Talk:Virtual community

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http://www.ocreport.com/ appears to be a dead link

Contents

[edit] About Bianca.com (with a little LiveJournal thrown in)

Not quite sure what to do with this. It may be the first web-based chat room of some kind (can some third party verify this?), but being first doesn't necessarily make it landmark. Noteworthy, yes. Landmark, possibly. Benchmark, no. I didn't quibble with LiveJournal being put there because I wasn't interested in getting into the semantics of there being no real functional difference between it and Blogger--with Blogger being better known, backed by an industry giant, with a widely proliferated API that is viewed as a de facto standard. LiveJournal at least has an interesting grassroots quality to it like a MySpace, but notice MySpace isn't up there either. Blogger has all the requisite components of an online community, with at least as many as LJ if not more features. If the question is asked if something like a Bianca belongs beside an eBay, Slashdot and Geocities in terms of impact/influence--we're talking about archetypes here, not just notoriety--most reasonable people with knowledge of the topic would say no. And if the claim is only that it has the first web-based chat client, that really doesn't even qualify it as WWW entry nor is it anywhere near large enough to drop into the chat-based categories. Thanks. -- Dx 20:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example list

What are the criteria for inclusion in the Examples section? Does the scary warning "Do not add HTML links...speedy deletion" refer to Wiki articles about virtual communities? Flopzee 17:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Also: I'd like to make a subsection called "Support groups" since there are a few Wiki articles about online support groups that fit the V.C. definition. Particularly, I'm thinking of Psycho-Babble_(virtual_community). Flopzee 17:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

RE: My suggestion would be to start a list on this page of "exemplar" sites and the purpose they serve. Community/Medical Support Groups are heavily cited in the VC literature, and would be a legitimate group to receive mention. Right now the article doesn't have a natural place for a discussion on different domains of use for VCs. IMO, that should be considered. -- Dx 19:05, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Merging Community Site article into this one

see also Talk:Community site Courtland 16:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Why not? I read the other article and it really does not add much to the conversation. If you take a couple of those links (that should be ported) summarize the commentary and drop the rest, that should be sufficient for a merge and redirect. If Perfecto is not interested in doing all of the heavy lifting, I can take a shot at rehabbing the entry once the merge is completed (since I was planning on proposing a new information structure anyway). -- Dx 1628/24/11/05

[edit] Art Community Criterion

What are the objective criteria to decide whether or not an Art Community should be permitted to be listed? -- Epiphyte 17:50pm, 14 May 06


I own an art community website, PaperDemon.com and I was wondering if it could be added under Additional virtual community listings > Art communities. I don't want people thinking I'm spamming. There are 1100+ members. I hope I fit the criteria for being listed, whenever it is that you decide what the criteria are. BogusRed 02:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual Community Sociopolitical Sructure

Why is there no mention of the sociopolitical structure of virtual communities in this article? Is it irrelevant to members or potential members of online communities regarding how much say they have in the development of their communities? Just because the communities are not "real" does that mean that totalitarian power structures are of no consequence? How many democratic virtual communities are there? -- Epiphyte 17:50pm, 14 May 06


[edit] Rethinking the online community listings

I tucked the Habitat into the "other" category to remind myself to revisit this topic later (nevermind, I dropped the edit to link The Habitat (video game) because it currently isn't a good fit in the article). It might be more instructive to have the listings broken down by technology type and also to differentiate between classic/landmark communities (such as the Habitat, WELL, and Wikipedia) and other exemplar sites. Any thoughts? -- Dx 1227/21/11/05

I added a new category for benchmark/landmark sites for two reasons: 1) So that people unfamiliar with VCs get a sense for the breadth of implementations and 2) As a thumbnail sketch of key examples to include when the article gets revised -- Dx 18:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AlwaysOn Zaibatzu

I removed AlwaysOn Zaibatzu from the list of communities here. The site seemed extremely obscure (so much so that it has no Wikipedia article and an external link was supplied in the text.) Thus, it bore little relevance in an article of general interest. Online communities number in the tens of thousands and to point out each one would be folly. - Chardish 05:11, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What is the criteria for being included as a virtual community expert? Nancy White August 23, 2005

[edit] RE: Merging Community Site article into this one

I think that the Community Site article doesn't add any new concept to the global discussion about the term Virtual Community. Furthermore, we identify Internet communities as Virtual Communities, and not as "Community Site".

