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Ein Summary of Constance Porter's article, "A typology of virtual communities".

Wiedermal eine Definition des Begriffes VC:

an aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact around a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by some protocols or norms. (1)

Hauptziel des Artikels ist es, ein "classification system for virtual communities" zu entwicklen:

1. Definition of virtual community: Porter's definition of virtual community is different in that it recognizes that communities bring together individuals and/or business partners (in most prior definitions, commercial partners are a forgotten entity).

She acknowledges that virtual communities could be completely virtual or only partially so.... allows for fluidity of relationship

Porter also acknowledges that virtual communities have roles, protocols, policies and/or norms, as do RL communities (3).

2. Typology of virtual communities: Porter contends that the typology of virtual communities has also been poorly defined in the past. She proposes that an effective typology would include both member-initiated communities and organisation-sponsored communities (3). Virtual communities would then be organized based on the general relationship orientation of the community, eg. social, government etc.

3. Strength of typology
Porter then rambles on about how to recognise whether your definition of a community is a good one. (pp.8++)
(Quelle)

Wichtig noch für die Diskussion über den Unterschied zwischen VC und ftfC:
One thing that I picked up from this reading was that virtual communities co-exist and overlap with RL communities: now this is something that Eugene Thacker has written about in referring to 'networks, swarms and multitudes'. (for all those doing NET35) Not only do virtual communities co-exist alongside other virtual communities, but they often overlap with each other and with RL communities.