Stadium Cultures

While visiting a NFL football game in Tampa two weeks ago repeatedly a phone number was displayed on the video screens. You should call to report intoxicated members in the audience who behaved “disturbingly”.

Besides finding this somewhat ironic since the whole stadium was swamped with advertisement for beer, I also was fascinated from a cultural standpoint …

… how easily some people sitting in my block actually called that number.

… that the behavior of the particular girl (eventually thrown out of the stadium by security) would have accounted to the socially accepted standard in a German soccer audience.

This experience reflects into the design of web communities: It’s a very sensitive part how the addressed culture judges behavior and thus which tools have to be offered for sanctioning it.