Topic
UPDATED 03/15: Collecting Your (Player AND Staff) Glitchstories: A Professional Oral History Project
Egad, only ten more days?!?! When the forums close, so will the surveys. So if you want to talk about your Glitch experience, now's the time!
If you'd like to see more than 200 player Glitchstories, keep an eye on http://glitchstories.rdonahue.net/, which is where they'll be posted. Thank you to everyone who's contributed, and thanks especially to those who gave permission to share their responses in full!
Player Glitchstories
Staff Glitchstories
Hello, Glitchen! In real life, I'm an archivist and a videogame preservation researcher. I have honest-to-goodness credentials, which you can feel free to read at your leisure (http://rdonahue.net/RDonahue_CV112012.pdf). As soon as I heard Glitch was closing, I started thinking about how I could use my skills to help preserve its history. With a console game, you can pretty much just keep a playable copy of the game, and you're ok.* Not perfect, but ok. Saving an MMO, on the other hand, is more akin to saving the history of a small town--without the community, you have nothing. Part of preserving the history of a community is conducting oral histories with its members--I want to collect YOUR individual Glitchstories to help preserve the history of the game.
But there are a lot of us. Like, a LOT. So I'm taking a short cut and "conducting the interviews" through SurveyMonkey. These surveys are full of open-ended questions designed to gather your stories in as much detail as possible. I DO want to conduct a few real, synchronous oral history interviews, and there's a spot at the end of the survey where you can indicate your willingness to participate.
With the exception of the age verification question at the start, every question is optional. If you can't think of an answer to one right now, that's ok--you can go back to it at the end. If you have cookies enabled, you can go back to the survey at any time, so you can stretch it out over a few days. Please ramble as much as you'd like, and don't feel like you have to write beautiful prose with complete sentences and stunning metaphors. Bullet points and stream-of-consciousness-type writing are very welcome.
There's one survey for Tiny Speck staff, and one for players. Staff are welcome to take both if they're feeling really bored/generous. There's a question in the player survey asking if you developed API tools--if you did, you'll get a few targeted questions about it, so keep an eye out.
Staff Survey: http://surveymonkey.com/s/glitch-devs
Player Survey: http://surveymonkey.com/s/glitch-players
I'll leave both surveys open for at least a month. After it's closed, I'll do two things with the responses. First, and most interesting to yous, I'll post full "transcripts" publicly on the web (in cases where I have permission, which you must explicitly give). Second, I'll be using them to inform my dissertation on working with and preserving videogames and the records of their development. That'll be public on the web, too, but probably not as interesting to read.
Thank you so, so, soooooo much for donating your time to reading this post and (hopefully) preserving the history of Ur and all the Glitchen who lived there.
*This is a vast over-simplification. But suffice it to say it's much less complicated than an MMO!
ETA: FAQs
Can I share this link beyond the forums?
Yes! Please! The more respondents the better, and I know not everyone reads the forums.
Can I share my responses elsewhere (personal blog, etc)?
Absolutely! I am in no way claiming "ownership" of anyone's responses. I will protect your privacy as far as you've asked me to at the beginning of the survey, but you are free to share your thoughts however you'd like.
I'm under 18, can I still take this survey?
Unfortunately, I can only solicit responses from those 18 and over. Doing this makes me exempt from submitting to my institutional review board; allowing minors would have meant waiting til February or later for approval. I decided getting it out sooner was more important than opening it up to a broader audience. Sorry! :(
I want to give you permission to quote, but prefer to be called "X." Is that okay?
Sure thing, just make a note of it in the space where you give permission to quote by name. For folks who give me permission to quote, but don't provide a real name, I will be defaulting to your Glitch name.
Replies
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Wow, Sheepy! This is quite a project. Can I take the survey now to get a feel for it, and then again next week-ish? Or will that seem like two separate entries from one person?
Thanks! -
In theory, if you don't clear your cookies out between now and then, your questions will persist in the survey until you click "Done." (You can safely click "Exit" up top, though.)
If you fill it out and click "Done" twice, you'll seem like two people. You can do that, but I'd ask that you make your Glitch Name in the survey something like "Kastlin First Pass" and "Kastlin Second Pass" so it's obvious that I should combine them.
