KimChapter7, Chapter 7 in Kim2000, EVENTS: Meetings Performances and Competitions
Discussion leader/summarizer: PaulResnick

Key Points/Claims

An event occurs at a specific time and place, and has a beginning, middle, and end. Events provide a focal point for participation, and the types of events a community holds help establish its identity.

There are three types of events:

• meetings are small group gatherings emphasize participation
• performances are larger, more structured gatherings focused around a performer or presentation
• competitions let members compete with each other, for prizes or glory.

Events require planning, around purpose, participants, facilitation, and follow-up.

It's not always a good idea to have events (p. 251). In particular, if a group already meets in person, or prefers asynchronous communication for some reason, they may not need on-line events. And an all-hours chat room may be more useful in some cases than a scheduled chat time.

For meetings, it's helpful to have a topic and a host.
For performances, there are a number of important roles, as listed on p. 259-260: greeters, question screeners, moderator, typist (who types what the performer says, in real time), and overall producer.

Critique

This chapter seems to assume that an "event" requires synchronous interaction. But I have seen online communities hold "events" in the form of a 1-2 week asynchronous discussion focused on a narrower topic than the community's more general conversation. This seems to have much of the same effect of providing a focal point for participation that Kim's synchronous events have.

Connections with other readings, ideas, etc.

Competitions can make good hybrids with performances. That is, if spectators can watch the competition unfold together, they can have a good time interacting. For example, there's an Internet bridge club (bridge is a card game...) that allows spectators to watch a game being played (and see everyone's cards); their comments are visible to other spectators but not to the competitors. Sometimes they even cover live bridge tournaments (such as world championships) by having a typist at the live event recording what happens and spectators commenting on-line.

What kinds of events occur in the community you are studying? Are they well organized? What opportunities do you see for additional events or improvements in existing ones? Post your answers in your blogs...