Whyville demographics

Deborah Fields. A short summary of this paper. The absence of minorities in million registered players ages More recently, this difference has been recast as a sold by other players in Whyville.

But what's and public postings in Whyville. Whyville offers a interesting is that most black faces don't have bodies or if particularly promising context in which to examine racial they do have bodies, they are white. Now I'm not saying self-representation because it is part of a new genre of that anyone in Whyville is exactly racist, but we do have online games that rely on player-generated content.

A small the tendency to only make bodies for white faced number of previous studies have documented racial avatars. What I'm saying is that there are faces other than white ones and we shound [sic] remember that. I am stereotyping found in the available avatar choices in offered trying to produce a whole line of products for black within commercial games [12; 25].

Because these studies avatars and I would appreciate it if some of you out there were set in games that had very limited design choices, their would help. I already have some people working on focus was not on player agency in self-representation but on designs but we need more! If anyone could possibly the gender and racial stereotypes embedded by professional spare some clams to give to this project or make a piece game designers [37].

In online worlds like Whyville and yourself, please contact me about it through Y-Mail. So Teen Second Life, where players themselves are responsible if you are donating clams or making a piece I can record for designing all the avatar parts, a critique of available parts it so people will get the proper credit.

Please Please goes beyond leveling charges of stereotyping in the game Please think about this cause and see if you can support it! This message was posted on June 1st, , in a newspaper article within Whyville. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author. Such about a graphical resources has significance for their identity view of the potential significance of avatars is in line with formation [e.

But in the world of video and role- theories about the role of identity in online game play playing games, where so much teen networking and developed by Gee [13, 14]. Gee suggests that we need to communication takes place, we know little if anything, distinguish between real, virtual and projective identities about race impacts the participation and experiences of when discussing the role of online worlds in identity minorities.

The focus of our paper is to cast a more construction. For instance, even if two players , and observed a community event related to choose the same avatar offered from a set in a game, racial representations within Whyville.

And even in the unlikely event online world where class, race, and gender would not matter that two people do create similar avatars, invested players [e.

The research literature on race in cyberspace, however, is surprisingly limited. Unlike In recognizing these distinctions, it becomes clear that what gender issues, which have received a more extensive we see players do and say online is a complex interplay treatment [6; 19], the issue of race is only now beginning to reflective of past experiences, current interactions, and attract attention. Nakamura [30] and others have argued that projected desires.

Comparisons of [1] that reported on his interactions with another player in a monitored and unmonitored chatrooms found that teens dueling game Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

While the British writer and game representation. For instance, Everett [12] investigated the play his experience demonstrates how people read a variety of qualities that were associated with particular game information presented in online avatars as racial markers, protagonists in Ready to Rumble Boxing, a console game and act accordingly.

Leonard [26] provided For our research, we wanted to examine the ways in which a similar analysis for the popular game GTA3. Our issues of race and diversity were articulated in Whyville, investigation taps into a new area of online virtual worlds focusing on two aspects: avatar designs and public postings. Race has rarely been discussed their liking, which provides a very unfettered arena in in the context of games like WoW; in fact, if and when it which to create virtual and projective identities.

The number and variety of face parts available to create your avatar provide a good indicator of the expressive resources at hand for players to create virtual identities in Whyville. In addition to analyzing the expressive resources for virtual identity construction, we can observe some aspects of projective identity, or how real and virtual identities interact as a player embodies the avatar they have created for themselves, from the first-hand accounts of players who have publicly shared experiences related to creating and embodying avatars of one race or another.

For that reason, we focused on public postings as represented in The Whyville Times because this allowed us to see whether and Figure 1: Chatting on how issues of race in avatar design were brought to a larger the beach in Whyville audience in Whyville.

Our investigation addresses the following questions: To what extent is race discussed in We used the following data sources to examine the role of Whyville public postings? What do Whyvillians have to say race in Avatar construction in Whyville: 1 a content about race in avatar design?

What color diversity and analysis of articles published in The Whyville Times on the inequity is there in face parts currently for sale in topic of race in avatar creation, 2 an assessment of the Whyville? Social discussed race in avatar design, which divided into three interactions with others are the highlight of life in Whyville major themes: postings about of the limited number of non- for most players and consist primarily of ymailing the peach face parts available, experimentation with avatars of Whyville version of email and chatting on the site.

