{"id":252,"date":"2010-11-17T14:34:36","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T19:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=252"},"modified":"2011-11-16T10:08:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T15:08:07","slug":"welcome-to-play-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=252","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Play the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m very happy to welcome everyone to the official launch of <em>Play the Past<\/em> &#8211; a project that has been brewing under\u00a0the\u00a0radar for longer than I care to admit. \u00a0At its core, <em>Play the Past<\/em> is a\u00a0collaboratively\u00a0edited and authored blog\u00a0dedicated to thoughtfully exploring and discussing the intersection of cultural heritage (very broadly defined) and games\/meaningful play (equally broadly defined).\u00a0<em>Play the Past<\/em> contributors come from a wide variety of backgrounds, domains, perspectives, and motivations (for being interested in both games\u00a0<em>and<\/em> cultural heritage) \u2013 a fact which is evident in the variety of topics we tackle in our posts.<\/p>\n<p>It is very important to note that\u00a0<em>Play the Past<\/em> isn\u2019t just about\u00a0<em>digital <\/em>games, its also about non-digital games (boardgames, tabletop games, collectible card games, etc.), alternate reality games (ARGs), barely games (a term originally coined by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/russelldavies.typepad.com\/planning\/2009\/11\/playful.html\" target=\"_blank\">Russel Davies<\/a> \u2013 no, not the\u00a0<em>Doctor Who<\/em> Russel Davies \u2013 and built upon by our very own\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.robmacdougall.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/pastplay\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rob MacDougall<\/a>), and playful mechanics (or \u201cgamifying\u201d as its been recently called).<\/p>\n<p>We are also very interested in exploring the spectrum of approaches to games \u2013 from the more \u201cphilosophical\u201d (as some might call it) games studies side of things, to the more practically applied serious games\/meaningful play side of things (and just about everything\u00a0betwixt\u00a0and between).<\/p>\n<p><em>Play the Past<\/em> will be publishing content\u00a0regularly 2-3 times\/week. \u00a0One of the best way to keep up with posts and news is to follow us on Twitter (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/playthepast\" target=\"_blank\">@playthepast<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Its also super important that we give credit where credit is due right off the bat. \u00a0One of the greatest inspirations for\u00a0<em>Play the Past<\/em> comes directly\u00a0from \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/blogs\/profhacker\/\" target=\"_blank\">ProfHacker<\/a>. \u00a0You can see the fingerprints of ProfHacker all over\u00a0<em>Play the Past<\/em>. \u00a0From the way we do business behind the scenes to our commenting and community policy (which is pretty much shamelessly lifted verbatim from ProfHacker). \u00a0This is no great surprise as I (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?page_id=28#watrall\">Ethan Watrall<\/a> &#8211;\u00a0Play the Past\u2019s editor) was in the first batch of ProfHacker writers (and was incredibly inspired by ProfHacker&#8217;s runaway success). \u00a0In this regard, we are extremely\u00a0grateful\u00a0to ProfHacker \u2013 and\u00a0particularly\u00a0ProfHacker\u2019s two Editors:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/georgehwilliams.pbworks.com\/w\/page\/14266798\/FrontPage\" target=\"_blank\">George H. Williams<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/georgeonline\" target=\"_blank\">@georgeonline<\/a> on Twitter) and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jbj.wordherders.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jason B. Jones<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jbj\" target=\"_blank\">@jbj<\/a> on Twitter).<\/p>\n<p>Its also worth staying at this stage of the game that we&#8217;re always looking for new contributors (either on a regular basis or as a \u201cone shot\u201d guest author). \u00a0If you think you have something to contribute, we&#8217;d love to hear from you. \u00a0Drop us a line\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?page_id=30\">here<\/a> and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you might contribute.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, have a look around at the site&#8217;s existing articles. \u00a0Its also worth checking out our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?page_id=28\">Authors<\/a> and reading up on our\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?page_id=2#commenting\">Commenting Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You should also consider this post an open thread &#8211; introduce yourself and tell is why you are interested in games &amp; cultural heritage. \u00a0This thread is also a great opportunity to tell us what would you like to see on <em>Play the Past<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m very happy to welcome everyone to the official launch of Play the Past &#8211; a project that has been brewing under\u00a0the\u00a0radar for longer than I care to admit. \u00a0At its core, Play the Past is a\u00a0collaboratively\u00a0edited and authored blog\u00a0dedicated to thoughtfully exploring and discussing the intersection of cultural heritage<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=252\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/2132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}