Formal conditions

1. Physical boundaries restricting the semi-public space from the outside
2. People can choose to enter a bounded or symbolically distinct place
3. More or less implicit similarity and equality among people

Semi-publicity in online games using place (and space) metaphors

Taking an online game example, private rooms in many digital games are a bit less private than the real life homes. At least there are more levels between privacy and publicity. For example, a private room of a player may be open for guests. Or, room owners may even call everybody in a public room (including unknown people) to participate a competition that they have organized in their room. Generally, private rooms in the Habbo Hotel are a bit like children’s own room at home in which they may invite their friends.

Since this kind of phenomena between totally private use of a place and totally public spaces seem to be relevant also in digital environments, the model of computer-supported or totally digital communities utilizes the spatial theory of semi-public spaces.

The experience of visiting (online 2D or 3D) environments that utilize some kind of a visual space metaphor (Habbo Hotel, There, Activeworld, etc.) has many (though not 1:1, of course) similarities with the urban experience of moving around in an environment that has public spaces (streets, squares etc.) and then more or less private places (shops, cafés, galleries etc.). However, because of not being precisely private but something in between, in urban studies those kinds of social spaces have been called semi-public spaces or places.

In Urban studies, especially in human geography, there has been a long, perhaps never ending discussion dealing with the usage of terms space and place. In this model term space refers to a general, more or less open space that may have an official meaning and usage but not personally specific meaning for people. For example, the Senate Square in Helsinki with the buildings around it represents the early 19th century style called Empire that took its ideas from ancient Greece. However, I have no personal meaning for that square, it is not my own in any sense. The term place, then, refers to a personally meaningful space. Usually it is smaller than, say, a public space, but not defiantly. The personal meanings of a particular space are usually results of many personal experiences in that “lived space”, as Ed Soja would call it. One’s own home is perhaps the typical example, or in a more pathetic case, one’s own office. However, the Senate Square may also be a meaningful place for a person who has, say, walked every day during 12 years through that square to his or her school. Thus, the distinction between space and place is not always thoroughly objective but in many cases highly a subjective question of interpretation.

Typical examples of semi-public spaces are (real world) shopping malls. They are public in the sense that in principle everybody are able (and welcomed, of course, by shop keepers) to loiter there. Spaces between shops are presented more or less as streets or squares, or even agoras, etc. However, all the spaces utilizing any spatial metaphors in the mall are property by private owners. Corridors only pretend to be streets and guards only pretend to be real police etc. The semi-publicity of this mock-up (of a public space) becomes visible when marginal(ised) groups of people, such as very poor alcoholics, or, say, people try to sit on the "street" in the mall.

More middle-classian examples of semi-public spaces are art galleries. In principle anyone could enter them, but are they, after all, meant for people like me? Or, perhaps more mundane example: restaurants. I can enter into their physical borders if I wish, that is through the door or a more innovative entrance, perhaps a mere rope indicating the borderline between the room of that particular restaurant and the outside. Some restaurants may try to be selective among their potential customers, and in some cases the potential customers themselves think carefully what kind of restaurant would suit best their style, social position. That is, what kind of people would be there in the restaurant, would it be a proper place for me.

Thus, in formal terms semi-publicity in this sense has three conditions:

1. There are (concrete or metaphorical) physical boundaries restricting the semi-public space from the outside, or from other semi-public spaces.
2. People are able to select between this kind of bounded or symbolically distinct places. However, simultaneously with the choosing process they become selected as participants. This could be called an implicit selectivity of semi-public space.
3. A more or less implicit similarity and equality among participants and their encounters is needed to keep the semi-public place socially together. People from totally different social ranks might be interested in each other for a while, but in the long run the most interesting change of thoughts seem to happen between similar people.

An example: Habbo Hotel’s room metaphor

Habbo Hotel is a parade example of a social space that is definitely not a private place such as home but not totally public either, such as a market square. As many typical semi-public places (such as an urban art gallery with no guard, or entrance fee) Habbo Hotel is basically open to everybody who happens to find it. Furthemore, there is a private place, an own room. However, the fun with the rooms can be interpreted to emerge precisely from the playful manipulation of the level of publicity of the room. The owner can “publish” his or her room and trying to keep it on the list of the most popular rooms, or s/he can keep it as secret as possible. Or, one can share the “rights” to the room for his or her mates.

As in the theory, one cannot roam from one space to another in Habbo because the “space” is “divided” into rooms that you need to know in advance (using your memory or the room list) and are usually available to everyone. In practice, the particular rooms are chosen because they feel to be for similar minded people compared to you.