The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92844 Message #1779568
Posted By: The Shambles
09-Jul-06 - 01:45 PM
Thread Name: Mudcat's 'Stated' Goals
Subject: RE: Mudcat's 'Stated' Goals
Mudcat the Community deserves to be celebrated, because it manages to survive and be a useful source despite (because of?) the diversity of its membership in everything including manners and behaviours.
The use of the word 'community' in this context is a nonsense. For posters here may have many things in common. They may express concerns and even arrange to meet up on a regular basis - but we do not all have to live in the same place or live together and that distinction - is the main advantage of being online. The Mudcat Discussion Forum is not a community in that conventional sense of the word.
An 'online' community the posters to our forum may be but I am not sure how this term can be defined or of what use this can be. For this invites everyone to be a part of this 'online community'. Which remains a difficult concept for many to grasp.
For many people a community is really defined as a safe gathering of like-minded people and cemented together mainly by who is excluded from it. Where an online (inclusive) community and one that is aware of its limitations - presents us all with an opportunity that can only be limited by its perception as a conventional community.