[edit] A bounty has been placed on this page

I've added a bounty on this page...$20USD to the Foundation if this article is improved to the point that it is a Featured Article before the due date. Please don't prove me wrong about the Wikipedia community :^) --Kickstart70·Talk 22:15, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Fantabulous. Lets get started on the to do list. SiDNEy 21:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm interested. We got the main Community article from a stubby disjointed mess up to GA status in a mere fortnight, with the help of the WP:1.0 crew. I'm willing to collaborate on an effort to redo this article, as it is high on the list at WP:CBTF. • CQ 20:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To do list

  1. Put numbers on citations for what they reffer to.SiDNEy 21:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  2. Spin-off the lists into their own list articles, then link back to them on the article --AbsolutDan (talk) 02:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Community article

Community Portal

The main Community article is being refactored and will likely have a section that deals with this topic and will link to here. • CQ 20:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC) • WP:CBTF

[edit] Web 2.0?

The paragraph in the Overview section about Web 2.0 makes no sense. I couldn't see when that got added in the history, but I think it ought to either be cleaned up severely or just removed. --Ted Mielczarek 12:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual Community Pioneers and Experts

This section seems to be the continual target of what appears to be vanity edits for or by Vanessa DiMauro.

I would like to add one. He's a new Virtual Community Pioneer named Jay Drayer. Thanks, Klostermankl (talk) 03:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mr/Ms Klostermankl: What is the case for Mr Drayer's notability or pioneering nature. I see he founded "Careflash", but there are now thousands of virtual communities. My sense is that Wikipedia generally frowns on organizational self-promotion. Thanks for your interest. Bellagio99 (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm not self-promoting. Although CareFlash isn't a very well-known community, mostly because it applies to a smaller percentage of the population. I believe it is still notable. That's fine though if you choose not to post it. I appreciate your response and effort in keeping some integrity of info that's on Wiki. Klostermankl (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Overhaul

This very important article is ready for a overhaul in my not-so-humble opinion. I rewote the head and add the notes section for citing sources. I took out {{Community}} for now and removed that something awful picture. Sorry. I just think there are some better pictures to use on this article. Lets work together on this thing and bring this puppy up to standards, as in featured article. Wouldn't that be nice? CQ 18:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging material on Motivations for contributing to online communities

Following discussion it was agreed to merge the former article "Motivations for contrbuting to online communites" with the Virtual community article. The text of the former article has been incorporated into this article and a redirect created. I am doing the same with the text of the former article's talk page (below). Sunray 22:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 19/3/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

I nominate: wikipedia

[edit] Renominate for deletion in a few months unless ...

On the AFD page for this article, several people said that this article book report was a good start but needs more work. I suggest that if no substantive improvements have happened to this article book report in a few months, this article should go through AFD again, referencing the fact that it hasn't improved and is still just a book report. Nova SS 02:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I added a cleanup template to indicate this position. MaxVeers 14:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought... Are there any failed online communities? And two examples of successful ones (including our own Wikipedia!) hardly makes for good examples. Besides, the Amazon.com example includes somewhat of an adulating tone to it, no? I personally feel this topic has a lot of potential to it, and now that it is linked from the Wikipedians page, it could expect more traffic too. Alveolate 06:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey folks, take another look, this is a valid article! It has been added to considerably since the AfD. It now lists several noted virtual communities and some key references. it still needs work, but I think it has promise. Sunray 21:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

it is a good article because i have never thought about the keywords that the article's title gives. it helps to find some more interesting materials. without it i could not know how to narrow my search in "how to create a successful community" while building my website. in the worest case it is good as keywords ideas. shimon_d 14:17, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

if you know some hypnosis and copyrighting skils after reading this article you would know what to radiate to your website visitors. "send content You get trust here .. " "join us and Build Reputation online..."

[edit] Proposed deletion tag

Someone put a proposed deletion tag on this article, citing "original research." Perhaps we could clarify what constitutes original research. Here's the definition from the policy:

Articles may not contain any previously unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas; or any new analysis or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments, or ideas that serves to advance a position.

Since the article has abundant citations from published sources, it is highly unlikely that it is original research. To be so, it would have to provide analysis that goes beyond those sources. Does it do this? Not as far as I can see. It is a valid encyclopedia article pure and simple. Moreover, I would argue that it is an important article, given the increase in research in this field. I'm not saying that the article is perfect, or even great. There's lots of room for improvement. However, it is a valid article.

There are some statements in the article that do not have citations. If folks have concerns about such statements, they have only to add the {{fact}} tag which adds [citation needed] to the sentence or paragraph in question. Can we agree on this? Sunray 07:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Being well referenced does not make something encyclopedic. For example, we don't have Wikipedia entries for every article published in Science or Nature. The content may not be original research by the Wikipedia article author, but they're original research by someone. The question is whether or not the findings are notable. --Alan Au 20:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting, but...

