[MUD-Dev] Re: Laws of Online World Design

[Adam Wiggins <adam#angel,com>]

On Sun, 11 Oct 1998, Ling wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Oct 1998, Koster, Raph wrote:
> > Community size
> > Ideal community size is no larger than 250. Past that, you really get
> > subcommunities.
> 
> Once upon a time, I watched a documentary about this anthropologist (sp?)
> watching people.  He asked the following questions (paraphrased, badly):
> Our ancestors used to roam around in tribes of, say, a hundred.  Each
> individual in a tribe knew about a hundred people (well) so how do we, in
> today's society, cope with the urban jungle?  Well, each of us form a
> tribe of our own spanning everyone we know well.  That means if you don't
> know your nextdoor neighbour well, he's just one of the neighbouring
> tribes.

And even more interestingly, in recent years the tribes that have been
forming transcend physical location.  This is largely, I assume because of
the transient nature of people's lives: it's quite common to move every
couple of years to a new job and a new neighborhood.  At this point you
would loose any locationaly-based communities; but your on-line friends
"come with you".

As always, the ubiqious example is: this list.

Adam W.