One member of the community sends another–a soldier in Iraq–care packages. Another meets his wife through a community member. A group of members gives a high school graduation gift of $500 to a younger member of the community. These community events did not happen in a work place, neighborhood, or church. The aforementioned community doesn’t meet in a building. Instead, they meet virtually on an online message board, Billikens.com.
The users of the Billikens.com Message Board, also referred to as Billikens.com, came together through a common interest in a basketball team. Some would argue that this common interest alone makes the users a community. Lee Komito of the University College of Dublin, Ireland believes, “If a group of people share a common value…, they constitute a community.” (Komito) This is one of the numerous definitions of community. Billikens.com’s community consists of more than the discussion of a common interest. Members for more than 9 years have learned more about one another through the discussion, and the community slowly developed and grew from an online community into a real community. The important part of the community is what was created during this development, relationships.
Many people believe that real relationships cannot form or develop via modem. Mathias Muller in his contribution to the essay “Online Communities” states that in communities “You have to keep human relationships [sic] but you cannot do this via the Internet.” (Muller, et al.) Billikens.com proves Muller incorrect because relationships between humans have been created and kept alive primarily through an online forum. Paul van Sluombrack of the Christian Science Moniter also disagrees with Muller. He believes that relationships can develop on the Internet. (Sluombrack) In some cases, the digital community’s users bond and develop relationships, and it is those bonds that hold the community together as much as, if not more than the common interest.
Since all of the evolution and development primarily happens online, it is consistent with Ray Oldenburg’s beliefs about communities. Oldenburg, as summarized by Howard Rheingold, believes:
“there are three essential places in people’s lives: the place we live, the place we work, and the place we gather for conviviality. Although the casual conversation that takes place in cafes, beauty shops, pubs, and town squares is universally considered to be trivial, idle talk, Oldenburg makes the case that such places are where communities can come into being and continue to hold together.” (Rheingold)
The online forum on Billikens.com is a place where people gather for conviviality. This virtual location takes the place of a beauty shop or pub for the users of the community. One community member, billiken_roy, stated, “it [Billikens.com] is like the old time neighborhood bar. we [the users] all gather to swap stories, boasts, rumors, etc about our favorite subject the Billikens [the Saint Louis University Men’s Basketball team].” (Rogers Survey) This belief is not just billiken_roy’s. Many users share his sentiment. (Rogers Survey)
Billikens.com is a real community because of its users. They were brought together through their common interest, and through it relationships developed. This development was how the bar-like atmosphere formed. The bar-like atmosphere reaffirms Billikens.com’s status as a community by the definition of Oldenburg because it satisfies his “place where we gather for conviviality” (Rheingold). This atmosphere can be used to justify more than just Oldenburg’s definition, which is not the only definition of what constitutes a community.
Komito’s and Oldenburg’s definitions disagree; where one focuses on a community interest and the other on a third place in people’s lives. They are not the only two conflicting opinions on the subject. There are numerous differing opinions on what constitutes a community. This paper proposes a definition of community primarily offered by Billikens.com user davidnark. He stated, in describing how Billikens.com was a real community, “Like any community, we have basic rules, formal and informal allegiances and loyalties, leaders and followers, and great discussions. We also know each others’ personalities, opinions, and habits.” (Narkiewicz) These things are all aspects of a real community, and they would not exist without relationships, which in this paper are considered to be the foundation of what a real community is built upon.
Research Methodology
Author as Research Subject
I, Steve Rogers, have been an extremely active participant in the Billikens.com Message Board and its predecessor for more than eight years, and I have been the owner and operator of the message board for more than two years. Those positions have given me the ability to ban users, delete posts, and act as an authority over the board. Because of these responsibilities, there are few who are more involved in this message board than me. My heavy involvement caused multiple problems when researching this paper. First, my experience in the subject matter makes me believe that I am more knowledgeable than many of the other people who write about online communities. Therefore, in my research, I have been resistant to believing many opinions that differ from my own, and I had much resistance and difficulty being academically objective. It was not easy to apply scholarly third parties to something that I knew and cared so much about. In my research I made an honest effort to overcome my resistance and biases, and to let my findings speak for themselves.