Chat different races, and comments on the practice of assigning takes place in many dozen public and private locations in blank peach faces to newcomers. Like 1. Since user-created faces are the primary representation most other weekly newspapers, reporting in The Whyville of one's presence on Whyville, looks are very important! Our search returned more than articles is creating a personalized face like those worn by more that dealt with race in real-world contexts, such as poems experienced players.

Martin Luther King, Jr. In keeping with our focus on virtual and projective identity construction within MUVEs, only articles about race and representations of race within Whyville.

We used this embedded category structure to organize our search for heads and bodies in different colors. While the 16 face, and bodies torsos complete with clothing to articles about race in avatar design which we identified complete the look. We counted the number of peach, represent a very small sub-set of the public discourse within brown, olive, and yellow blank heads and bodies available Whyville, they are important because some of them and then captured screenshots of all the non-peach heads culminated in a significant community event—the blubie and bodies.

In addition, we collected information on the invasion—which will be discussed shortly. Articles for the name and manufacturer of each face part. So while, as the inconsistencies, we used Adobe Photoshop to assess the discussion below will demonstrate, published articles RGB value for each shade of head and checked that the represent a wide variety of opinions on most subjects, we numerical parameters for what we had labeled peach, can not assume that the articles selected for publication are brown, olive, and yellow face parts did not overlap see perfectly representative of Whyvillians' views because we Table 1.

This also gave us a tool for assessing whether do not know all the selection criteria that influence what is particular faces and bodies matched precisely. Table 1: Frequency of different colors of heads and bodies. Discussion of head and body colors available.

In all, six articles addressed this concern during and The logical thing, obviously, is design it for yourself. Instead of telling us we could get rich off of making dark skinned clothes, take advantage of your own advice -- Table 1 summarizes frequency counts for all non-peach YOU could.

RGB values. While heads came in 12 separate RGB the hands of Whyvillians themselves. The role of user- values, there were only 8 RGB values of bodies available. Because bodies come complete with clothes, only having one body for your head means wearing In , the tone of the public discussion of head and body the same clothes all the time. I am here to report that things have Public comments about Race changed, thanks to those designers who took a chance Since the founding of Whyville.

Even those who do not necessarily have darker skin outside of fashion trends and entertainment events within Whyville Whyville choose to wear items of this sort. Her motivation to be a relatively short supply of non-peach bodies to choose create a Latina look stemmed from imagining the from.

I bought a positive after changing her looks. She did not report any of head, ears and a shirt -- but I was appalled at how few the problems that Samgirl21 and Artista reported in their Latino parts there actually were. However, not all members of the Whyville. An anonymous author [2] responded doubtfully to limited to discussions of available face parts.

Three authors Black Like Me, saying: wrote articles sharing their experiences of life in Whyville I thought that what this girl was saying can't be true.

I playing brown or olive avatars. These authors describe their have a couple of friends who are black on Whyville and interactions with other Whyvillians while they embodied are very popular, one of them a very good friend of their new, racialized avatars. Because they deal with mine. Samgirl described her first day playing as her adults in non-virtual settings.

Taken together, these four new black avatar in her article Black Like Me [34]: articles paint a picture of the kind of experimentation with Surprisingly, a girl that I vaguely knew was there and avatar race that go on in Whyville, and the community immediately approached me. I was All these postings about race in The Whyville Times need to appalled! I couldn't believe that this happened on my be seen in relation to the over 30, face parts available to first day, my first hour of being a black Whyvillian.

Whyville citizens. Early for sale were brown, including eight separate brown tones. More designers attempted felt she had learned something more about herself and other non-peach heads than bodies. The 45 non-peach heads were Whyvillians.

All bodies, in contrast, yourself in that position. Be a minority in Whyville for a were made by just 13 people 8 of whom had also made day. Be black like me. Beginning in , Whyvillians began to publicly articulate critique of this practice of assigning peach smiley faces to newbies. The first face you get in Whyville is Caucasian. If we can't do this, maybe we could all Bringing race and avatar design together: The Bluebie start out as some unusual color that we ALL know most Invasion likely nobody has of skin tone, like green or blue!

