The Ron Paulites have been at it again, galvanizing their online forces and making a big show of their organizational strength.

This time, did they use Meetup? MySpace? Facebook?

Nope. On New Year's Day a group of 240 Paul supporters held what looks like the first-ever political rally in World of Warcraft, which, with more than 9 million users paying up to $14.99 a month to slay monsters, go on epic quests, and form guilds, is by far the largest MMO (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) in the world.

Elizabeth Harper, writing for World of Warcraft (WoW) fan site WOW Insider, described it:

supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul gathered on the Whisperwind (US) realm in World of Warcraft to march across Azeroth and show their support for their candidate of choice. The rally started outside Ironforge with approximately 240 players (with 400 members in their RP Revolution guild) and traveled to Stormwind, Westfall, Booty Bay, Ratchet, and finally Orgrimmar.

Um, ok. I'm barely aware of the meaning of some of this language, but this much is clear: about 240 people gathered in the virtual world of Azeroth, where WoW takes place, to show their support for Ron Paul (those people could have been anyone from anywhere, from Icelandic teenagers to 60-year-old Oregonians).

This kind of community behavior isn't rare in MMOs, in fact creating "guilds" is a big point of the games. But never before have players banded together to show support for a presidential candidate, or to practice any kind of real-world politics.

Video of the event doesn't really illuminate much:

To me, this just looks like a bunch of video game characters walking around, but I appreciate that this was a kind of political rally.

Mike Schramm, writing at game site Massively, considers the reactions gamers have to politics in-world:

No one questions it when politicians show up in Second Life-- in fact, the few Second Lifers I know take it as a badge of honor that their world is important enough to host those folks. And certainly there are places where politics don't belong-- on WoW's roleplaying servers, discussion of the real-world is a no-no.

But let's not forget that we players aren't just avatars in a game- we're real people with opinions of our own to express, whether they be political or otherwise.

There's a division among gamers about bringing politics into WoW and similar games. Some see MMOs as an escape from the drudgery of real life, including politics. Others think the distinction isn't so clean.

I'd love to hear from participants or organizers of the event. Why did you do this? What do you think about political action in an MMO?