# Gamehackery: Living in a MetaData World



## Umbran (Jun 15, 2013)

I call abuse of the term "meta"!

"Meta" is a prefix that means both "beyond" and "self-referential".  It does not mean "secret", "hidden" or "disguised".

When one plays an RPG, one is metagaming when one uses the information that one is playing a game to make in-game choices.  Like, working out how many hit points an opponent has, by way of using their to-hit bonus to estimate their level, even though "to hit bonus", "hit point", and "level" are not concepts in the game-world in question.

When I take a digital photograph, the image itself is the data.  The metadata are things like the date the photo was taken, the size of the digital file, and the geo-location of the camera at the time the image was taken.  In the parlance, "metadata" is "data about data".   By that measure, the chalk mark on the fencepost is data, not metadata.  Metadata would be knowing that the mark was 10 years old (and thus perhaps now inaccurate).  If the mark says, "Good food here", that's data.  Knowing that the person who made the mark thought lutefisk was a tasty, tasty delicacy would be metadata 

In other words, "metadata" may, for many intents and purposes, be equivalent to "context".


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## Radiating Gnome (Jun 15, 2013)

Umbran said:


> I call abuse of the term "meta"!




Fair enough. Certainly lined up against the way we use the term "metagaming" it may have been a misleading choice. 

Still, I think that for the character in the scene, there is the potential for "meta" information, in addition to more typical "augmented" information or whatever you want to call it.  So, it's not meta to the player, but it could be to the character.  

Anyway... Shenanigans earned.  

-rg


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## Radiating Gnome (Jun 17, 2013)

You know, I've been chewing on this, and while I'm still willing to concede that the "Meta" might not have been the best choice of words, I don't think it's as far wrong as you've indicated. 

Certainly, I'm not talking about meta-information in the same way that we talk about meta-gaming. The meta-information is information that the character has "beyond" what is available to the untrained, naked eye given a situation.  

That's the critical distinction.  My use of "meta" is "meta to the character" not "meta to the player."

In effect, it could feel very much like a sherlock holmes moment -- tiny points of data that swirl around and create meaning. So, in the case of a google-glass style web-based technology dohicky, the glasses might ID the person, and then provide a ton of information about that person.  Birthdate (which is pretty much exactly the same information as the datestamp on the digital image in your example), shopping history, Facebook analysis of friends and interests, credit rating, and so on.  

A character whose sight delves into the spirit world might see other things -- is reading the influence of emotions and outside spirits on a figure's aura any different from reading a date/gps stamp on a photograph?  

The biggest stretch in my piece is probably the hobo signs -- I was stretching the point to try to come up with more examples.  But I'd still argue that being able to read "secret" comments left by those who have gone before aren't all that far off the mark for a sort of "meta" information.  

Anyway....I resisted the urge to argue the point over the weekend because I didn't want to turn it into a big debate -- as critical as word choice is, I don't think that a discussion of what "meta" means is what the article is trying to say. 

-rg


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