WAY2WEB: Web Design & business...

Who Really Owns A Community?

Online communities are growing. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn - the list could go on for pages. People these days seem to love filling their spare time with social networking, and catching up with people around the world.

Even I participate in the odd web design forums, and contribute to the liveliness of these communities. I find it to be really fun, engaging with people from around the world in topic I enjoy discussing. It's fun, and can be addicting. Too addicting, I must say.

The people who run these sites also must love running online communities. I must say that I aspire to run a online community, no matter how much stress it would introduce to my life. They devote many hours to their communities, fine tuning, writing additions, fixing bugs, and doing menial jobs which no one knew actually existed! These are the people who make it all work - or are they?

The other side of the equation...

While the people who run these sites must spend huge amounts of time on their sites, there are also a vital number of other people who also spend huge amounts of time on the site. But their job is probably more important.

The users, members, visitors, subscribers - whatever you want to call them - are all a vital part to any community. Believe it or not, they are what makes a community, community. If MySpace had no one who participated, then it would just be a bunch of ugly markup which everyone hates. If Neopets had no one playing games and having fun, it would just be a bunch of whacky pets made out of PHP.

Without the members, you have no community! If you remove this vital ingredient out of these websites, the whole thing collapses. Simple as that.

The problem

This poses the question - who really owns a community? The people who create it, or the people who devote many hours to making the community what it is?

This question I am posing may seem decisively pointless. You may ask me, "Who really cares who owns a community? As long as it works, then things are fine and dandy!". Unfortunately, things are not that simple.

You see, people become used to their surroundings. They hate change! If you get a group of the same people in a room each week, and ask them to sit down, then you will soon see that the people sit in the same seat each week. Then, change the seating arrangement, and everyone will complain! It won't matter if the people are unaffected in any other way, they will still hate change (and argue you about it to the bitter end).

Now, swap the room and chairs with an online community and the page layout. In the same way people hate moving seats, they also hate changes in form and function to a community. See the problem? Change the website layout, and you immediately loose a weekend answering emails from angry people wanting the old design back.

So, who owns that community?

If only there was a simple answer. I think there is no single entity which owns a community. Part of the dictionary definition of the word "community" speaks about joint ownership or responsibility. You see, with a community, it is important to keep everyone informed with what is happening, and value their input. Many people still don't see the value of a blog - with a blog, you can openly ask for opinions, post thoughts and ideas, and seek advice from the people in your community who matter most to you.

Without communication between everyone in a community, you simple can't survive. If everyone is valued, and treated equal by you, then that community will prosper, and grow. Treat it properly, and it could really be headed for greater things.