If you send me frogmail with your email address, I could also send you a really badly formatted rich text file. - Ohgosh, I filled out 90% of it an accidentally closed the tab. A mini heart attack ensued until I realized that it didn't delete my answers. WHEW!
- Whoa, what a fascinating field of research! I'm looking forward to the results of this project~
- Answered, hope it helps you!
- Since you're posting my answers in public, can I post them on my blog as well? The questions have me in a thoughtful mood. :)
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@Miss Eva: and that's why cookies are delicious :)
@kalsangikid: Your answers are your own, post them anywhere you please! I am happy to have inspired more documentation of people's Ursperiences. :) - I am very happy to help with these kinds of academic works. I love seeing newer culture like video games and manga being treated with respect and getting studied from early on. Count me in and submitted!
- What a fabulous idea! As a librarian interested in digital culture, I'd love to hear more about your research. Consider my survey filled out!
- I will definitely be participating in this. Thank you so much for taking on this project.
- How will you verify that a staff actually took the staff survey and not just any person? Perhaps even by accident someone clicked on the staff survey instead of the player survey. Maybe you could mail the link of the staff survey to only staff, and the general public won't be able to potentially adversely affect your research results. I filled out the survey and look forward to your publication!
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@TomC:
It would likely be pretty obvious if someone just faked being a staffer, and I (perhaps optimistically) don't expect much dishonesty from this community. I have been briefly in contact with TS about this and other things, so if I'm very lucky I'll be able to get confirmation from staff themselves about whether they took it. I've previously done surveys of game developers and game players more generally (and publicly, through the IGDA, etc), and if people were interested in faking dev status, I'd have gotten a LOT more responses from the dev side. :P - Yeah that is true, not much incentive for faking responses here.
- answering right now :)
- I filled out the survey and I'm looking forward to your publication :D
- You all should see Sheepy's constant reloading of the survey results -- you've all made one very happy researcher...(well, except for that part about the game closing)
- Taking my sweet time to answer, you should have asked if we are non native enlgish speakers, that´s interesting data too.
- Wow, I spent a couple of hours with it. I could have spent a couple more. Looking forward to the finished product, Sheepy! :]
- Soooooooooo glad you're keeping it open for responses for a few weeks...
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124!
I'm starting to despair of ever meditating for 503 minutes, but maybe we can get 503 Glitchstories to make up for it? - Hooray for archivists! (I'm a LIS grad student!) I'll help in any way I can with this :D
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I've completed the survey, quite long responses to some of the questions, but hopefully the in-depth answers will be of some help and interest.
My online game play goes in a straight line from Neopets over 10 years ago to Twin Skies (closed in beta) created by Meteor Games owned by Adam and Donna who created Neopets to the much loved Vikings Pirates Ninjas (also from Meteor Games) which closed after a year or so to Kingdom of Loathing (now on there over 3 years as norsegodofmischief) to dual playing of KoL and Glitch at the same time. - Planning on working on my answers this week as a way to keep remembering...
- Done! Really look forward to seeing your research result!
- I'm 17, and the survey says I must be 18, but I would still love to give my thoughts and story. Should I pretend I'm 18, conduct the survey separately, or just leave my voice out (which is totally fine too)?
- Sheepy - is it ok to share the survey link in other places/via email? I know of a few people who play Glitch but more than likely do not participate in the forums, and I would be willing to send it along to them.
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@Irrelephant: Unfortunately, for legal reasons, I cannot knowingly accept responses from people under 18. :(
@Zoethor2: Please share it far and wide! -
I just did it, about 40 questions there is an end folks!
Also, wow from your CV this project is right up your alley! -
It's true, there is an end! And you are welcome to take your time getting there. Cookies are your friend.
It's also true that I've been sort of entrenched in game preservation for awhile.
Thank you for your response! We're over 200 on the player side, now! - ...I'm going to use up my monthly allotment of exclamation marks in this thread, I can tell.
- I've just completed it - I've only been playing a couple of months but I hope it's helpful, if only to show how quickly a new player could integrate into the game and the community.
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I am so glad you're doing this! I will definitely take the survey.
