We would like to introduce Jen Clodius, a graduate student in Anthropology at the U of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation research focuses on community formation on the Internet. She is examining how these communities of interest form when there are no geographic boundaries. Clodius has been involved for 4 years in an inter-collegiate course teaching anthropology on the Internet. DragonMud's inhabitants, the spaces in which they dwell, and the objects they create and manipulate all exist within a realm comprised solely of text.
Conversations scroll up one's screen looking like a play script.
Players who choose to run opposite-gendered characters do so for a multitude of reasons, but some initial generalizations can be made. On the other hand, a player's real-life gender has considerably less import in matters of status and hierarchy on the InterNet. In the snippet of conversation excerpted above, for instance, the reader might assume that Bedouin, Randall, Michael, and Malacar are males and that wapini and Celeste are female - and be partially correct. To a great extent, the DragonMud community democratizes and blurs perceptions of status boundaries. A player's professional title, grade-point average, physical appearance, age, or gender have minimal impact on perceptions of status on DragonMud.