Newschoolers

As the article about knowledge communities pointed out, these communities are becoming a major social experience for most people in the world. The internet has provided a forum that can bind people from all over the world, and the concept of joining and contributing to these communities voluntarily and based off of genuine interest provides a sense of inclusion for all those involved, many of whom may not have those feelings outside of the community. Before the article I knew such groups existed, but I did not know the term "knowledge community" to connect to them. It is one of those concepts that you know exist, but don't really read much into it until their definition and existence is layed out right in front of you. After this happened, I started to notice how many knowledge communities that I am a part of: Facebook, the TV shows that I follow, and even this english blog are all optional associations I choose to participate in, but the one that is the best example of a highly functional and more inquisitive knowledge community, and the one that I am most involed in is Newschoolers.

Newschoolers is a website that is sort of the Facebook for the freeride skiing community. Freeride skiing includes halfpipe, slopestyle and big mountain skiing, so there is nothing about racing or nordic skiing on the site. Like Facebook, you can sign up for an account, and you have your own profile on the site, but that is not what the site is based on. It combines stories about the latest events happening in the industry (major competitions and the results, new movies coming out, interviews with major atheletes, etc...), videos and pictures posted by users, and also includes many "threads" which are discussions stared by users that range from anything from what company we anticipate an athelete switching to as a sponsor, to which resorts have the hottest "ski bunnies".

Here is the link to Newschoolers: http://www.newschoolers.com

Like the survivor "spoilers" there is a hierarchy to Newschoolers. Although only the administrators can publish the top news stories, the threads are available for anyone to make, which opens up a lot of opprotunity for false information to be released. Luckily because of shear number of such threads, not many are really noticed, and even if they are, members are critical of posts and question legitimacy much like the survivor spoilers, but this is the case with the videos as well. Newschoolers has over one hundred thousand members, and a lot of them post videos, so there is a system that shows the authority of posters. Administrators, professional atheletes and companies have their username in orange, so you can tell by that which videos are likely to be higher quality and not just some kid going off his first jump. The administrators, unlike ChillOne in the survivor spoiler forum, do not keep their identity a secret, they are known by their real names, and are almost as famous as the atheletes themselves because they are known to be the closest industry insiders in all aspects of the industry out there.

Newschoolers has the last say in everything that happens in the ski industry, and although they are good about being objective, provide the fuel for many debates based off of them. Since the majority of skiers are not lucky enough to be in the loop of the industry, this gives them a way to subscribe to a lot of the knowledge that those who are get to have, and that makes them feel like they too are a part of something. For me, I was the only real serious freeride skier coming out of my hometown, and no one really understood what I was workng so hard to achieve, and Newschoolers really did provide me with not only a sense of belonging, but it gave me insight into the industry I needed to become successful. Their articles would outline the winning runs from many of the competitions, so I would know what tricks I needed to do in order to do well in such competitions. Once I finally broke in and got mentioned in my first article on Newschoolers, it was the best feeling in the world. That meant almost more to me than the competition I had won, and I got more congratulations for being mentioned on Newschoolers than I did for actually winning.

The first picture of me in a Newschoolers article:

As far as the anatomy goes, this knowledge community is made up of three major contributors, the administrators, the atheletes, and the subscribers. The atheletes provide the content that the entire site is based off of, the administrators are in charge of running it and putting the information out there, and the users are what makes it have any sort of significance. Another one of the cool parts of Newschoolers is that almost every athelete is a subscriber as well, so you feel like for once you are participating in something ski- related alongside your idols.