CompuServe Forums in the sense in which community is normally used here are best described in the past and that's the focus of this descripion.
While usenet and the internet was growing as an unmoderated primarily academic venue in the period from the 1970s to early 1990s, CompuServe offered its proprietary online service to all who could pay the fees. One of the available services was a set of moderated communities called forums.
The forum moderation structure consisted of a GodKing called the contract holder, the person who had the contract with CompuServe to manage the community. Below that person were one or more wizops who were effectively day to day GodKings. Many contract holders used the wizop title for convenience. Below those were sysops and sometimes section leaders, sysops with duties for specific discussion areas.
See The Rise and Fall of Sysopdom http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/10hjolt495.html by Jonathan Zittrain (10 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 495 (Summer 1997)) for some of the history of the culture. Mr. Zittrain was wizop of the forums for contract holders and sysops for much of the period described.
One excellent example of the voting with their feet described in the paper is the voting done by many UK members. Most of the UK forums were run by a contract holder who routinely banned people who disagreed with his views, or protested when he banned others for that reason. As a result, he played a major role in causing the high level of participation of UK members in the US part of CompuServe, as many of the more community-oriented members chose to avoid him.
The present
During the period starting from about 1999, there was a significant change in focus of the forums and they became far more tightly tied to web portal-type channels. General visibility of forums was reduced significantly and the type of content promoted changed from the high demographic to budget participation demographic as AOL changed the focus of CompuServe from premium to value (low cost) brand, with its own AOL service holding the premium spot. This brought in an influx of hit and run participation, discouraged many previous participants and, combined with conmpetition from the general internet, led to significant change. Management changes in 2003 further discouraged sysops who valued high end content and many reduced their level of participation as they developed alternative interests. The forums which remain are largely a rump consisting of light entertainment and pop culture.