I was browsing through a magazine about writing today and came across an article about online writing labs (OWLs), suggesting that writers make use of them as reference tools.
I was distracted, though, by this: Ink, “A Free, Multiplayer, Online Game for Writing & Community.”
Imagine that you’re surfing the Web and you discover a site called Ink…You click Enter, and your browser loads a chat window and the image of a cityscape. A caption informs you that you are in the City Center. Almost immediately, someone notices that you’ve arrived and begins talking with you in the chat window. “Welcome to Ink,” the stranger says. “This is a great place. But we have a problem right now, and I’m hoping you can help. Our neighborhood isn’t doing well. We need to get a group of people together to address this problem. Can you help us? We need to design a flier that will motivate people to come to a meeting where we can talk about this problem. We need to draft a resolution that we can circulate to those who show up. We also need a brochure that explains why other citizens should vote for our proposal. And we’re going to need a white paper to explain to City Council the principles that inform our proposal. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Can you help us?”
The public beta opens on August 15, and they’re doing this as a Creative Commons project. I need to put that date on the calendar!