(Do you go to Wiscon? There are some other people in specialties related to yours who attend regularly, and I've heard such fascinating things from them! If you've never been, it seems like something you might enjoy.) - I've just completed the survey, and I look forward to its publishing :) Thank you for doing this!
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@Schiehallion23:
Every player's experience is valid, even if they only played for a single day. I'd be quite happy to have as many responses from brand new players as from folks who started in Alpha.
@freerangefatty:
Thanks! I have not been to Wiscon--partly because it's far away (I'm on the East Coast) and partly because I usually go to game-specific or archives-specific events rather than SciFi more generally. - Such a fascinating survey. I love the in-depth, open-ended questions. I look forward to reading the results.
- This is really interesting! Just yesterday I was playing Journey and thinking, what a gorgeous work of art, but I wonder how difficult it might be to preserve something like that for future generations when so much of the experience relies on interacting with random people. And for Glitch, there's the artbook and the soundtrack and people taking screenshots and writing blog posts, but it's still not something you can ever come back to the way I come back to the old SNES games from my childhood. So an archival project like this strikes me as a fantastic idea, and I hope you get plenty of responses for your surveys. I haven't filled one out yet, but I'll do that as soon as I have time.
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sheepy, i want to give you permission to quote me if you want, but my public name on ALL my things is "flask ehrlenmeyer". it's even on the id bracelet i wear. i'll be happy to give you your permissions with my legal given name (which i still use to sign things), but i'd like my answers to be linked to my usual public persona if you're linking.
is that a problem for you?
i want- you know- to do a good job on this for you. -
@flask:
I'm grateful for your thoughtfulness, I know how much the wurld meant to you. I have no problem quoting you by your chosen name. In fact, for people who give permission but don't give a legal name, I'll just default to quoting them by their Glitch name. In terms of the eventual public repository, it'll be more meaningful anyway. - Done. Thank you :)
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Sheepy, do you know anything about stoot's first game, Game Neverending? I was just reading about it here:
www.glitch-strategy.com/201...
It was the progenitor of many elements of Glitch, so I thought it might be relevant to your current project. - Sitting here at the end of the work week, when I'd usually lose myself in Ur, seems a wonderful time to buckle down and answer a bunch of these questions. Cathartic too, in a way.
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<belated>@sakiexcel:
I HAVE heard about it! And probably should have included a question about it in my staff survey. I've also seen stoot say that Kingdom of Loathing also took GNE as an inspiration, which explains why so many of us like it. </belated>
We're up to 322 player responses! Including Gloopy, who started her response on the 5th and just finished it this morning. :) 213 of you have given me permission to post the full text of your responses, which will make the web repository a great resource after the survey closes.
And many thanks to Annapee and Kukubee for their time taking the staff survey. I'm guessing/hoping more of those will start rolling in after the holidays. - Wow, I wish I could take this, but I need to be 18 or older? And I can't lie about my age here anymore. So sorry for not being helpful, but I hope your project turns out great!
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@Sororia Rose
Alas for legal complexities! I know you were a dedicated and valuable player, and I appreciate your honesty. The questions will be posted along with everyone's responses when the survey closes, so if you want to answer them for your own reflection, you'll be able to. Just don't send 'em to me! - I am so, so glad you're doing this :) I'll be contributing for sure!
- 349 player responses! Can we make it 400? I bet we can.
- I started to respond, then got to percolating on responses. Must...finish...
- You've got at least a week, don't feel like you have to rush :)
- Is the project still open for a few more days?
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Just discovering this now. Is your survey still going on? I want to take part in it, but I can't guarantee I can get it done of it's closing very soon.
If it's still going on, I'll provide my legal name. However, for the purpose of web safety, when you publicly publish the survey could you only use my first name and the first letter of my last name please? If that's not possible, could you just have it default to my Glitch name please? (Wouldn't have asked if the nagging memory of the web safety lessons from my computer classes in high school didn't keep popping into my head.) - Oops, I forgot to do this - just done mine now!
- Any update on how long the survey will be up? I haven't done this yet - I'd love to but there's much to think about here and want to know how thoughtful or urgent I should be. Can't wait to see the results! :)