What is community?

I don’t think the fluther community is at all “created by the platform.” It’s created by the people, just like any community. This is how I define it: I think a community, or a sense of “community” is formed when people are connected to one another in some way and care enough to sometimes put aside their own needs and interests in order to assure that the “community” serves the needs of everyone, if imperfectly. A sense of community also means that people look out for each other, and sometimes look the other way too, a little live and let live is necessary too sometimes, I think. This is what the neighborhood I live in is like and fluther is like that too, though imperfectly. A sense of community doesn’t mean that everything is perfect or people are perfect or always behave or are never selfish or self absorbed, aren’t ever jerks. I just think it means a certain level of commitment to the “greater good” of the whole, so that everyone benefits.

A community is simply a group of people joined together by a common interest.

It could be a club or organization, a church, or whatever, even Fluther.

@lillycoyote said it quite nicely I thought.

Community is a hilarious new comedy.

A group of people with similar/like interests, professions, etc. who are supportive of each other.

@lillycoyote how did we all end up here? Fluther created this platform, what was the magic? But yeah if no one was active then it wouldn’t be a community.

@kdrive I don’t know. Many different routes to fluther I think. And I don’t know what the magic is, if I did it would be chemistry or physics not magic. I tried to figure out what the “magic” was on a similar site that I was on before this, the owners shut it down, but I could really put my finger on it there either. An number of things figure into, I think. Sadly, the size of the “community” is one of things that makes these sites special, it creates a degree intimacy and makes for a close-knit “community” but it is also what leads to their eventual undoing I think. That’s happened here, at least the beginnings of it. fluther has not turned out to be a very lucrative endeavor for it’s founders and they have moved on to greener pastures and have no plans to develop it further. Unfortunately, I think it’s only a matter of time before this site goes the way of wis.dm, a similar site that I was on before fluther.