Users as Research Subject
There are studies that examine online communities from a “fly on the wall” perspective and simply report the numbers. One example of this is the report presented on online communities by the Pew Internet Report. (Pew) Studies like these are more quantitative and have merit, but I believe qualitative studies are equally important. There is more to online communities than what can be plugged into a calculator. To analyze the qualitative component of the Billikens.com online community, an informal survey was created. Through a post on the message board, users were asked to complete the survey: 141 users responded and answered up to 20 multiple choice and free response questions. (Rogers Survey) The quotes used in this paper are verbetum except for what is in brackets, which is for the purpose of clarity.
There were some questions that only individual users needed to address. Therefore three users, davidnark, Triangle and Too, and billiken_roy were asked by e-mail to respond to specific questions. davidnark and Triangle and Too were the only respondents.
Because online names follow their own set of capitalization and word combining conventions, Billikens.com users’ usernames within this paper will be italicized for clarity.
Message Posts
Other primary research came from the message board itself. This research mainly consists of statements by users that were posted on the board. Also, some fundamental aspects of traditional communities are assumed as common knowledge within the paper.
History of Billikens.com Community
The first message board about the Saint Louis University (SLU) Men’s Basketball team, also known as the Billikens, was created more than 9 years ago by SLU alum David Narkiewicz. In an e-mail from David, he stated that he learned a little about web design from his sister’s boyfriend, and he created simple web pages about his hobbies including the Billikens. One of the people who found the site, to David’s recollection, was Roy Mueller. Roy suggested that David add a message board to his page. So one night David researched how to make a message board and created one. (Narkiewicz) It was an extremely simple message board with the script actually being designed for online guestbook purposes. After the board’s creation, a loyal membership started to form without any promotion by David.
The popularity of the board increased during the next few years. To accommodate this growth, David decided to move it to a more professional site, Rivals.com (Rivals), which provided David with a message board that had more features than his old board. In addition, it offered news, statistics, and recruiting information for users. Many college sports discussion groups like David’s were hosted on Rivals. (Rival Networks) They are extremely popular because 42% of Internet users are “sports junkies.” (Pew) David’s web site and message board were now officially called “Billikenboard”. The popularity of the board continued to grow for about three years at Rivals before Rivals.com filed for bankruptcy. (Narkiewicz) Immediately after this, the message board was moved to another site, Billikens.com. A month later official ownership and operational duties of the message board shifted from David to Steve Rogers. The message board currently resides on Steve Rogers’ site, Billikens.com.
Culture of Users
Longevity of Users’ Participation
Like many communities, Billikens.com has members who have been active participants for many years. The majority has participated from one to five years. There are still some active users who first participated on David’s original board. (Rogers Survey) New members routinely join the discussion. Some choose to stay longer than others, and they vary in their amount of participation. The longer a user participates, the more likely they are to think of Billikens.com as a real community. Just more than 66 percent of all of users believe that Billikens.com is a real community. Meanwhile 100 percent of the eleven users who have been around for more than seven years believe Billikens.com is a real community. This is similar to many traditional communities. Those that have been around a group longer tend to have a greater sense of community within that group.
Social Status of Users
Like many communities, there is a hierarchy on Billikens.com. A user’s hierarchical placement and reputation is sometimes established by how long they have participated in the community and how they participate. One of these users is billiken_roy whose real name is Roy. In the survey, he was the person who was specifically mentioned most. One question asked, “Please tell a story (length doesn’t matter) about one of your meetings with a person from the board?” Of the stories given, almost half of the people mentioned billiken_roy. (Rogers Survey) His reputation is so established that he was mentioned on a local sports radio station. (Rogers, et al.) Although, being an established and prominent member of the community has its setbacks. Roy is sometimes a divisive figure.
As it is for most in society with established reputations, there are some who like Roy and others that dislike him. One poster, Hard Foul, stated, “His opinion is the only correct one and will comment on everything. I think he is truly impressed with how many posts he has.” (“Rating for billiken_roy.”) Another poster, Triangle and Too said, “Rarely begins any thread. Rarely starts any interesting topics of discussion. Totally subjective which probably interferes with and hides his true basketball knowledge.” (“Rating for billiken_roy.”) Those two statements were taken from the User Ratings feature of the Billikens.com Message Board, which is an area where posters can give positive and negative feedback to others. Though Roy has the two aforementioned negative feedbacks, he also has fourteen positive feedbacks. One states, “He has a great passion for his Billikens and was one of the people that really popularized the original billikenboard.” (“Rating for billiken_roy.”) Roy’s established reputation and the amount of time he has participated on the board are not the only reasons he is divisive. His extremity is sometimes a cause.
