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 Melissia wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
That seems to be your main problem with the way the term 'gamer' is actually used (as a kind of tribal affiliation) as opposed to the way that you would prefer (to undermine that tribal affiliation).

Tribalism is the root of a lot of violence and hate, yes.

While another word "community" has the connotation of support and structure.

Tribalism - the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group.

Community - a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

So I guess the only differences are a degree of blind fanaticism associated with Tribalism while the other is self affirming commonality (right or wrong morally).

So the KKK or the "he-man woman haters club" (Little Rascals tv series) could fit either description I guess.

Any affiliation can easily create an "us or them" condition so the root of violence and hate is more appropriately disassociating from others: failing to see your connection to another human being and their relevance to you.

Careful use of an association label can help forge connections, it is just really handy to think of others when you run into someone new.

 Melissia wrote:
Outside of the marketplace, I can't see any relevant uses for the former.

The marketplace?
For a very basic example of what I meant, if I know someone regularly plays games, I will expect him or her to be more likely interested in talking about games, so I would be much more like to bring up the subject in a conversation than with someone who does not play games regularly. I would also be much more likely to involve them in other gaming-related activity. Even if I somehow do end up showing a game to a person that do not regularly plays game, I would explain things about it that I would take for granted that someone who regularly plays game already know.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Tribalism is the root of a lot of violence and hate, yes.

While another word "community" has the connotation of support and structure.

Excellent point.

We could say that community is for looking to each other while tribe is for looking outside to others.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
things about it that I would take for granted that someone who regularly plays game already know.

In my experience, me being a gamer has never stopped this from being an assumption frequently proven wrong.

I never played Black and White, or the Earthbound series. Assuming that I, as a gamer, must have in-depth knowledge of them will invariably lead to you having to explain things to me.

Meanwhile, I have played a lot of games that very few people on this forum have played, just on account of my age and when I started playing. A lot of people have never played, for example, E.T. on Atari (insert ominous thunder, here). I own it.

I swear its cartridge stares at me whenever I pass by my collection of older games.

But if I talk about it, a lot of people on this forum have to have it explained to them.

It is pretty unlikely that anyone posting ITT -- in the video game section of a miniatures war gaming forum -- is not a gamer. I don't think we should be using ourselves as hypothetical examples of non-gamers.

If that was a response to my last post, Manchu, you completely missed the point of my response to Hybrid Son of Oxayotl.

TBH I wasn't responding to your point but rather to the trend throughout the thread to say "X definition would not include me."

 Melissia wrote:
In my experience, me being a gamer has never stopped this from being an assumption frequently proven wrong.

Do you know what a NPC is? Are you familiar with concepts such as experience points and levels ? Are you aware of what first person view and third person view means?
That is the kind of stuff that I would need to explain to my parents, but that I would assume you to know. Not the intricacies of a specific title.

That's funny I have to explain that stuff to my parents too even though they play more often than I do.

I know many who aren't gamers who understand what those things are. Then again, I suppose it depends on if you include PnP games or board games.

 Melissia wrote:
I know many who aren't gamers who understand what those things are.

I assume you do not mean that they never played a game once in their entire lifetime, right?
Those specific examples were very close to what you get in PnP roleplaying games, except for the third person/first person, but I am sure there are other examples that would be more specific to video games.

First person and third person are common literary terms, they aren't unique to gaming.

Anyone who's had high-school level literature classes should understand them.

 Melissia wrote:
First person and third person are common literary terms, they aren't unique to gaming.

First person view and third person view, though, are concepts that many people have never encountered. It is not the same thing as first person/third person narration, which people are much more likely to be familiar with.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
First person and third person are common literary terms, they aren't unique to gaming.

First person view and third person view, though, are concepts that many people have never encountered. It is not the same thing as first person/third person narration, which people are much more likely to be familiar with.

Uh... no?

They're pretty common ideas even amongst cinema and storytelling. They're nowhere NEAR exclusive to gaming, in fact, they're thousands of years older than gaming.

 Melissia wrote:
They're pretty common ideas even amongst cinema and storytelling.

