What is a community website?
A community website is online information resource for a physical or geographical community. It offers a media for information exchange among members and leaders of the community.
Members of an off-line physical community often make up the majority of members in a community website but not necessarily so.
This subtle difference is what separates a community website from a virtual community.
The term "community", when used to describe virtual communities, is contentious among some circles. The traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity (neighborhoods, villages, etc). Virtual communities, of course, are inherently dispersed geographically, and therefore are not communities under the original definition. However, if one considers communities to simply possess boundaries of some sort between their members and non-members, then a virtual community is certainly a community. The idea of neatly bounded communities is also being critiqued, since communities are fluid just as much as they are static, with members joining and leaving and even being part of different communities simultaneously.
A community web site is similar to a virtual community in that it is online and it is a group of individuals who share a common interest via e-mail, blogs, instant messages, chat rooms, bulletin boards, forums and/or newsgroups. One of the primary differences is that a community website is more restricted to a physical grouping of individuals (usually a residential neighborhood, Homeowners Association, Condo Association or Club).
The characteristics and purpose remain similar.
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Members of an off-line physical community often make up the majority of members in a community website but not necessarily so.
This subtle difference is what separates a community website from a virtual community.
The term "community", when used to describe virtual communities, is contentious among some circles. The traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity (neighborhoods, villages, etc). Virtual communities, of course, are inherently dispersed geographically, and therefore are not communities under the original definition. However, if one considers communities to simply possess boundaries of some sort between their members and non-members, then a virtual community is certainly a community. The idea of neatly bounded communities is also being critiqued, since communities are fluid just as much as they are static, with members joining and leaving and even being part of different communities simultaneously.
A community web site is similar to a virtual community in that it is online and it is a group of individuals who share a common interest via e-mail, blogs, instant messages, chat rooms, bulletin boards, forums and/or newsgroups. One of the primary differences is that a community website is more restricted to a physical grouping of individuals (usually a residential neighborhood, Homeowners Association, Condo Association or Club).
The characteristics and purpose remain similar.
Back to what is villageloop
