When you talk about this higher level of thinking or ‘consciousness’ that a community can foster as opposed to writing for an audience, questions of equal participation popped into my head! How can we make on-line communal spaces accessible to a diversity of people? How can we engage people who are on the margins? These new collaborative spaces while having the prospect of “any where, any time” as an advantage, they do exclude many people. For example, visually impaired people have a hard time navigating and accessing the web even with the availability of screen readers and other voice options (Holmes and Gardner, 2006).

The idea of community is to have spaces where a diversity of people can exchange ideas and build on each others knowledge. With the recent developments in on-line collaborative environments, I feel as if only certain people are able to contribute and benefit from this knowledge and a vast majority of people never get this opportunity.

My comments have been inspired by a book co-authored by my Professor: Bryn Holmes. For more information on “Communal Constructivism” (Holmes et al., 2001) please consult the link below:

Holmes, B. & Gardner, J. (2006). e-learning: Concepts and Practice. London: Sage Publications.

And a link to http://www.sagepub.co.uk/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book227967 and to http://www.brynholmes.com/

This post was written by: Augusta Acquah - Undergraduate Student at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Anyhow I’m enjoying the discussion on this topic here.

The whole point of this initial post is to say that we ought to examine our inner orientation toward the way we are using these Open Web tools in order to cultivate community through our actions.

You say:

Maybe it’s time to write a “how-to”, like this one. How about it, Aaron? A presentation, perhaps?

Gosh, I suppose we could write a “how-to” if we only knew how!

I think a community has to be developed by someone(s); it just doesn’t spring up on it’s on.

Well, that’s certainly one way to build a community. But now we have the tools that allow for communities to form organically by virture of people following their interests and cooperating in a variety of mutually beneficial ways.

For example, you and Marco and I are here discussing this, but it wasn’t planned. I consider both of you as part of my online community, but that community all came about on its own, by virtue of the tools that enable us to connect and share what is important to us. Each of us might conceive of this community in different ways, but it does exist, at least in my own mind.

Such a view implies that community in an open Web environment is not something that needs “building” per se, but rather a simply sharing orientation in its participants, the technology takes care of the rest. This also implies that the sense of community that any one particular individual has is correlated directly with his/her level of consistent sharing (quantity) and the value of what he or she shares (quality).

I’m still not clear, tho, on what “community” means, or how you see it. Reflecting on the example I linked to above, I don’t think the original post was in any way intended to foster a sense of community, although perhaps a certain “esprit de corps” was created as a result of the comments (which hilariously all seemed universally critical of the original poster!). And I don’t think this created a community. Does blogging create a community, other than in a very loose sense? An online course does (or can). Where there’s a common objective or goal, or people are working together to cooperatively create something.

for myself I see very little egotistical problems. A forum/wiki, at least as I veiw it, needs very little moderation except for spam. The direction that posts take may eventually lead away from the original purpose/vision of the site, but organic growth is excellent and important. Ultimately that sort of participation would lead to a change in other aspects.

For the record my blog has never been intended as a platform to boost my ego. I’ve had a guest entry form available for almost 2 years that no one has taken advantage of. Admittedly I’ve only promoted it a couple of times, but their is a link on the top navigation.

to sum up, participation is necessary in all aspects of a community. It is easiest to be a participant in a community that already exists. Developing or building is more difficult and is what is necessary, in addition to participation, at the early stages. I’ve never managed to get past that, though I have seen other sites that have.

I think we should be careful about desiring community to grow around our individual work, which can lead to the same egotistical difficulties that writing for an audience can cause.

Instead of ‘developing community’, maybe it is best to ‘participate in community’?

Marco, your comments make total sense to me. However, you write:

I think there is room, and a need, for both kinds of writing.

It sounds to me like you are referring to the product, whereas I was talking about the inner orientation. Sqaures should experience what it is like to be round, and circles need a good dose of sqaureness. That way we understand each other better and can feel more connected.

I suppose I was making the assumption that our Western cultural conditioning positions us internally to be of the ‘writing for the audience’ type. Or maybe that’s just me…

Also, you write, an example of someone who generated a lot of comments. Does “generating comments” sound like audience orientation or community orientation? Does a community oriented person set out to generate comments or rather to share something of value to others? I guess we cannot tell from the product, only by knowing the person who wrote it.

As I reflect on these issues, I can see how far away from community orientation I am.

You write We should instead be striving to cultivate community in our online interactions. I disagree. I think there is room, and a need, for both kinds of writing. Some people are naturally better at one than the other. I disagree that squares should force themselves into round holes. I personally tend towards the “broadcasting” type of blog-posting. I admire those who seem to naturally involve readers in their postings and get lots of comments. On the other hand, Here, for instance, is an example of someone who generated a lot of comments and perhaps thence a sense of community, but I wouldn’t want to emulate this!