The F2F communities: what they are and why they still have much to give

To draw the F2F communities and the Internet together, and to try to establish some purchase on questions of the kind “What Works?” we can conceive of a single entity called a “participation space”. (For finer detail on participation spaces, see my more academic article). The park is obviously a physical space, but can be conceived also as a space for participation. Likewise, cyberspace provides a "space" for participation. Having thus converged the physical with the cyber, we can ask “What makes a participation space work?” Now obviously, there are many factors that make a physical park a success, including physical factors such as shade cover and location. If we concentrate on the "success factors" for participation, however, we might focus on such factors as “sparse connections”.

Part of what makes a participation space successful is the presence of “sparse connections”. Sparse connections imply that not everybody who participates knows everyone else. That is, the attraction of the space is that there is an element of serendipity; you are not sure who will be in the space, you are not sure what you will learn, or say, and you are not sure what connections you will make. The participants are drawn from a limited set (ie. the neighbours, or those with an interest in… …quilting), but who will attend at a given time is not predictable.

This, then, is a part of the charm of the F2F community: that the connections you make are with a set of people constrained by, say, education, means, outlook, and yet you are not able to predict which people you will interact with, or what you will find out at any given time, in the given participation space. This is what is also true of some “communities of interest” on the Internet — but the constraints are weaker. Geography, by virtue of real-world economics, provides a powerful set of constraints on the "community pool".

“F2F” communities are where we all live. Think about them as a space for participation, and keep your eyes peeled — there is much mystery still, and much to learn.