Reflections on Ingress Community

I've been inspired to write this blog post as a result of my experiences playing Ingress thus far and from some of the post-anomaly dialogue taking place. 

I have really appreciated reading the post-anomaly reflections and opinions of people and will weigh in with some of my own as a newcomer, and someone who knows a lot about community development and capacity building within organizations and community. 

Community

Community is defined in the following ways:

1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. 

2. a locality inhabited by such a group. 

3.a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing commoncharacteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usuallypreceded by the):the business community; the community of scholars.
4. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe.

5. Ecclesiastical, a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule. 

6. Ecology, an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area. 

7. Joint possession, enjoyment, liability etc.: A community of property.

When I started playing I was very fortunate to have a built-in social circle of people I already knew. I also met some people who lived in my local neighbourhood. Some of these people were really helpful by teaching me some of the nuts and bolts about how to play the game, inviting me to go out and play, and loaning me equipment to increase my game play, such as external batteries. I was able to level up much faster due to all of this support and mentoring. 

I was also invited to join various online communication groups, such as local Google + group and others. The increase in communications was overwhelming to start with, but I acclimated and determined what was necessary and what was just noise. 

Observations and Analysis

Once I started to become involved some other observations began to come up about the local culture and community. In no particular order, these were some of my observations and some of my analysis: 

• There are players who have been around for a long time. They have a lot of information and context about the game including history, local play and bigger picture knowledge. Some of them are also very vocal, very negative, cynical and dominating of discourse and dialogue in the local community. 
• The local Ingress community (both factions) appears to be insular, lacks diversity and there is no sense of inclusiveness, or real community. 
• Beyond a superficial sense of welcome it is up to individual players to find out where there might be space to be included, or form game play and social connections. 
• This game is entirely dominated by males. Female players are vastly outnumbered and appear to have little voice, or inclusion in any type of local leadership, which appears to be exclusively reserved for male players in both factions. There are few exceptions to this. 
• Assumptions are made that females start playing Ingress as a result of being "encouraged" to play from male partners. There appears to be an attitude from some male players that females who have partners are subordinate to their male partners and relegated to things such as being mules and supporting the play of their partners. Other dynamics, such as jealousy arise when the female partner is a better player/levels up faster. These observations have been informed by the many comments I've read on communications platforms and from conversations with some people. 
• Event planning and organization, especially for #Helios, was dominated by a small core of people (males). Communications were extremely restricted, secretive and the majority of local members were excluded from being involved in planning and in communications surrounding the event. 
• Suspicion, paranoia and negativity between factions and specific faction members is endemic and toxic. 
• Cross-faction events and engagement is viewed as suspicious, unnecessary, and possibly threatening to some parties. Those who are involved in cross faction events and communications may be questioned as to their motives and may be seen as suspicious. 
• Little emphasis is being placed on creating a strong community of support and mentoring for ethical game playing within and between factions. 

Culture 

I have successfully avoided the culture of gamers/online/geek communities etc. for my whole life until playing Ingress. I say successful because everything I always suspected about this culture has been demonstrated to me within my short time playing Ingress (see above). 

This is a male-dominated culture in which activities such as trolling, personal criticisms, attacks and trash talk are not only condoned, but considered part of the culture.

For instance when I introduced this blog, I was met with resounding criticism (not constructive), nitpicking and negativity. I have a tough skin, but this just reinforced the lack of inclusion and voice for those perceived as not part of the "in group." It is quite clear to many that only certain people are apparently allowed to have voice and that message was received and reinforced loud and clear when this blog was introduced.  

Some well meaning people contacted me privately to "mansplain" others' behaviour. I appreciated the efforts, but what communities benefit from is instead of explaining away social incompetence, trolling and poor behaviour to those who have been targeted, is for those people who shut down inclusion and voice and efforts to become more involved to be called on this behaviour. Cultures cannot and will not shift until this happens. Bottom line, people with privilege within any group have more power, more voice and decide who will be allowed to be included and to what extent that is allowed. This kind of power and insularity destroys the ability to build healthy, strong and inclusive communities if it is allowed to continue. Fundamentally, groups and communities are weaker and cannot grow in a healthy way when they are this insular. 

