The sloppy thinking is to consider any Group Discussion to qualify as a "virtual community". Perhaps a better filter would be "would you lend money to a member of that group, or invite them to stay over at your place overnight when they're in town?".

Jonathon Delacour says about the RadioUserland community A few years ago I was involved in the Electric Minds adventure, an online community that eventually imploded. Everyone has a theory about why that happened but I believe a community without tangible goals frequently degenerates into a talkfest or flamewar. Hopefully we can avoid that because we have goals: to build the infrastructure, wire up the communities, and generate the flow. Everyone can play. His general point is good, but I don't think the Radio usership counts as much of a community, either (or, it may for awhile as it's a small group with common interests and attitudes, but it won't be strong enough to scale, which is [OK]...)

Some historical documents, to avoid repeating mistakes:

• online fulltext of Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community

• [Rosanne Stone] re [Communi Tree]: Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? and review of The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age ISBN:0262691892

• [Lambda M O O] Takes a New Direction

• Slash Dot moderation system explanation

• Wiki Pedia Replies to common objections

• The Lessons of [Lucas Film]'s [HabiTat]

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