WP2: Observing a New Space Every site online was created for a reason and users generally have a purpose about how they use the site. When the site has forums, there is usually one main reason that the users use it for, with a main topic about what they talk about. Thousands of people visit the site http://hsarizona.scout.com/ every day. After observing this site, I came to the conclusion that the users on this forum use their knowledge to make predictions about high school football players and teams. This is a website made for Arizona sports, and probably the most used part of the website is the division 1, 2, and 3 forum. This forum is where I have the most knowledge as well as interest compared to any other part of the website, so I will be able to make predictions along with the other users. There are over 1,000 posts under the top three division’s forum in the short amount of time it has been up. Posts have all types of topics, from players being recruited, to team scores, and news around the AZ high school football world. No matter what the topic is however, people are using their knowledge of the teams or players to make predictions, whether it be where they think a player will commit, the scores or outcomes of games, or even final ranking predictions, which can include making future playoff brackets based on current standing along with predicting the final record of a team.
When I picked this website, I picked it because I thought it would be interesting and it was also something I have a lot of knowledge about so I would be able to make good predictions along with the rest of the community. Since a lot of my friends still play high school football and my dad and uncle are coaches, I have much knowledge of what is going on in the high school football community. I posted my own topic on the forum to give a chance to the users on the website to make any predictions they might have. I said “This Friday will be Marcos de Niza’s first game without their defensive coordinator and defensive back coach. The head coach demoted the DC and the defensive back coach resigned.” The reason I was able to say this, was because I have knowledge on it due to the fact I went to school there last year and many of my friends still play on the team and helped inform me. I then posted this so users could see what was going on to help them make predictions about what will happen with the team. However, it wasn’t too popular of a topic, because not too many people had heard about it at all so they didn’t have too much information to be able to make a smart decision. There was though, a few people who responded, one user made a prediction and said “Maybe the defense will now let up less points” due to the fact the defense had not been able to stop very many times. The information I had already known, plus the information I received lead me to be able to give insight to the users of this space so they could make a guess of their own on what could happen with the team. The next example of how people make predictions is that every week before the games on Friday, a user normally posts a list of games they think will be interesting, and then has others pick who they think will win.This was posted as a reply to the list of teams one user wanted to know who the general community thought would win. As you can see, this user bolded the teams they thought would win, which is what many people who normally reply would do. However, the user also put in quotation marks why they thought the team would win. The user used their knowledge of teams and players to not only predict who would win, but they even gave a reason for why. When the user puts “Brandon Hatfield takes over game”, that means they are knowledgeable as to who that player is, and how dominant they are, so they can guess that the player will do well for the team. The same goes for the rest of the teams, if the user did not have much information, they wouldn’t be able to make a good