Gabe Nelson's Theory of Teams Activity: Difference between revisions
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FINALLY completed the full thing and got it proofreaded to a good point. Feel free to add in grammar edits if need be
GabingLord (talk | contribs) (Created page with "The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: "The Ring needs gold to breed gold", talking about one of the seven Dwarf rings...... This Theory is about how teams' activity works, and how it can be used for good. (All for now, just getting this down)") |
GabingLord (talk | contribs) (FINALLY completed the full thing and got it proofreaded to a good point. Feel free to add in grammar edits if need be) |
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The | The Teams Activity Principle: Gabe Nelson | ||
''Officially Published in the wiki at 2/4/2025'' | |||
This | ''Research and writing started in Spring 2024'' | ||
'''“The Ring needs gold to breed gold” Thorin’s Father, Thrain II, talking to Gandalf about one of the Seven Dwarf rings of power.''' | |||
'''Excerpt: The Hobbit, There and Back Again.''' | |||
Hello everybody, I’ve never written like this for the wiki, but let’s go. | |||
The purpose of this scholarly paper (and hopefully a few after it) is to inform the general public of NSA Teams about the key to what makes it (NSA) tick. Understanding NSA starts with a very simple base principle, so simple that it is only a few steps over the base principles of logic. It is, I call it, The Activity Principle, that Activity gives Activity. It is very much like one of the base principles of logic, that of A = A, B = B, etc. and vice versa. For those newer audiences, activity is simply put as people being on teams, just posting things and talking, nothing special. The Activity Principle births the area of NSA Social Science I will call Interaction Science. Allow me to elaborate on this further. | |||
Take an empty space. If we put a spark in that space, something happens. Now, if conditions in this space are not so empty, let’s say with a gas, and we place this same spark, you have potential for a fast fire. Now put more solid stuff like wood in, this time the spark consumes the gas, and then uses that to light the wood, which burns for a good long while. However, due to the laws of nature, mainly the First Law of Thermodynamics, you can never get that fire to stay forever. Something from outside the space must place more energy into the system or space, or else at some point in time all energy is used up. The same with NSA Teams (or any chat system for that matter). | |||
This spark is you. What we want is for that spark of ignition energy to grow (remember we are trying to prove activity gives activity). The product we want is fire, per the example. You are a short temporary fire. (Don’t worry I’m not saying you’re going to die) More specifically, your activity, your posting of even one message is that spark we talked about. So, if you are active, it is easy to assume that someone else might become active to talk to you. If you’re bored on Teams, and nobody is posting anything, you are of course bored and you long for people to post to interact with you. When a person becomes active and posts, you swoop on that post and post for more interaction. This leads to conversation. Conversation is included in the umbrella of Activity. This proves the Activity Principle to be true. Now, this spark is activity, activity is very easy to ignite but often fades quickly. If everybody stops talking, it’s harder to get talking again. Just like Newton says, a object in motion will stay in motion. What is true in the Law of Inertia for massive objects is true for idealistic principles as well. Let’s now talk about the gas around the spark. | |||
What I will term in continuing this metaphorical example as “gas” is in fact friend groups. Now I do not mean “clicks”. Clicks are terrible things that hurt others. Friend groups are much looser and always looking for more people to join and interact with. If you have a friend, and another friend, you want them to meet and become friends. This is a group. Activity and interaction can cause groups of friends to form. Because they like each other, they interact more. This breeds interaction. A never-ending loop. Of course, people can grow older, unactive, or have a fight etc. So, friend groups are not always stable and long-lasting. They also have changing amounts of people, as some leave, and some are added. This is why they are the gas. Next, we move to the wood. | |||
Groups of people interacting is good, and if there are more than two groups, these groups might want to connect and create a bigger group of friends. Or you can form specific interest groups, allowing for a neutral territory to get to know people rather than them have to get lucky falling into a friend group. This feels more welcoming to new people, as it is something they choose. These specific groups of interaction of several other groups or just normal people is the wood. These might not burn as fast as gas, but they last much longer. As of right now (February 2024), there are two chats that I have been in since the very beginning of my NSA journey, the Minecraft Chat, and the Star Wars Chat. These behemoths have at least had 30 people in them in all five years (again, as of right now) of their long history. And, as I’m a senior, when I leave, they will probably stay around for several more. Yes, they aren’t as active as groups that me and my friend(s) group(s) mess around in, but they give a larger sense of community, and give a place for people meet newer people on neutral territory. Next, there is the goal, the fire. | |||