I can only think of two movies that make use of a first person view (outside of horror movies where you get shot that can be or not be from the eyes of the monster): Doom, and Enter the void. In Doom, it is a reference to video games…

 Melissia wrote:
They're nowhere NEAR exclusive to gaming, in fact, they're thousands of years older than gaming.

Uh, no.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
They're pretty common ideas even amongst cinema and storytelling.

I can only think of two movies that make use of a first person view (outside of horror movies where you get shot that can be or not be from the eyes of the monster): Doom, and Enter the void. In Doom, it is a reference to video games…

 Melissia wrote:
They're nowhere NEAR exclusive to gaming, in fact, they're thousands of years older than gaming.

Uh, no.

As storytelling concepts, first person, second person, and third person are indeed that much older.

If you understand first person storytelling, you understand what a first person view is. It's really that simple.

Games did not re-invent the wheel, Oxayotl. They didn't need to.

 Melissia wrote:
As storytelling concepts, first person, second person, and third person are indeed that much older.

I know, I spoke about it here.

 Melissia wrote:
If you understand first person storytelling, you understand what a first person view is. It's really that simple.

For a gamer that is pretty familiar with the concept, sure it is. Would you make the test of asking someone very unfamiliar about video game to see if that is that obvious to him? Personally, I would explain this to a non-gamer, but assume a gamer already knows about it.

Assuming they had a high school or college education, yes, I would.

My parents both have PhD. I would still explain it to them.

Neither of my parents are gamers or college-educated (though my mother is getting in to it these days), and they didn't need an explanation.

1st/2nd/3rd person is EXTREMELY common knowledge amongst people of even basic education. I'd be surprised that someone could go to college these days without encountering it at least once in, say, English Composition classes.

Again, first/second/third person is common knowledge and my parents know about it. First person/third person view is not common knowledge, and inferring what it is is not obvious. If I tell them “Julius Caesar spoke about himself in third person”, they will understand (and likely already know about it), but if I tell them “Enter the void has some sequences that are filmed in first person view”, they will not have any idea of what I am talking about.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Again, first/second/third person is common knowledge and my parents know about it. First person/third person view is

... the same damned thing.

When you are taught 1+2=3, you're generslly not taught to memorize 1+2=3, but also taught to be able to understand that 1+3=4, too. That's really the level of difference between the two concepts here.

Well, this is where we disagree.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
In my experience, me being a gamer has never stopped this from being an assumption frequently proven wrong.

Do you know what a NPC is? Are you familiar with concepts such as experience points and levels ? Are you aware of what first person view and third person view means?
That is the kind of stuff that I would need to explain to my parents, but that I would assume you to know. Not the intricacies of a specific title.

Glad you guys brought this up.
I have heard this mentioned somewhere and seen it demonstrated that groups sometimes develop their own language when it starts leaning toward "exclusiveness" rather than being inclusive.

Have a friend learning to be a nurse and was complaining that all the Latin terms the medical profession uses have perfectly serviceable English equivalents but seems to be different wording for the sake of it.

NPC, PC, GM, Thac0, D20, Chaotic Neutral, Wandering Monster... second nature to those who played Dungeons and Dragons for any length of time.

I had a meeting with engineers from Ford Automotive for a vehicle launch, we had a "recommended" document on acronyms that was some 20 pages long, in that meeting we barely had a clue what they were talking about, it was nuts.

The understanding of "common" wording within a given culture or group would have little impact on that person being an actual member, it will however diminish their acceptance in the group if they cannot speak the language and may have them labeled as a a "poser".

 Talizvar wrote:
I have heard this mentioned somewhere and seen it demonstrated that groups sometimes develop their own language when it starts leaning toward "exclusiveness" rather than being inclusive.

It is not just words, it is also concepts and ideas. And developing specific terms is normal. I could not explain to you the subject of my PhD without using the specific terms because there are no other terms to describe it.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
In my experience, me being a gamer has never stopped this from being an assumption frequently proven wrong.

Do you know what a NPC is? Are you familiar with concepts such as experience points and levels ? Are you aware of what first person view and third person view means?
That is the kind of stuff that I would need to explain to my parents, but that I would assume you to know. Not the intricacies of a specific title.