In a later-published online chat with a place in May with the Blubie Invasion. The Whyville designer, Mitsuy suggested that if randomly background of the Blubie Invasion centers on the fact that assigning newbie colors or allowing members to pick a when new members join Whyville, they are assigned newbie color was too taxing for the servers, the company generic peach smiley faces see Figure 3, left.

A few days later, Whyvilians logged on to discover that all newbies were now sporting blue smiley faces instead of the familiar peach color, instantly resulting in a new term unique to Whyville. Overall this change seems to have happened without much protest, evidenced by a lack of any article protesting Fig. The experienced community members. There is of course a probably because the faces look like oblong peach potatoes. But also in to the default peach smiley face.

This is an example of how real world racial representations of self, created by players. Our interest in differences can transfer into virtual communities. The online presence that they are only present in small numbers.

The present in society and cover the whole gamut from newspaper postings about racial identity indicate that at ostracism to lack of choices. But we also want to add a least some of the Whyvillians consider race when crafting a word of caution because the number of contributions is virtual identity.

She decided to change her about other Whyville events and activities. After therefore are malleable.

The change of the default setting considering this projective identity, she re-worked her from a light-skinned to a blue-skinned oval may seem virtual identity to correspond more closely with her real- trivial at first, but leaves players a choice of what to adopt world appearance.

It is not clear how many Whyvillians as their virtual identity [14]. If anyone could possibly spare some While identification with racial and ethnic identity starts at clams to give to this project or make a piece yourself, a much younger age [33], our teen players are in a prime please contact me about it through Y-Mail. Since at least some players opportunity [16].

Beyond having access to years. And in this particular virtual world, user participation resources for constructing non-white virtual identities, an in content generation may have improved the diversity of important milestone in ethnic identity development for parts available.

More people participated in designing adolescents of all races is to become aware of racial issues heads, and there was a greater diversity of part colors and to realize that different people are having different among heads. Less people participated in designing bodies, experiences and developing different points of view on and there was less diversity in part colors. This holds true race.

There is an educational opportunity, therefore, for despite the fact that there are about five times more bodies designers to make space within games and virtual worlds for sale than heads, so all things being equal, one would for discussion of race in virtual contexts [9]. These kind of have expected to see more different colors in that category.

At first, the spots looked like freckles on the cartoon-like avatars of visitors to the science education Web site called Whyville. Then they developed into red acne-like welts. And it proved to be a terrific motivator on a site dominated by adolescent girls who are as image-obsessed in cyberspace as they are in the hallways of their junior high schools.

It also was an example of why an innovative attempt to mine the educational potential of the Internet is gaining international attention among adolescents and researchers alike. The philosophy of Whyville www. Some close watchers of Whyville worry, however, that users get so wrapped up in activities such as choosing lips and noses for their digital faces and chatting that science becomes secondary to socializing.

Yet researchers also theorize that those aspects of Whyville help explain why more than two-thirds of its , registered users are female, most between 11 and Kafai, a UCLA researcher who studies computerized learning environments.

Now the agency is underwriting a study to figure out the formula and how it can be improved upon in designing computer software, and even in setting up classrooms.

One goal of the NSF study is to analyze how much the citizens of Whyville are actually learning about science through all those activities. From there, the pox spread through contact. And as it did, so did rumors and panic. Soon pox-free Whyvillians were shunning the infected.

Deviously enterprising users began offering fake cures. A lively trade in skin-colored digital cover-ups and paper bags with eyeholes emerged. But, whether or not she liked it, Jessica wanted to figure out what was going on. There she encountered a simulation of how disease spreads, a real-time graph of how many Whyvillians had been infected and links to an actual newspaper article about a wave of real unexplained rashes affecting East Coast schools.

James N. Most Web sites for children focus on either entertainment or the traditional educational format in which users answer questions based on posted texts. Worried about liability, the majority have banned chat and are tightly formatted by adults.

Whyville, in contrast, is an open-ended learning community that evolves day to day. Bower is a pioneer in the field of computational biology, which involves devising mathematical models to represent biological processes.