Before I address The Zone Project as a whole, let me remind you of some of the changes I’ve made.
In one of my previous blog posts I discussed how I’ve iterated and adapted the wording of my niche and observation approach. This iteration has really helped me narrow in on what I am focusing on. You can read my short blog and listen to my update in that blog post.
To summarise, I am focusing on the “creation and moderation of Minecraft based discord servers that integrate the two worlds”.
Focusing on this project has brought it forward miles, both in the life of the server and my understanding of my audience. In these past few weeks alone, the server has doubled.
It’s been interesting observing the interactions between different players. Particularly as they incorporate new players into the game and the server culture. Although most slide in smoothly, Its been interesting noticing and dealing with some problematic visitors. In particular we have had someone attempt to hack into players accounts, someone try to buy admin control of the server, and someone just come so they can say inappropriate things before leaving. Its been a wild ride.
I also worked to adapt my persona. As Marshall, Moore, and Barbour put it, a persona is a “staged orchestration of an alternative identity, one in the service of a different script to the rhythms of the mundane” (p26). While my persona is constantly changing, I have found focusing on this actively to be incredibly helpful.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks has been pinpointing academic research for my epiphanies. Its slowed my academic content creation and been a hurdle I am still trying to jump. Unfortunately, with the feedback I received during my Pitch, there wasn’t much help from an academic source perspective.
Finally, I’ve also introduced the help of some staff to help moderate and facilitate the server. This iteration has been immeasurably helpful.
There has naturally been more iterations and progress, but I can’t put everything here. To find out more check out my other blogs, other Beta, or the server itself.
References:
Marshall, P, Moore, C & Barbour, K 2020, Persona Studies: An Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.
Boswell's Brain 
Hello, first I wanted to say that the presentation and layout for this beta is extremely well organized and laid out. It seems that you have a very nice grasp for the DA. One quality I also want to highlight is the ability to adapt throughout the course of your research and the construction of your DA. With all the different types of personalities in your niche, it is vital to be able to flow and adjust with the different personalities seen on a daily basis and I feel you’ve done that nicely. One thing is though you stated that your persona was constantly changing here, but there was no real example following that on how specifically it has. By adding that in here and your overall research, it will give people more context behind your persona and the adjustments made for it. With this all in mind, this DA seems like a great idea and you do really seem to be having fun with your project as you alluded to wanting in your video. Great work!
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This niche is so complex. I think there is so much that can happen within this tiny niche especially with so many people in it.
I love the project and am impressed by the progression you have made surrounding your research and actions. I think the best way to do this research is to be a audience member of this niche (which you have been recently as you stated). This is something which will allow you to gain a better understanding of how friends and strangers which join your server feel.
Additionally, I think focusing on quality over quantity is very good and hiring staff will make you enjoy this DA a little more due to the decrease in stress and workload.
Something which may help with stress is a meditation. I know it sounds cliché, but I have done it recently and it really helps! Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ
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I like how organised your blog is. Your beta is good because you reflect on the problems you encountered and make it easy to understand the thought process behind your work on the discord server. I know little to nothing about discord servers, but I think you paint a good picture of what your DA is about. I like how you go into detail about the journey with the discord server, the ups and downs and interaction on discord from other users. It’s clear you’re on top of your DA and the progression is displayed in your video. I would only recommend linking to some other discord servers that maybe you follow or were inspired by. Great Work!
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I really resonated with the complexities of your platform persona as you identified. Personally in my current DA, the “Who Does That? Podcast” I have moved my personal framing and persona from being one half of a co-host style podcast where we just shared stories and created community events to an interviewer style podcast where I now ask questions to the people who I interview and gather information from. I think this is the right thing to be considered in the point of your digital artifact with the insane amount of growth I’ve been witnessing on the server since joining it from your project pitch. In fact, I think you’ve been doing such an excellent job of being conscious about your constant ideations and frequency of doing so. It’s been great to watch the discord grow in the background even though I don’t play on your server. This clearly is a turning point for you and your project trajectory as it has seriously grown in number and size and as you pointed out with some of the unfavorable characteristics that some people are bringing to the server you’re only more likely to gain more problems as you gain traction. I think this is where the crunch time of what you decide to do persona-wise will be tested. You mentioned contemplating a handing-off approach vs a down-to-earth persona and it sounded quite like an ultimatum. A fork in the road you might say. However, my suggestion would be to consider a third-party persona. Combine the two. Let it be named in a way that isn’t personal. This could create a duality to the way you manage your server under your name in being personal, approachable, and someone who is friendly and content-heavy on the server and also create another persona that is the bad cop. The one that isn’t afraid to dish out penalties, and consequences to those who cross the line maybe? That may sound like more work and you very well could be right in that but I think it’s a helpful ‘outside the box solution to your problem which could even in turn make being the relational and chirpy Boswell that we all know and love on the server continue to be a joy for you as well.
I love the saying quality over quantity and I think it has a special place in my personal workflow and work ethic however I can also see that going against the fail early and fail often you mentioned going for in your pitch. So I guess I’m wondering how these two things play out for you? To answer my own question I think there is a time and place for both potentially depending on the weight of the choices you are making like the hefty decision of your personal persona to that may be of the small memes and rapid content creation.
Lastly, you talked about observing other servers and the pros and cons of doing so. In my own research of checking out other podcasts and the way that they do things well and yet trying to maintain my current framing for the audience, this has been super beneficial. I have also loved the collaborative nature of interviewing people on the podcast and so lastly I would add that you might want even to consider creating a Minecraft event where your server and another server collaborate or compete against one another. Often this can be seen as flirting with the enemy but I think if you were to do this once you feel like your server’s identity and persona is framed well to your audience creating a collaborative event could even pull more people into your server pool who would continue to give you feedback as they’ve been apart of other servers obviously.
I have found it difficult to aid you in the academic content creation component of your blog, unfortunately, but I hope that some of these reflections, thoughts, and suggestions will aid you in this project and I look forward to seeing the end result!
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