CommunityOnline

MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | Categories

A new term for offline communities (organizations) that grow an OnlineCommunity as well. The term has been in use for about 6 months with us and seems to be useful. There are specific problems that are different from a pure OnlineCommunity. -- HelmutLeitner

Specific problems of CommunityOnline:

Currently only about 5-20 % of offline people seem to be able to contribute online for whatever reasons, so if you expect all physicians from a hospital or all teachers from a school to form an OnlineCommunity, you'll be disappointed.
- It seems that it is much easier for normal people to contribute to closed systems that are only readable by a known community than to face the intimitating global public of "the internet". The same is true for possible interactions.
- It seems difficult to get people using a specific online system (e. g. a wiki) without a suitable background. It seems necessary to educate people to have InternetLiteracy - having general know-how everything becomes easier.

An OnlineCommunity forms a new social system that may conflict with the existing hierarchy. New experts are created, old experts may lose ground. New values are created inevitably, which may conflict with existing values.

Timing is different. Weeks are little time offline, but an eternity online. Continuous contribution is much more important online than offline.

It shows that a large percentage of offline phenomena (statements, values, promises) just do not hold in the online world. This may become evident unexpectedly and painfully.

Some people are really good at face-2-face communications, with all of the subtleties of voice and facial expressions and other non-verbal communications. Others are exceptionally gifted at verbal culture. You may find different leaders within the same group as a result.

Pattern that organisations use to get their CommunityOn? line going:

professional paid initial help: WikiConsultant, OnlineCommunityConsultant?
professional paid daily work: WikiChampion, EditorialTeam?

[Sustainable Community Action: Communities Online] -- an interesting collection of groups working on CommunityOnline

contributors: HelmutLeitner

Conversation

FridemarPache: The main reason in my view is, that rarely a (conventionally) paid professional will "spill the guts" as there is not yet established a WikiNomics pay-out, not even a humble TrueAuthorCredit. And worse s/he risks to not produce enough inner institutional contributions, that would be otherwise spilled to the competition, this way spoiling the career. The ideal of a FreeCulture as proclaimed by LarryLessig? and the CreativeCommons however appears on the horizon in combination with new convertible community currencies, for which new patterns must be invented.

HelmutLeitner: A community online will usually offer paid work, e. g. for a WikiConsultant, a WikiChampion or better an EditorialTeam?. It is their job, to attract and satisfy a community, whatever it takes to reach the goals of the wiki. There may be various incentives for initially unpaid contributors, financial or not financial. But usually the myth of people working for the common good is preserved. Think of WikiPedia. One can think of a CostEffectRatio? of paid vs. unpaid work.

CommunityOnline

Conversation

Discussion