The goal is interaction; however, this fire is interaction (the spark) with a lot more energy, and something else. This something else I will term as history. A fire leaves smoke, to show that a fire has burned there. The smoke and heat are the byproduct. Now, this byproduct of this fire of activity is history. Let me explain this. The ultimate goal other than to love God, is to produce things in this world, whether it be family, goods, a life etc. There will be a certain section of people brought into this activity who are creative. These creative people will share creativity. This creativity, again, like groups, specific groups, and activity, does reciprocate on itself. Those who write inspire others to write. Being creative and imaginative is a great thing (and if you aren’t, that’s fine. You can learn to be creative like them, and even if you don’t that’s fine as well.). This creativity will produce history. Here is a example. People will want to put everything they wrote in a single place. Then they could take the logical step to label the date it was written/completed. Next, they will show off this container to others. Then, they could offer to store other’s writings. This is the formation of a container that stores creativity, whether writing, pictures, art, or photos of or created by others. This allows people to read something written two days ago, two weeks ago, two decades ago, etc. History is stored and viewable to everyone with access. This container is often given the title of “Wiki” in NSA. This formation of a Wiki stores creativity and other things in a single place. This can be shared with others. This creativity is worthy of its own history per se, its own timeline of writing or monitoring of creativity and its types. This then leads to one last thing, one last byproduct that is very dear to my heart. | |||
Lore. The funny thing that is so fun, but so confusing. This is when several creative objects line up in a cool way. Things like series, connected stories, a random conversation that spawns an inside joke. THAT is lore. It is history, but fun, flexible, YOURS, and your community’s. NSA lore has a large and confusing but actually quite streamlined history. It is contained in the NSA Wiki, it is made by specific groups dedicated to it, formed by groups of friends, just from people being active. That is the building blocks that NSA gains its culture from (more on culture hopefully in another talk). It goes from people being active, to making friend groups, to specific groups, to history/creativity, to lore. This is the system. Each section gives more of itself and helps the next stage. | |||
Now, to application, on which I will spend the rest of the time in this paper on. I will talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly here. This section is to be used as warning, teaching, and a guidebook on how to keep teams active for the rest of their days. Right now (2023-2024), we are coming out of a decently dead period, that lasted from around 2021-2023. We didn’t know what to do, and some kids had gotten in fights with others. People retreated into group chats. Then people left. The Old Guard started fading away, and we lost lots of people who knew history and lore. We almost lost teams entirely. We talk about the Dark Age of when a student took over NaAT and became king over it, but of course that was a role play arc. But this was a real-life dark age. The way to stop that is to stay active, not retreat, but to keep spending time with friends. The Activity Principle proves this. While there were several things out of our control, and not about activity, this is important to this rebuilding period of the now early Bronze Age we are in. We held out during this Dark Age period. Here is how we (the students) brought it back from the brink social-wise. | |||
Student Council is key no matter what you try and solve. It helps with everything. If you can get a good student council that wants action on pressing issues, good. Cora Metzger was a great president. With her, she brought several people who were passionate about NSA, including those with experience in Old Teams (teams before the Student Body channel was removed [Note: This allowed everybody from 12<sup>th</sup> to 4<sup>th</sup> grade to interact in certain spaces]), including Lydia N, Maia C, Blake C, Nathan R, Esther Y, Tiana D, Jared L, and many others. She also used support of the Student Body [Note: The entirety of NSA]. I often had hour long conversations with her about what to do next, and how best to do it with student support. I thank her for letting me talk her ear off, and I do sometimes feel like I talked too much, and didn’t listen to her as much as I should have. [Note: THANKS CORA!]