Not every page of valid points is "encyclopedic," and I think that includes this page. It'd seem to me that it survives deletion attempts because it's very interesting to the class that includes active Wikipedia contributors, but it wouldn't survive more broad review. Sadly, that's the catch-22 of the situation, and so it stays. While I don't agree with the "thought police" comment elsewhere on this page, this does expose a failing/weakness of the Wikipedia system -- it's not a general encyclopedia, but rather and encyclopedia of the world seen through the eyes of people really into noodling around on the internet. 65.96.180.86 07:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point. You say that "not every page of valid points is 'encyclopedic'" and that you think that includes this page—that it only survives because it is of interest to those noodling around the web. However you don't make a clear argument as to why it is unencyclopedic. Care to do that now? Sunray 05:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

What about the compromise presented by the merger with the article "virtual community," which this article could or maybe even should be a subset of? It would feel more logical, no? Online Community (phrased in the wikipedia as 'virtual community,' but whatever) is the title where people would normally look for something like this, and rightly so. By merging, the information remains intact, and it may spur even more work on this and all the rest of the Virtual Community article. Organizational streamlining, if you will -- simplify the hunt. 18.173.1.42 16:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I suppose that could work, and I agree with your point that more people would likely read this information if it were in some way incorporated into the "Virtual community" article. However, this article is currently much longer than the "Virtual community" article which would make it a very long section in that article. Before we go down the merger road, I would still like someone to explain why this article is "unencyclopedic."
Another option would be to include this topic in a short summary in the "Virtual community" article and provide a link to this as the main article on that topic. Sunray 06:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
It simply doesn't stand well on its own. It wouldn't sit right to have a link from an article on real estate to "Reasons for purchasing real estate," because its simply a descriptive subset of the primary topic. You bring up the point that it's as long as or longer than the article of which it's a subset, and I think that's on the right track, because it's a reason to 1. consolidate and eliminate redundant information in the two articles, and 2. improve the main article to include sufficient information on other aspects of virtual communities to correct this condition. It can't be the case that there's a not much to say about virtual communities, but that there is much more to say about the motivations for contributing to them. And if this article is to stand on its own as such, what other aspects of virtual communities should also have separate articles? 65.96.180.86 00:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
It looks like there is a rough consensus to merge this article with Virtual community. I will proceed with that by incorporating the content into the "Virtual community" and getting this page and the article page to redirect to the other article. Sunray 21:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why Jones?

I'm puzzled by the long (and somewhat ungrammatical) quotation of Jones. It isn't research-based, it is highly speculative, and the data suggest that it is wrong. Bellagio99 12:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger of Social Network Service with Virtual Community?

Oppose Both Social Network Service and Virtual Community" are articles that need help -- especially protection from link spam -- but they are not identical. There are many more kinds of virtual communities than social network services, and SNS such as Facebook are evolving into more than virtual communities. Bellagio99 (talk) 22:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Explaining rollback of recent edit

To my mind, VC Hunter, a new editor, overdid the deletions on Virtual Community by deleting large chunks of the article in favor of a "more contemporary feel". Moreover, his additions are filled with specialized post-modern talk. I suggest that a better approach to improve the article would be for VC Hunter (or other editors) basically keep what is there and add their own material, although in a language that is more comprehensible to general readers. Bellagio99 (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

To my mind Bellagio99 you need to refer to WP:COI and WP:OWN as perhaps unknowingly VC Hunter removed some of your edits where you cite yourself. MultimediaGuru (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Dear Multimedia Guru, I reverted for substantive reasons. I believe we need a historical section. A number of people were cited there. Please refrain from personal attacks. Bellagio99 (talk) 19:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with web community

Yes--Wouldn't be much of a merger, really. Seems like it would pretty much just mean deleting/redicrecting Web community. But anyway, I'm for it. Cretog8 (talk) 03:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's what I said when I fixed up the web community article: "This should be merged with online community, which should be separate from virtual community (which needs a ton of cleanup itself), but all of that is too big a project for me to contemplate." Online/web community is its a major subtopic of virtual community with its own characteristics and history, and it isn't well-covered in this article right now. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


Strongly disagree on the merger. I agree that the article is a lame stub, but I disagree that it should be merged into virtual community. The two are fundamentally different:


(a) virtual community is about interpersonal relationships online. Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community (rev ed, 2000) is an exemplary discussion, although the concept was around earlier. Typically, it is studied through ethnographic observation or survey research.


(b) A web community (as the definition says here) is about inter-web page relationships, a fundamentally different thing. (The pages might be corporate for example.) Duncan Watts and Lazlo Barabasi's (separate) research are the exemplary discussions here. Typically it is studied through bots discovering linkages and structure in the web.
Bellagio99 (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)