For this tutorial I chose a community that gave me quite a lot of entertainment, tips and encouragement last summer. The URL is http://sustainability.govt.nz/forums/standard
This community doesn't really have a name, but I guess it's the government's sustainability forum community!
The brief or focus of this community is sustainability. What's that?
Well, to quote the little subtitle on the website, "Living sustainably means living smarter. Through this site you’ll learn how to reduce your impact on the environment and save money."
There are a few broad areas that are covered, namely, Rubbish, Water, Building, Energy, Transport, Climate Change. But in the forum people pretty much talk about anything to do with sustainability in as broad or as narrow a sense as they want.
There are a number of articles about the various topics, including links to outside websites if they are relevant. There are news articles about related topics as well and people obviously express their views, comment on other's posts, ask for help/tip/advice and dispense the same quite freely. It's a bit of a portal with useful information from either the articles or other users which then helps direct one's search for information or how-tos or useful contact details of companies or agencies who provide services.
In the lecture we learned that there are four reasons people join online communities, namely, anticipated reciprocity, increased recognition, sense of efficacy and sense of community.
These seem to be relevant to this particular community as far as I have experienced. Reading through the posts of other users, one gets a sense that the community is quite active and people post quite regularly, some frequently. One can see which thread of discussion is hot, attracting many replies, and how many replies, as well as when the last reply was posted hence how current this thread is. While users don't get a category/label based on how many posts they've made as some other forums do, which is the recognition mentioned earlier, one does get a sense of the really active ones. People also post back thanks or feedback or updates after others have given their two cents worth and this imparts a sense of efficacy to those who have taken the effort to answer, as well as benefitting them as everyone can read alternative ideas that others have. Definitely there is a sense of community as although the posts can vary in topic quite a lot, they are linked by a common thread, and people care about sustainability and are trying to live sustainably, indeed they are here to learn how others do it and how they can do better or do more, which is something they have in common.
An example of the kinds of topics might be helpful. Well okay upon entering the forum, you are presented with a whole list of threads and here are a sample of the latest ones...
| Urban appropriate utility style bicycles and cycling in New Zealand | urbanbicycles on 20 May 2009 | 0 | n/a |
| Water Barrels | Samantha on 17 May 2009 | 0 | n/a |
| Pushmower blues | robert.crump on 10 December 2008 | 3 | 6 days 10 hours ago by robert.crump |
| Thinking about composting? Which system should I choose? | Tink on 24 April 2009 | 5 | 1 week 2 hours ago by Rosie |
| easy way to make your fridge more efficient | mady on 19 December 2008 | 5 | 1 week 4 hours ago by Valerie Jabir |
| My WWOOFing holiday | Tink on 11 May 2009 | 1 | 1 week 8 hours ago by Lindis |
| What you eat or where you buy? – Reducing food’s carbon footprint | Tink on 11 March 2009 | 9 | 1 week 3 days ago by prowall |
| Kids Can Learn to Recycle Reduce Reuse in a Fun Way - 2009 | Neko on 11 March 2009 | 4 | 5 weeks 4 hours ago by Tink |
| Blog: Climate Change and What Difference Can I Possibly Make? | Francoise on 26 March 2009 | 4 | 6 weeks 1 day ago by Lindis |
| New case studies on water saving and vege gardening | Andrew on 6 April 2009 | 0 | n/a |
| Shampoo and hair care |
As you can see quite diverse, really.
The ethical issues that apply to any non-face-to-face interaction are relevant here. A person only needs a valid email address to register and start posting. They can use a false name, pretend to be a totally different person or hold multiple accounts to create false impressions. Even with non-malicious users, anyone can post any kind of answer to questions or any quality of advice. It is a case of reader beware, or to put a little more faith in the marketplace of ideas, it might be that others speak up to expose a person's lack of wisdom. However this mechanism may not always be reliable as people tend to be respectful and courteous and differences in opinion are largely tolerated - there is no one single "right" way to be sustainable and what works for one may not work for another, and that's accepted.
This community has some benefits that traditional communities do not, such as it allows people with similar interests to "get together" and exchange ideas, experiences, tips, advice, information from all and any part of NZ. Hence while it can complement a local sustainability interest group, it can also unite people across the country and provide perspective on various topics of interest. For example, local councils deal with rubbish, recycling and rearing chooks in the backyard differently and this community provides an opportunity for people to learn about what other people do differently and what other options are out there. Because anyone can register and join, large numbers of people can communicate at the same time whereas traditional communities would find it hard to host so many people with so many different ideas all talking at the same time! Finally, it's more egalitarian as one does not have to be an expert/celebrity to have a "roomful" of people listening to what you have to say.
As for limitations, traditional communities are more multi-functional whereas this online community does only what it means to, and that is allow people to share and exchange ideas. People can't see one another, they can't read the other person's body language or see their facial expression. Neither can they have secret conversations or private discussions. In this community, people can't really direct their words at a targeted audience (one person or a group) but what they want to say is put out there for everyone to read and respond to and if someone responds in a way you don't like, your only option is to close the window.
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