I seem to read a lot about the positive aspects of communities, virtual comunities and learning communities. What are the negative aspects? Has anyone looked at them?

Real-world communities often define themselves in terms of the other, in terms of what they are not. Is that true of online communities? Do online communities do that but with a much smaller population? Of the people who have signed in, and are nominally members, some are the in-crowd, some are on the fringes and a lot (the majority?) are a silent, lurking group who can be construed in negative terms – too lazy to post, too stupid to post, taking but not giving, a threatening presence, a judging presence…

I guess we all lurk in some communities, however briefly, so lurking has benefits for those who do it. Jumping straight into a community and posting without a period of lurking would usually be a mistake, so growing communities do need lurkers.

Should a community have a system for pulling lurkers in towards the centre? For example, on FirstClass, lurking individuals could be addressed directly because their identitiy is available in the message history. This would probably happen in a successful real-world learning community – those who sit quietly on the fringes are usually invited to give an opinion or speak at some time.