Metaweb:Community (anon 142.177.x.x)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

There is no Metaweb Community.

There are people from many communities, who take very different risks in common with other people. These are not in general those they collaborate with in a Metaweb:communal process to write even the Metaweb:communal entry on a topic here.

A bunch of text can't really be a "community". The many authored entries are even more evidence of that. If people don't agree on what they agree on, and don't share a Metaweb:social contract or constitution, they aren't really committed to a common view of risk and mutual self-defense. That is community.

If Metaweb was a "community", you would have to ask: What risks do every member of the community agree to take in common? What harms might they suffer together? If none, are they really a community in the sense we physical beings with real bodies understand it? I would say none, none, and no.

Consider Metaweb:some body vs. Metaweb:no body. Can no body have the same status as some body? If so, doesn't this mean you are letting ghosts run your "Community"? That isn't what most communities do, even if they trust some high priests to mediate with some divine being or other.

Consider Metaweb:contributor vs. Metaweb:author. Not everyone takes a position on an issue, and commits to some statement of it. Most people are changing their minds a lot. There is no reason to think a casual "contributor", especially one who works anonymously, wants to be part of any "community". That assumes too much.

Consider Metaweb:party and Metaweb:faction formation. It's not even clear yet that we have the same words for things, let alone the ability to cooperate. Let's see some evidence that these things, which appear in any community ultimately, have appeared here, before we start claiming "we" are like a real community. Really, we have to wait for that, before "we" know who "we" are at all!

Consider Metaweb:ideology and Metaweb:spam, Metaweb:governance ideas, etc.. Can they really represent a consensus yet? Without it, is there really "community"?

OK, let's nail down the various definitions of a community one by one and show they aren't here:

One definition of a community is those who accept one version of a story. But we don't. At least not yet.

Another is those who accept a common glossary of important moral and ethical terms. But, we don't. We are not a phyle.

A third is those who live in the same place. But we don't. We are not a village.

A fourth is those who accept some obligations to each other, like in Neal Stephenson's Reformed Distributed Republic from The Diamond Age. This is more like community. But we aren't about to take such chances in mutual self defense of each other. This proves we are not a community.

What most people mean when they talk about "virtual community" is epistemic community. Which is really not community as the ordinary person understands it. So let's not call it that.