Problems Users’ Have with the Community
Extremity of Some Posters and its Effects
The extremity of a few users is considered by some to be the biggest problem facing the community. Regarding some topics, a few posters are almost religious in their beliefs. One poster stated the following regarding the atmosphere of the board, “It is welcoming but some folks don’t take to well to outsiders who don’t share their views, even if there is nothing insulting about what they are saying.” (Rogers Survey) This statement has some validity.
If a newer member posts something on the board that is not consistent with the opinion of the majority or an extremist, they can be expect to be attacked. While this may be a negative quality of the community, it further establishes that Billikens.com’s community is real. On Billikens.com, users frequently disagree about certain issues ranging from political candidates to who is the best point guard; although on many issues, they hold a unanimous opinion. These events can be tied back to Oldenburg’s and Komito’s definitions of community. Sometimes in their third place, the community is passionately in disagreement about something that can be considered a trivial issue, which satisfies Oldenburg, but they maintain their common interest, which satisfies Komito. (Rheingold) (Komito) The extremists are often targeted as the cause of the unwelcoming atmosphere on Billikens.com because they typically are the biggest pushers of a sentiment. Therefore the sentiment and the extremist sometimes become interchanged in the minds of posters, since it is almost impossible to think of one without the other.
The issue that brings out the most extremity is the topic of University of Missouri, or Mizzou. It is one of the most discussed topic on the board. The majority of users tend to dislike Mizzou for a multitude of reasons. One reason is the history between the basketball programs, and another is the treatment SLU fans receive from Mizzou fans. One poster accurately described it as an ““us vs. them” mentality”. (Rogers Survey)
One of the former members of the board that went against the common sentiment and falls into the “them” side was Triangle and Too. He was a poster who appeared on the message board in 2000. Roy, a part of the “us”, was not a fan of him from the beginning. Triangle and Too called Billikens.com “a “community” of the Middle Ages, a “community” of Darkness and Suppression, one that does not have a spirit of “community” decency.” (Fluegal) This opinion is almost assuredly a result of the treatment he received from Roy and others. According to Triangle and Too, “the “—-“ hit the fan immediately after my initial first weeks of postings – led by none other than Billiken Roy. It seemed Too be at first centered on both my attending Mizzou and my criticism of Coach Romar [Former SLU Head Coach].” (Fluegal) Roy really liked Romar, as a person and as a coach. He still defends him even though currently the majority opinion of the board disagrees concerning Romar’s coaching ability. The feuds between Triangle and Too and billiken_roy sometimes got out of hand. When it did, the quality of the discussion on the board was hurt. While the feuding hurt the discussion, it further established that Billikens.com is similar to real community because in real communities there is often inner damaging feuding about some trivial matters, which is once again consistent with Oldenburg’s definition (Rheingold). Almost no communities are completely harmonious, as is the case with Billikens.com.
Anonymity of Users
The reason why Triangle and Too stopped participating on the board was because other posters found out who he really was, and he was not comfortable with his name being posted on the board. (Fluegal) He preferred being anonymous, as some posters on Billikens.com do. Some of the users who said in the survey that Billikens.com wasn’t a community stated that anonymity of users was a reason why. (Rogers Survey) The users of the board can hide behind a username without sharing much information about them. Problems concerning usernames any annoymity were of grave concern in the years that the community was on Rivals and the first year of Billikens.com. Although as time progressed, people became more trusting and shared more about themselves. The development of trust through sharing shows how Billikens.com was not initially a real community, but how it grew into one.
History of Message Board Problems with Anonymity
The message board originally did not require registration, which means users did not have to only use one username. The only way users could identify themselves on David’s original board was by typing their desired username into a form that did not require a password, so anyone could post under any name, even someone else’s. It was all based on trust that no one would use anyone else’s username. This system carried over when David moved the board to Rivals.
