Are you a non-profit looking for an affordable way of re-doing your website? Want to talk to other non-profits and developers for free about your concerns and ideas?

Are you a drupal user already, looking to share ideas?

Are you a developer, eager to help? Looking for business?

Join us for this special get together of non-profits, socially minded folk, web designers, Drupal users, and other geeky folks to celebrate the start of a new year with brainstorming and networking about how we can do more with the internet.

Techliminal
268 – 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
(near City Center BART)

Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/node/39006

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197219094322&ref=mf

Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/events/oakland-nonprofits-websites-and-drupal

Techliminal (host) website: http://techliminal.com/

I’m going to be at the Techliminal holiday party in Oakland on Friday, Nov 18. Would you be able to come? I’d love to meet you. Anthony suggested we’d get along well.

The event is to open to everyone. It is a meetup for nonprofits, socially-minded folks, and geeks (particularly around the topic of web design, social networking, and Drupal).

Hope to see ya’ll there.

Thank you.

Looks like we’re starting to push each other’s button and, out of respect for your dislike of that sort of thing, I’m just going to let go.

*furtively resists the parting quip*

The big things I want to be sure to say last, is that this kind of gentle debate is one of the most loving and caring things that I do. (Yes, I am a weirdo for that. I know.) And that I have consistently appreciated, respected, and, occasionally, been touched by what you’ve had to say. Thanks!

And many of our readers are connecting on Facebook through that fan page (there are 1200 folks who can see each other there) and I see them bantering on Twitter.

The community. It is bigger than the space.

By “define” I meant “identify the boundaries” of a community in concrete terms. With all the overlaps going on between them and the ease with which people can come and go, that’s hard to do.

And format check-in: Comment conversations are not good for digging into multiple topics at once. If there’s something I didn’t address that you wanted me to, please tell me. I’m dropping tangents to stay on what I think is the main topic… which… now that I stop to think about it, I’m not sure I can articulate anymore.

Put it into a sentence: what are you trying to reconcile here?

So, you’re telling me that the internet doesn’t know how to use a dictionary? Because here’s the thing, community is a rather well defined word. It has two senses, seven meanings which are currently in use, and two meanings which have fallen out of use (SOED6). Now, I recognize that the “Online Community” thing is a little new, and the traditional definition of community includes physical proximity, but the fundamentals – a body of individuals who share a common identity and actively participate in social intercourse – haven’t changed at all. I’m not sure what’s so hard about that, and nobody has ever succeeded in managing a vibrant real world (the internet is real too people) community without significant coercive force. (I dare anybody to prove me wrong.)

Aaaah. Lovely distinction. What can be managed, and is managed all the time, is the space where the community meets. You have a Community Center in the neighborhood and, if somebody misbehaves badly enough, they get denied access. They’re still part of the community, they still live in the neighborhood and are seen around, but they’re thrown out of the Community Center, which has rules, regulations and a level of coercive control. The thing that bothers me about forming communities on the internet is that people can’t “just as easily go interact elsewhere.” Part of why Genderfork is so successful is that there isn’t another good option, so you get a lot of people who are thrilled to have finally found someone doing what you do. Only those with particular, privileged technical skills can actually “just as easily go interact elsewhere” because only those people can create the space to interact in. So now what you have is more of a Community Center that, if it kicks somebody out, somehow also evicts them from the neighborhood. Funny thing about that – it’s one of the ways that the Catholic Church used to keep parishioners under control, and still keeps priests under control – by being able to excommunicate people which prevents them from interacting with their community in any form. So, yeah, I’m really bothered by a website with a manager being the only way for a community to interact.

You’re right, the community isn’t being managed, a community space is. See the ending of my last post for why you should be conscious and careful about that distinction.

p.s. Nice dodge there. Especially just dropping the whole “parties” thing and picking a spot about halfway through my post to reply to. I don’t think you’re avoiding me though, so I’m not offended.