Comment Re:Constructed communities rarely work. (Score 1) 57
"you can't build an online community that isn't there already..."
I disagree! If an online community is an emergent entitiy, which at least some online communities clearly are, then it follows that some communities are only possible online.
If chess lovers get together online to analyze the great games in chess history, then, yeah, that's simply an online manifestation of a community of interest that predated the internet. But an emergent community is by definition one whose conscious purpose only arises out of the interactions between its constituent parts...
I disagree! If an online community is an emergent entitiy, which at least some online communities clearly are, then it follows that some communities are only possible online.
If chess lovers get together online to analyze the great games in chess history, then, yeah, that's simply an online manifestation of a community of interest that predated the internet. But an emergent community is by definition one whose conscious purpose only arises out of the interactions between its constituent parts...
