Welcome to Report 2: Virtual Online Communities by
Shehla Korff

There has been much debate about whether a Virtual Community should be called a "community." After all, it isn't a real place and they don't live together, right? Or wrong? Webster defines a community as "

A Virtual Community is a group of people who are residing in cyberspace or on the net. They share a common set of rules and ethic principles which have been presented as terms of agreements by their online providers and the groups they join online. Since the internet is inhabited by such a group of people, it can contain communities. These communities are based on social characteristics. Some are based on religious convictions. Others are based on occupational interests. The internet contains the public, and they assemble and interact in specific places called virtual communities.

Virtual communities take the forms of e-mail discussions, mailing lists, forums and chat rooms, conferences, and many others. There are message boards and newsgroups. There are Multi-User Domains where humans adopt an online character who lives in the online reality. Many communities are devoted to entertainment while others are devoted to providing resources and other educational materials. Then, there are those that are devoted to match making.

Just like real life communities, they need to be able to support themselves. In many cases, it takes a full-time staff and many volunteers to keep a community running. Virtual communities usually have a home page that lists the contents of the site. News editors and associate editors are usually responsible for relative current affairs and other news items. Revenue from advertising and banners allow many virtual communities to provide these services to members for free. Others seek their revenue through member supported communities via paid memberships.

Case History of the WELL

Where is the WELL? In Cyberspace of course. It is a huge virtual community made up of electronic villages from around the world.

Who participates in the WELL? WELL Members are parents and educators, artists and journalists, programmers and CEOs, activists and politicians. They come together to discuss a variety of topics ranging from Parenting and Pop Culture to Jazz Music and Parisian Cafés. These forums are referred to as Conferences to the Members. In each conference the participants

How does the WELL function? Each village has distinct characteristics that distinguish it from each other conference. There are several different "places" to congregate that have been likened to "cafés," "clubs," "townhalls," and "parks." WELL's services are provided directly through subscriptions. Two types of memberships are available on a monthly basis. A WELL Membership Account is $10 per month, and "offers unlimited participation in all Featured Conferences via the Web." A WELL.com Account is $15 per month and entitles the WELL member a "well.com email address," "the ability to publish his or her own web pages with up to 512K of storage," and "the ability to create one private, personal WELL Conference." This membership "allows you to telnet to the WELL and access the conferences via picospan."

Virtual communities allow people to interact with others who have similar interests. There is no longer a need to wait until a Trekkie Convention comes to town. Simply log onto the net, and search for the Trekkie Community that suits you. Virtual communities also bring people together who may otherwise be isolated; therefore, acting as a medium for socialization. There have been many studies done on humans who have been without human contact for extended periods of time, and although some reports today claim that computer users have an increased chance of depression, I feel that the communication with others could possible cure some current cases of mental disorders.

Most of the communities are member run and member monitored. This continues to make citizens and netizens responsible for their communities and neighborhoods. Our real life communities are governed by elected representatives who are a part of that district. Neighborhoods help to unify the residents just as virtual communities unite members. Certain rules and behaviors are deemed inappropriate by one's society, whether it is real life or virtual life.

Virtual communities are undergoing an evolution like there is in face to face communities. Many communities are gated and secured, just as many online communities are becoming for members only. Virtual communities are already beginning to show the signs of vandalism via viruses. Sometimes there are some people present for a conversation that you wish weren't there. We are not able to choose our neighbors. People come and people go.

We both agree that "the significance of the existence of virtual communities is that they allow interactions between individuals that would not have been otherwise possible."

First, I chose a topic that interests me, and that is Online Communities. The second step that I took was to locate some virtual communities and read the background material. Once I had a handle on the who, what, where, why, and how, it was time to start typing. I book marked pages that I would like to reference in my report. I copied and pasted text so that I didn't have to toggle between windows. This made it very easy to paraphrase whole paragraphs. Also, do not forget that you have a report to write. It is easy to get caught up in the discussions in front of you.