A large part of this weeks discussion has been focusing on the idea that we, as people, have changed what it means to be part of a “community” through our use of the internet. Now some argue that any online center for discussion is it’s own “community”. However, I have a very different opinion on this. I believe that there are in fact websites that encompass this idea of community but they are very few and far between. Really the only website that I have ever come across that fully meets the description of a “community”, in the sense we have talked about, is the website reddit.com. The reason that I think this is because reddit is entirely based off of its users; in other words, all the content on the website is user posted, what other people just like you are posting is what you are going to see. And never have I seen a sight with so many different forums for discussion with active users on almost every “sub-reddit” I have ever visited.
However, if we remove reddit from the picture, assume it to be it’s own separate entity for the sake of discussion, then I really don’t believe any websites have developed to the point where you could look at them as “communities”. Instead, I see the internet as a whole as one massive “community”. Anyone and everyone who signs on instantly becomes part of it. Just like a real life in a real community, on the internet you make your own decisions. You can make good decisions or bad decisions. You can choose where to shop, who to chat with/leave a message, what to read; you have complete control. Therefore, in that sense, I don’t look at individual websites as “communities” but rather the equivalent to buildings/shops within a real community. The only reason you can comment on something someone has said on a particular website is because you too, like the person you wish to reply to, had the common interest in the website and both choose to visit that website. If you try to compare this to real life this would be just like going out to the mall and running into a friend at a store you are shopping at. You see, you didn’t run into one another because you were both at the mall, but because you both had the same interest in stopping by that same store. Therefore, in my personal opinion, I don’t believe you can look at websites as communities (with the exception of reddit which, as I said previously, I believe is like no other site on the internet), but rather you must step back and look at the internet as a whole as this one massive community that nearly everyone is a part of and it is on us, not web addresses, to create and spark interaction through common interests.
Until next time,
– Kyle
Kyle Benson 
This is a really interesting point of view about the online community debate. I also think that this relates back to the article that we read about mapping the internet. You discussed how one website can link to another and that website can also link to the next, creating a chain of nodes. They way I understand your blog is that you think that you think the entire map of the internet is one giant community. I agree, but I also think that there can be many more smaller communities, besides reddit, within the larger community.
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I see what you’re saying about how individual websites seem far less like “communities” when compared with the internet as a whole. However, can we still see these websites as communities in the sense that they attract people with common interests to an experiential nexus who’s sole purpose is the sharing and progression of these common ideas. Sure it may not be as expansive as the internet or diverse, but isn’t that the point of some communities? To be a group of individuals joined by some common purpose? I don’t think these websites are necessarily not communities, they’re just simpler sub-communities that are a part of the larger online community which is the internet. The point of websites is to share information, and so those who view the information and take something away from them should be considered “members” of this community because, no matter how small, a connection has been made. Perhaps what truly makes an online community is much simpler than what we think.
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