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In lugnet.general, Mike McKee writes:
> In lugnet.general, Jake McKee writes:
Alright! Getting some discussion going! (I can talk about this stuff for days!)
> > The LEGO Community is a **group** of people who form **relationships**
> > **over time** by **interacting** **regularly** around **LEGO experiences**,
> > which are of interest to all of them for varying **individual** reasons.
>
>
> Jake,
> The problem with your definition is that, superficially anyway, it comes
> very close to excluding people like me. Since coming out of my dark ages
> almost 3 years ago I have been one of your employer’s best supporters
> (trying the understanding limits of my LTS). Yet I remain a lurker—not
> just to LUGNET(although I am a member). If you hold your hands up in front
> of you there is more than ample medium to tabulate the total number of posts
> I have made on-line. I’ve spoken only once to another AFOL in person
> (someone from SCLTC at last years San Diego Model Railroad Museum display).
> Even though I have wanted to attend both Bricks West events (just a few
> miles from my house) a demanding professional life and two small children at
> home have made a $50 dollar investment in additional train track and rolling
> stock (and playing for hours with my kids on the living room floor)
> personally more attractive than the cost of admission into that
> **community** [1].
But not everyone *is* part of a community right? Take a local town/community
for instance. To be part of that community, you have to actually live in
that town, or be somehow associated with that that town. This says nothing
about the whether or not you would be welcomed into that community, it just
says that to be included you have to participate. If this wasn't true, then
every person in the world would be part of every group in the world by default.
And I would actually argue that the basic definition can apply perfectly to
your community of you and your sons. And to my point above, I'm not part of
that community, right?
> So, **relationships**--don’t really have ‘em with other AFOL’s (unless, as a
> lurker, voyeurism counts). The relationships I share LEGO with (my kids)
> were not **formed** around the brick (the bricks were still in a storage
> facility then—-mind your imagination :-) ). To the degree we (my kids and
> I) DO **interact** around the brick, our relationship DOES improve, however.
> Maybe it’s just semantics, but the way I read your definition, the fact that
> the relationships need to be **formed** around the brick pretty much
> excludes me from the community, literally speaking.
But the definition above doesn't talk about the relationships being formed
around the brick. Rather, it talks about being formed around **LEGO
experiences**.
I would actually contend that your story is a great case study for the
definition in action. You are a group of people (you and your 2 kids) who
have formed a "relationship" of sorts in that you come together in some way,
and this is more than a one time occurance, and those relationships get
stronger the more you utilize them. And the entire point of you doing all
this is to have some amount of interaction around your own personal LEGO
Experiences - and you and each of your sons has a different reason they
enjoy it.
Now in my mind, this means that you are a "LEGO Community" - small
certainly, but no less important than any other. However, you have to
participate in the community to really *be part* of said community. Your
wife might watch carefully, but I assume you agree that you wouldn't
necessarily consider her part of this community unless she sat down with you
and start clicking bricks, right?
Jake
(Who loves this type of "Grand Scheme" discussion!)
---
Jake McKee
Community Development Manager - North America
LEGO Direct
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