First and foremost, an on-line community is only a real community if and only if it is a reflection of an already (pre-)existing community in the natural, physical world. This is generally the rule, though there may be some unique special case exceptions (exemptions from the general rule).
For example, if you live in a small town and have a neighborhood Theater Club, you might also have a Facebook Page or Google+ Community on-line, or even a Twitter account and so forth. As was just stated, this is an example of a genuine, real community pre-existing in the outside world that found a "Third Place" on-line.
This almost always works to near-perfection. A healthy community can only maintain and preserve its health, even growing more healthy, by having a platform on-line that members of the community can use. That is, members of the community can interact face-to-face to resolve issues OR they can do it on-line. The on-line community is a huge Plus; But it COMPLEMENTS an already pre-existing community in the world of flesh and bones reality.
It is important that one know this going in, or else one will necessarily experience much pain and suffering, at least grief and hurt of some kind. For if the so-called on-line "community" is not physically attached or connected to a real community in the flesh and bones world of everyday work-a-day reality, then it will most likely fail in the near- to medium-term. Such communities will very rarely outlast the digital platforms that enabled them or made them possible, they aren't even likely to exist after the passing of the next winter or news cycle/business cycle.
People were not being held together by anything that they had in common, and so a kind of "dispersal of energy" if you will, ensued. That is, the universe does not like waste, yet waste is always being produced, and so the universe will usualy find a way to dispers crowds that are not being held together by any common purpose, or principles, or brick-and-mortar physical reality of some kind. The universe does not like virtual things, it likes physics; it is made of physics, not virtual communities. (Spoiler alert: Virtual communities still have to abide by the laws of physics, sorry to have to tell you!)
So that's one thing. If you are joining a community on-line, it is a good idea to try to see if you are a good fit for it. Chances are that you are not, because chances are that it's not a real community. Joining what is NOT a real community, yet appears to be one, is a risky even a dangerous thing to try to do. You essentially can only gain more grief and hurt and loss and expenditures of time, effort, energy, and heart, that will for all intents and purposes be a great liability to you - and by extension possibly a great liability to others around you as well (guilt-by-association).
As I just said, that's only one of the many things wrong with the world of on-line communities, and I will more or less keep it at that for now and come back to this at a later time. I think it is too important to know these things "going-in". There is hope, though! Do not fret! There is absolutely a great number of valid reasons to believe in the potential of communities, on-line and off-line! I have been part of a few genuinely real, authentic, life-changing communities that were seemingly 100% on-line. At least, I thought they were merely virtual communities until I realized that there was something stronger than all the computing power in the universe that held us together, something not very "virtual" to say the least.
I have been part of at least one community on-line where I have never ceased feeling welcome, needed, useful, respected, revered in a good, neighborly way, and it also happened to be a community where I was given liberty to express myself, my joys, my fears, and my woes, and last but not least, it was also a community where I was given great responsibilities and held accountable for my words and my actions in the world.
I know, it almost sounds as though I were describing some great Republic somewhere, a kind of Moore's Utopia. Well, in many ways, I am. To come back to what I said at the beginning, on-line communities will only really ever thrive if the individuals to be found therein are bound by something stronger and more powerful than a couple of wires and nuts and bolts. There has to be respect, and there has to be accountability. One does not always have to be transparent, there are times for both transparency and secrecy, confidentiality, things of that nature. One must have one's private life, one's own space, something one can own. But one must also be capable of "owning up to it", to be held accountable for one's words, actions, one's dealings in the world.
Otherwise, there can never be any trust in the universe, nor any faith in anything under the sun, for trust is only ever a kind of Promise of future "good faith" relations, if you will. One can only trust another person if one has faith that they will behave in a certain way. One must know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the other will be bound by the bonds of trust formed between both parties, which is always vice versa, for it can only ever go in both directions. That means there must be mutual understanding and reciprocity, a kind of "quid pro quo" if you will, but in a more general sense.
For that, my friends, is the social contract that has bound us together since day one. Without confidence, faith, and trust in one another, then Community itself, or Communities in the plural, cannot exist, or else will never persist, or PERSEVERE. So before joining the next Community you land in, what is it that you are looking for in a Community? What is it that you need? What are your worries, your joys, fears, and your woes, and what might help you find satisfaction and fulfilment in YOUR community? Think about it, and if you remember only one thing, remember to have faith in yourself and in others, and pray for wisdom and for strength, that we may all PERSEVERE TOGETHER now and forever. Amen. Please be good to one another.
https://chumly.com/n/23bc501
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