When this happened I also heard from other female players who told me about their own experiences within this male-dominated culture and community. Not one local player commented positively (in the larger group) at the effort I made to put this blog together to serve as a source of information and support, primarily to new players, and those who remain on the fringes due to some of the apparent insularity of the larger community. There is a reason many of us prefer to be "lone wolf" players. Some of those reasons are reflected daily in various communications. 

Recruitment and Mentoring

It is putting the cart before the horse to focus on recruiting, which continues to happen quietly. The starting place for any community building has to to critically reflect on and examine what kind of community exists already and what kind of community does the local community want to build and maintain?  

I've heard a valuable criticism that there is little focus on creating local faction events and more effort put into cross-faction events. I think both are equally important for different reasons. How are local factions and communities building an actual sense of inclusion and engagement within? 

When people are recruited, or join a local faction, what ways do community members reach out and create a space for inclusion? I was able to benefit in this game, and elsewhere, because I had people reach out and offer me mentoring. I have been a mentor, formally and informally, to many in my professional world. 

I know there are people who are quietly mentoring others and they should be applauded. I would ask some of the players who have been playing for some time what efforts they go to to mentor new players in their areas? What ways do you open things up and what ways to shut things down? What are you doing to contribute to creating a positive, inclusive community, or do you even see the need for that?

Gender Issues in Ingress Play

Going back to the gender issue, there are live issues for women that impact our game play. Safety is first and foremost. Meeting up with strangers in the community, going to play and the time of day we play has real safety implications for us. I've heard about women harassed and made to feel unsafe within local game play. I've also seen male players call people out when this has occurred publically. I wonder how much of this has happened without people being aware of it since I would suggest that at a societal level aggression and violence toward females is normed and when people do challenge this they are usually attacked, trolled and sometimes even threatened. 

Another issue that impacts female player's ability to connect with local players is interest in joining others in game play being misconstrued as interest in something more. This is an issue women may have to deal with that is probably not on the radar of most men. It can be very difficult for women and men to "just be friends" without some strange dynamics coming into play. Since the majority of people playing this game are male, there is a lot of mentoring that could be done that frankly isn't happening. 

One of the ways I've tried to step into this gender issue is to create a women's communications group to create a space to organize female missions and outings, for people to ask questions and build local community. I am committed to trying to increase this space, because our entire community will benefit from more inclusion and recognition of these issues, of which gender is only one, but an important one. 

Leadership and Capacity Building

A group, or community is only as strong as its local leadership and its local capacity. This should not be perceived as a criticism, or attack on the local leadership, who are clearly doing a huge job and we should all be thankful for what they are doing in both factions. 

Community strength occurs when the right people with the right knowledge, skills and abilities are involved in using these things for the benefit of the larger community. When communities lack diversity, inclusion and opportunities to expand beyond the insularity of status quo leadership, they suffer, they limp along and sometimes, they fail. 

Having met quite a few people in my short time playing, being a keen observer and having a lot of knowledge about organizational culture and community, I am aware that the local Ingress community (in both factions) has a great many smart, knowledgeable and skillful people. In the labour relations vernacular this is referred to as "talent." 

Recruitment and retention of top talent is one of the biggest indicators of a successful organization and community. I see little, or no, reflection on this within the local Ingress community. The same people dominate day in and day out, while there is little, to no opportunity for others to be brought in and have their knowledge, skills and abilities identified and utilized. 

Disclaimer

My observations are primarily based one what I have seen in the Metro Vancouver area. I am not aware of the play and communities around BC and I'm sure there are things to be gained by looking at what other ways local communities are organized and functioning. 

The Way Forward

I want to thank everyone from both factions who makes the BC Ingress community and game a lively, interesting and fun game to play and learn from. I want to end this rather long post with a request for people to think about how they can contribute to community capacity building, improving relationships, inclusion, diversity and game play within our own factions, local communities and between each other. I look forward to getting back to regular play and meeting more of you out in the field.