Communities are everywhere you look.
Software, sports, hobbies, gaming, building, bird-watching, coding, thinking, etc, etc.
But are they communities?
Do they all share the same characteristics and agree to the same norms?
Or are they all thrown together with the hope that they someday might become a community, that one day they could come together?
I’ve always looked at a community as not something you sign up for, but something that comes together, when you’re not expecting it, like a team culture, it happens and then it’s there.
Everyone signing up or joining, that’s not a community, that’s a club, and that’s okay. Anyone can join clubs, not everyone is part of the community. The agreement to join a club is pretty simple – “I want in” – joining a community isn’t about “wanting in” it’s about being in, about doing things the community does and contributing.
One you pay to the join, the other you contribute to to join.
