Someone asked me the oth\u00ader day wheth\u00ader blogs were com\u00admunit\u00adies. This got me to think\u00ading about how we define com\u00admunit\u00adies in the online space. And friends, and fol\u00adlow\u00aders, and how some social net\u00adwork\u00ading sites encour\u00adage enlar\u00adging the social circle while oth\u00aders con\u00adcen\u00adtrate on people you already know through oth\u00ader means. \u201cSocial circle\u201d being extremely loosely defined, of course, just as the term \u201cfriend\u201d is much more loosely defined in the online space than in the phys\u00adic\u00adal, face-to-face world. <\/p>\n
So let\u2019s play with some ideas for a defin\u00adi\u00adtion of com\u00admunity. If you have oth\u00ader ideas, please add them to the com\u00adments and if you think I\u2019m wrong, tell me why; maybe we can come up with a com\u00admunity defin\u00adi\u00adtion of com\u00admunity. Which leads of course to the real\u00adisa\u00adtion that I do think blogs (some blogs, any\u00adway) con\u00adsti\u00adtute a community.<\/p>\n
A com\u00admunity is a group of people who inter\u00adact with each oth\u00ader in some for\u00adum. How\u2019s that for a begin\u00adning? Not too bad, but it does\u00adn\u2019t really nail down very much; the line-up in your loc\u00adal cof\u00adfee shop could be seen as a com\u00admunity under this defin\u00adi\u00adtion. We need to add a tem\u00adpor\u00adal aspect: mem\u00adbers of the com\u00admunity inter\u00adact with each oth\u00ader over a peri\u00adod of time (this rules out the cof\u00adfee shop line-up). And at least some mem\u00adbers of the com\u00admunity have to be act\u00adive with\u00adin the com\u00admunity (a social for\u00adum where nobody posts any\u00adthing is not a com\u00admunity by this defin\u00adi\u00adtion). This last is more fuzzy (what does \u201cact\u00adive\u201d mean?) but I think is necessary. <\/p>\n
The defin\u00adi\u00adtion of com\u00admunity needs an \u201cact\u00adive\u201d aspect since in my opin\u00adion for a blog to be con\u00adsidered a com\u00admunity, people read\u00ading it have to com\u00adment on it. Oth\u00ader\u00adwise it isn\u2019t a com\u00admunity, it\u2019s a pub\u00adlish\u00ading meth\u00adod. We could get into dis\u00adcus\u00adsions about wheth\u00ader a spoke-and-hub inter\u00adac\u00adtion mod\u00adel where read\u00aders com\u00adment on the posts but not on each oth\u00aders\u2019 com\u00adments is still inter\u00adac\u00adtion, or wheth\u00ader you neeed a many-to-many inter\u00adac\u00adtion mod\u00adel (which is closer to what most people think of in the phys\u00adic\u00adal world as a com\u00admunity), but I think that\u2019s a detail. What\u2019s import\u00adant is that the com\u00admu\u00adnic\u00ada\u00adtion in the com\u00admunity flows in more than one dir\u00adec\u00adtion. Mind you, the word \u201cinter\u00adact\u201d is a verb, which implies an action, so adding the adverb \u201cact\u00adively\u201d to it is a tau\u00adto\u00adlogy, which I try to avoid. <\/p>\n
This leaves: A com\u00admunity is a group of people who inter\u00adact with each oth\u00ader over a peri\u00adod of time in some for\u00adum<\/em>. Not per\u00adfect, but not bad for a start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Someone asked me the oth\u00ader day wheth\u00ader blogs were com\u00admunit\u00adies. This got me to think\u00ading about how we define com\u00admunit\u00adies in the online space. And friends, and fol\u00adlow\u00aders, and how some social net\u00adwork\u00ading sites encour\u00adage enlar\u00adging the social circle while oth\u00aders con\u00adcen\u00adtrate on people you already know through oth\u00ader means. \u201cSocial circle\u201d being extremely loosely \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cCom\u00admunit\u00adies and Circles\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}