. Those I would like to raise up as examples of what a good NSAer SHOULD be are Owen B, Hallie G, Thien-An N, Nellie G, Camren W, Hudson B, Avalon T, Silas M, and Tim S, plus many other minor contributors. These people changed NSA through action. Not only did some just identifying the problem (Which Esther Noeth did very well in her Prez term, which laid groundwork for Cora). But each of these people, StuCo or not, brought things from the brink by pushing for people to DO things. Whether it be solving problems, putting out fires, or giving a good governing body. During the years of 2021-2023 (and I mean no offense to those who were on those Councils, and I knew and love every one of you) StuCo felt like a figure head and only did what seemed like tertiary things (Which wasn’t bad, there were great events and good times together). Now, something that you, yourself, can do to help feed the fire of Activity is the next point I wish to make. | |||
Newbies, we love them. Okay, NSA is crazy, we get it. But tone it down around newbies. They won’t understand and will retreat into their “new kid” shell. Newbies are key for activity. They are new fuel that you can throw into the fire (please don’t actually throw them into fire, I’m talking figurative fire [Note: '''Sips Hooman Milkshake''']). Newbies are also new, so they have new ideas, new stances and such. They are also the biggest group of people who can get snagged right away and pulled in. If you can make newbies active, you have a great generation. However, I must warn you, rules must be taught to them. | |||
A trap we feel into in the start of New Teams was that of forgetting self-moderation. We didn’t moderate what was said and what was done. Bad habits began, and some bad culture festered, which we are now trying to extinguish today. A new person from their homeschool will probably have no trouble, but a non-Christian transfer to NSA could take lots of time to help learn our rules. Admin can only do three punishments. Talk to you, talk to your parents, ban you from Teams/NSA. These are pretty weak powers if you think about it too long. While they are valuable in THEIR hands (Administration) for laying down ultimate law, we as students need to pick up slack. We need to set down the laws of the culture. You shouldn’t overly spam (spam can be fun we know, but if they say stop, stop), you should keep it to PG13 at most, you should help others, you shouldn’t kick people without right cause, you shouldn’t go and seek revenge by attacking them, you shouldn’t get emotional during “wars”, you shouldn’t insult friends etc. Self-moderation is key, should not be abused, and is how we make sure people are safe. | |||
To feed the fires of Teams for everybody’s enjoyment, there is a significant age to campaign for a base. Every three or four years we come across a problem as the old active generation is moving out. Who replaces them? The grades of 7-10<sup>th</sup> grade are key to survival, with 7<sup>th</sup> and 9<sup>th</sup> grade being places where people often start their journey in NSA. If you can capture them with love, compassion, ideas, and iNSAnity, you have a base that won’t die out until they themselves leave NSA. If you can target the younger generation, you can successfully build a next generation. That is what happened at the end of the 2022-2023, and the full 2023-2024 school year. We got the younger people active (granted the MSer’s were rowdy and a bit rough around the edges), and so built a base of 9<sup>th</sup> graders who were active and had formed friend groups around other 9<sup>th</sup> graders like Le People, and The Haagenson Family GC, specialty GC’s (group chats) like Hudson Fan Club, KmK, and NSA Quotes, plus Lore and History groups, like Mages Guild, and Owen’s NSA Wiki Website. Everything built on each other. | |||
This brings me near to the final stages of this paper. So, I must leave you with cautionary optimism and wisdom. First, take on “apprentices”. You need to mentor kids, not just in their faith in God, but also the rules and fun of NSA. I did this with Owen and Hallie in 2023, and with Grace Ansley and several others in 2024. I “took them under my wing” to train the next generation. This helped form friend groups and help establish some LONG lasting friends. Hallie went from newbie to NSA addict. Her getting on teams allowed for “The Longest Call in NSA history” to happen, and Owen led the way for a new Wiki format that looks to stand the test of time. Next, build activity first. You don’t need to keep NSA lore alive. It’s gone through dead patches before, but survived, not just because people cherished it, but also because we built friend groups and activity, starting the cycle. Activity gives Activity back, and that’s how you rebuild from ashes. Who knows, maybe in ten years, some person will randomly search the web, and stumble on a long lost website filled information about their school that nobody had ever heard about…..and maybe…just maybe…they might find this exact paper, sitting there full of cyberdust, waiting to be read for the good of NSA. | |||
<big>Sincerely,</big> | |||
<big>In iNSAnity for Jesus and God Forever, Amen</big> | |||
''<small>The Gabing Lord,</small>'' | |||
''<small>G J Nelson</small>'' | |||
(Hey could anybody hyper link everything up, and put it in that Science Section I made? Thx, feel free to delete this comment after, G) | |||