Eventually, people started to use names that were not theirs. This presented a problem. Since “The uniqueness of names, their consistent use, and respect for–and expectation of–their integrity, is crucial to the development of online communities.” (Reid) Therefore debate began about whether the message board should switch to a registered format. As a compromise to alleviate the problem, David created two boards. One required registration, and one did not. The non-registration board was titled, “Talkin’ B-Ball Trash Board”, or Trash Board. Then to give anyone the ability to contribute to the registration board, David created the username “billikenguest” and made the password public. Therefore, anyone could post with anonymity on either board without the possibility of people using each other’s names. There were a significant number of users who resisted registering and posted solely on the Trash Board. This somewhat splintered the discussion between the two boards and was the way things were done until the board moved to Billikens.com.
After the move, everything, at first, remained the same except the billikenguest option was removed. Gradually the Trash Board’s content increasingly became unacceptable. Users were posting profane messages, slanderous statements, and unfounded claims. This problem is not unique to Billikens.com, it occurs on many online message boards. (Bressers) Because of this, some registered posters switched to another site, CUSA-Talk.com, to continue their Billiken discussion. Eventually so many people moved to CUSA-Talk.com that the discussion on Billikens.com’s registered board started to degrade. (CUSA-Talk) Therefore, Steve Rogers, as the board’s administrator, made the decision to get rid of the Trash Board. Not all of the users were happy with the decision, but the registered board returned to its normal quality. One poster still reminds the board of the registered versus the non-registered era by using the username tseugnekillib, billikenguest spelled backwards.
Development Away from Anonymity and Towards Community
One of the few posters who has been around for more than eight years stated in his survey, “I have seen a change in the board in that there are more posts which are revealing more personal information and requests to contact others. People are self-disclosing more which I see as the maturing of the board. Trust levels are increasing and defenses are lessening.” (Rogers Survey) This statement is describes how Billikens.com became a community and was not one from the beginning.
The users of the board are more open and trusting than they used to be. People used to be resistant of registering, yet alone sharing personal information with board members. Recently there was one post started by former_d1 where there were 141 responses to “who is everyone?” People posted where they lived, what their professions were, and all sorts of information. Many posters said where their seats were at the Billikens game. (Emmert) While the members may learn a lot about each other through intentional sharing, they also learn more about one another through a consistency throughout posts. As NashvilleBilliken put it in response to whether or not he believed Billikens.com was real community, “I do because people know so much about each other and become accustomed to each other. I would lost with out the ultimate homer billiken_roy, the always PC thicks, the “I don’t give a crap” attitude of Billiken Rich, and so many others.” (Rogers Survey) Users also expand their communication and contact with one another beyond the message board with them going out and meeting each other.
Half of the people who participated in the survey have actually met someone from the message board in real life. (Rogers Survey) Posters have met each other in a number of ways. Some simply met at a SLU Booster Club meeting. (Rogers Survey) There was an instance where one poster met another while he was on vacation to Florida. (Mueller) There is another instance in which two posters, one from North Carolina and another from South Carolina, met each other at a game in Charlotte. (Cooper) These people probably would have never met without the message board.
Through meetings like these not only does the anonymity decrease amongst posters, but something else happens. Friendships from the board evolve to a new level; this is what makes Billikens.com a real community. Roy wasn’t the only one to relate Billikens.com to a friendly bar, 3star_recruit called it “The internet equivalent of Cheers.” This and Roy’s statement are almost exactly how Howard Rheingold described his feelings of the online community WELL. “The feeling of logging into the WELL for just a minute or two, dozens of times a day, is very similar to the feeling of peeking into the cafe, the pub, the common room, to see who’s there, and whether you want to stay around for a chat.” (Rheingold) This feeling of going to Oldenburg’s third place, and then being with friends who you know and who know you is what makes a community. At Cheers people shout out “Norm!” They also know everyone’s quirks, and it is a community because of the relationships and the atmosphere that those relationships bring. (Cheers) With Billikens.com, people are not sitting on stools at the bar but desk chairs at their computer. Their discussions through the Internets build friendships. When people post something to the message board, they are speaking to a group of friends that they know and belong to, and it doesn’t matter that some posters never meet. The important thing is their relationship with the person behind the username. Those relationships are the foundation of the Billikens.com community.
It is appropriate to end with the creator of the message board, David Narkiewicz. Restating what he said when describing Billikens.com as a community, “Like any community, we have basic rules, formal and informal allegiances and loyalties, leaders and followers, and great discussions. We also know each others’ personalities, opinions, and habits.” (Narkiewicz) All of these things are possible because of the users’ relationships. David may have created the first message board, and technically I have maintained the message board, but the community was created and maintained by the Billikens.com users.
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