community on the web

Hi everyone,

just wondered if anyone out there is knee deep in writing stuff,

i'm currently writing a dissertation about building community on the web and building one myself for a music magazine with php and Mysql.

just when you're up to your eyes in code and it all works you've then got to write about it and justify everything so....

if anyone has got any insights on what makes a good community it would help me out to get a good old discussion going.

cheers

Tim

Good community =

Collection of people interested in a fairly narrow subject
+
People of above average knowledge of subject
+
Newbies who ask questions in intersting ways
+
Respect
+
Friendly jabbing

Make the users more involved in the site. Use moderators, superusers, give users their own little areas to express themselves, etc. Otherwise they are just visiting and posting, but not really forming a community.

I don't think it's a community if the users can't make changes to the site, or email suggestions and get timely and informative answers.

I don't really consider Devshed a community. It's a great forum with a lot of smart people here to answer questions, but we're all just visiting. We don't have any say-so in the site. Moderators are one step in the right direction, at least we've got that.

---John Holmes...

why does that not make devshed a community? if people are helping each other out with their problems i would think that is the whole idea... especially for a purely technical forum.

i take the point with user involvement, what would you do if you had a little area of devshed all to yourself? would you use this to expand on your profile or online persona and would you be prepared to invest your time to do this?

how do people feel about targeted content is it too big brother or is a little AI intrusion ok?

hope these are some interesting questions

Tim

Hey...that's just my opinion... I think a community involves a lot more interaction between users, administrators, and the site. What the users want, the users get. That's what I would consider a community.

Maybe since this is such a technical oriented area, this is as close to a community as we'll get.

As for targeted content, sure, why not. I mean, if I'm going to be pushed something, why not have it something that could be relevant to me...

Is that what you mean?

---John Holmes...

com·mu·ni·ty (k-myn-t)
n. pl. com·mu·ni·ties

1a)A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.
b)The district or locality in which such a group lives.

2a)A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
b)A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.

3a)Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
b)Sharing, participation, and fellowship.

4)Society as a whole; the public.
Ecology.

5a)A group of plants and animals living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions.
b)The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms.

Or so says dictionary.com .

I would suggest that Devshed is a community under parts 2a, 3a and b, and 5b. Though in this case the region is purely virtual.

"community" == "common unity"

What unites people? common interests..
the need of joining strenghts together to achive a superior goal

i guess devShed Forum, as SepodatiCreations says it´s some kind of community, but one built from interest, not from friendship

i am part of other board, where peolple actually MEET each other.. the do whatever they can to HELP THEIR FRIENDs...

here i find people who share knowldge.. but very few of ´em ... cause you have 15.000+ usrs and only a couple of answers per thread

i´d like to participate here as a member.. not as a visitor.. and i hope i can find nice people..

this really works like this in my forum, which is the same topic as this, but for spanish talkin people

Ice

i agree with ice in respect of people meeting each other... but isn't that what we're doing right now? and you are all helping me out by providing your insights and opinions on this subject. also i've found that friendship often comes from shared interests..

i'm not sure that SepodatiCreations' idea of providing the user with whatever they want is the right way to go, some people are bound to be disappointed and pleasing everyone is a very fine line to walk, if not impossible.

What aspects of community management should there be and how democratic should the process be?
IMHO i'm all for democracy and organic development. A community should be able to evolve in any direction it wishes to take and the admins should be there to facilitate that growth by providing the tools.

...although, i think there does need to be a vision and direction to the community from "on high" just so it doesn't get too wigged out!

whadaya think?

Tim

Okay...that's what I was trying to say, pretty much. Hey, I'm a programmer, not a writer!

I wonder how well a communist run weblog would do?

---John Holmes...

I guess that Karl Marx will have a lot of troubles dealing with computers as a system administrator...

he will want to publish all the resources to everyone

Ice

the castronet..... all your code are belong to the state

I guess all of your code "belonging" to the state is better than "coming" from the state.