Chao designed a categorisation scheme for online communities in 1999.<\/p>\n
S\/he based this on McMillan and Chavis’s definition, which suggests s\/he felt that online communities are like offline communities. I wonder if that’s the case. Is anything online the same as it is offline? Anyway Chao looks at the four categories like this:<\/p>\n
Membership – self-disclosure statement, acknowledging others’ membership, the paying of dues in terms of time and energy, references to the boundaries of the community, completing forms needed to become a member.
\nThis suggests active, posting membership. Are lurkers not part of the community? How often would you have to post in this way to maintain your community membership?<\/p>\n
Influence – refer to norms, rules or other orders, attempting to influence others, being influenced by others, identifying and trusting some authority.
\nMmm, yes, OK<\/p>\n
Fulfilment of individual needs: seeking common ground, expressing a personal needed, acknowledging receipt of needed info, voicing criticisms, suggestions or differences of opinion.
\nI think I’m least happy with this because surely there are communities you belong to by default and others you are a member because you are required to be.<\/p>\n
Sharing events and emotional experiences – stories of the past, using special symbols \/ language
\nI suppose you could also include use of hotlinks in here. Maybe also threading. Evidence that users have looked at the archive?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chao designed a categorisation scheme for online communities in 1999. S\/he based this on McMillan and Chavis’s definition, which suggests s\/he felt that online communities are like offline communities. I wonder if that’s the case. Is anything online the same as it is offline? Anyway Chao looks at the four categories like this: Membership – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-virtual-communities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/r.m.ferguson\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}