maintain, often casually said to be 150.)

From a modern world perspective and using social network analysis, Chris Allen hypothesizes that that different group sizes impact a group’s behavior and their choice of processes and tools. Based on empirical data from MMOG and online communities, he suggests that for non-survival groups, the equivalent Dunbar number falls somewhere between 60-90.

Grace makes a fascinating comment that seems apropos to Caledon:

Allen argues that group dynamics have more than just the Dunbar number as a break point; three group size nodes emerge and Allen provides some insight into the group construct as it relates to size. Groups with too few people suffer from insufficient critical mass, experience group think, are unable to sustain conversation and the infamous ‘Echo Chamber’ effect is evident. Read some of Eric Rice’s ‘Echo Chamber’ analysis regarding the failings of artificially small groups, aka elites. Overly large groups have far much too noise and cannot sustain an equal and unstructured trust. Cliques and inappropriate politics emerge and social contracts start to break down. From a [virtual world] perspective, an example of this might be the recent [ordinal number following First] Citizen forum meltdown. Note that it’s the group size that creates the breakdown of the cohesive bonds, not the ‘newbs’. When group sizes grow beyond these normalized sizes, even the most senior members of the group can suffer the ill effects.

You are most cordially invited to join me at my monthly salon, Tuesday 19 February at 5pm SLT, at Ormsby Hall, Caledon Murdann.

The discussion this month will draw upon selections from the writings of William Morris.

Yrs, &c.

Otenth Paderborn

Free THiNC book available through shop.onrez.com or on the dock in Caledon Murdann.

[click to continue...]