Paper Info
Title
Simulating Social Networks of Online Communities: Simulation as a Method for Sociability Design
Abstract
We propose the use of social simulations to study and support the design of online communities. In this paper, we developed an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to simulate and study the formation of social networks in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) guild community. We first analyzed the activities and the social network (who-interacts-with-whom) of an existing guild community to identify its interaction patterns and characteristics. Then, based on the empirical results, we derived and formalized the interaction rules, which were implemented in our simulation. Using the simulation, we reproduced the observed social network of the guild community as a means of validation. The simulation was then used to examine how various parameters of the community (e.g. the level of activity, the number of neighbors of each agent, etc) could potentially influence the characteristic of the social networks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1007/978-3-642-03658-3_48
INTERACT (2)
Keywords
Field
DocType
social network,simulating social networks,agent-based model,existing guild community,guild community,observed social network,social simulation,interaction rule,online community,massively multiplayer online role,online communities,sociability design,interaction pattern,simulation
Guild,Agent-based model,Social network,Online community,Role playing game,Computer science,Human–computer interaction,Multimedia
Conference
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
5727
0302-9743
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.41
10
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Chee Siang Ang128130.47
Panayiotis Zaphiris296990.13