Glad you guys brought this up.
I have heard this mentioned somewhere and seen it demonstrated that groups sometimes develop their own language when it starts leaning toward "exclusiveness" rather than being inclusive.

Have a friend learning to be a nurse and was complaining that all the Latin terms the medical profession uses have perfectly serviceable English equivalents but seems to be different wording for the sake of it.

NPC, PC, GM, Thac0, D20, Chaotic Neutral, Wandering Monster... second nature to those who played Dungeons and Dragons for any length of time.

I had a meeting with engineers from Ford Automotive for a vehicle launch, we had a "recommended" document on acronyms that was some 20 pages long, in that meeting we barely had a clue what they were talking about, it was nuts.

The understanding of "common" wording within a given culture or group would have little impact on that person being an actual member, it will however diminish their acceptance in the group if they cannot speak the language and may have them labeled as a a "poser".

Also having your own terms & language isn't be exclusive. I'm pretty sure most people would be willing to teach you the terms if you'd ask.

In your Ford meeting, they gave you the resource to follow along, that's being inclusive. Did anyone at Ford actually call you a poser? I used to call people 'the new guy' til the got the hang of things, but never heard of anyone getting called a poser.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
I have heard this mentioned somewhere and seen it demonstrated that groups sometimes develop their own language when it starts leaning toward "exclusiveness" rather than being inclusive.

It is not just words, it is also concepts and ideas. And developing specific terms is normal. I could not explain to you the subject of my PhD without using the specific terms because there are no other terms to describe it.

Using the commonly accepted wording gives a better impression of understanding = eloquence.
Using less direct descriptors will still give the impression of comprehension issues because it would appear fumbling: why did they not use the correct term?
I have some trouble with the claim that no other words can describe a given concept, maybe not well, but not fail completely.
(The subject of your Phd is sounding intriguing.)

But it's usually best to take a term that is extremely similar and also very well known (in this case, first and third person perspective) and use or modify that for your new idea (in this case, first and third person camera views).

 Talizvar wrote:
I have some trouble with the claim that no other words can describe a given concept, maybe not well, but not fail completely.

Well, you could use periphrasis, but that would only make it longer, and basically amount to giving the definition every time again, I guess.

 Talizvar wrote:
(The subject of your Phd is sounding intriguing.)

I am working in graph theory. We are looking at stuff like finding a FPT algorithm that solves finding a minimum tropical dominant set in a given vertex-colored graph in polynomial time. “Tropical” is a notion that we introduced ourselves. All those terms (except maybe for graph and vertex because it is something anyone interested in reading the thesis would already know) are going to be, of course, defined at the beginning of the thesis, but not using those terms in the text would make it much more tedious to read.Also I could explain about everything needed to understand that first sentence in about 10 minutes at a cafe provided you are not too drunk and we have pen and paper, I guess. It is not a complex or hard to understand problem, it just requires a few definition that you have no reason to have heard about before.

sirlynchmob wrote:
Also having your own terms & language isn't be exclusive. I'm pretty sure most people would be willing to teach you the terms if you'd ask.

This is the problem with dealing in general concepts, yes, many will be happy to teach as a means to increase members to the group. But the new words and terms act as a barrier to understanding until they are learned = barrier to participation in the group.

In your Ford meeting, they gave you the resource to follow along, that's being inclusive. Did anyone at Ford actually call you a poser? I used to call people 'the new guy' til the got the hang of things, but never heard of anyone getting called a poser.

No, they did not give us the material to follow along, we were warned <edit>(by people in our company that knew better).
They DID have it in their body of documents we had access to, so they had an official document to point to for their correct usage.
We did not have access to that document until we were confirmed in their system as an official supplier (part of the group).
Poser, new guy, newbie, wet behind the ears, on probation, new supplier pre-Q1 certification (Ford) all words for a new member that has not been fully accepted into the group.

Ah! Scribed got a hold of some of it, the official document is still locked away in the Ford ctis site.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/94341190/FORD-Acronyms-Booklet
13 pages and they did not get past "A" yet... <edit>(it has grown a lot since I last saw it)