The word ‘community’ is bandied about a fair bit these days and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a cosy term used lazily. As an exercise, I used the pseudo-random idea generator in my head to squeeze out some candidates:
© Bruno HEROLD - Fotolia.com
- The 20th Bristol Juggling & Circus Skills Convention
- Birmingham Bloggers
- Asda customers
- Bohemia patrons
- Flickr users
- Guardian readers
- Nokia users
- iPhone users
- Cyclists
- Procrastinators
- Tossers
- Bandana wearers
- All the shoe shops in Amsterdam
I want to know which of these are communities and which are arbitrary groupings. If you find a definition that works for you, please share.
sixball 
December 3, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I think they’re all communities – ie groupings of people, apart from:
# Procrastinators
# Tossers
as they’re groups that aren’t definite – I might think someone is in the “group” of tossers, but they (or others) may not. (and shoe shops can’t be as it isn’t a group of people – shoe shop patrons or owners or workers you could have).
I don’t think “community” as a word implies involvement, you couldn’t deny being part of the King’s Heath Community if you lived there even if you didn’t take an active role.
December 19, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’d agree with bounder, with the following comment on the final paragraph/sentence:
I think the phrase ‘active role’ is a little vaige. Clearly a councillor is (hopefully!) taking an active role in community affairs, representing residents and such. The residents being represented could be regular contributors to the councillors itinary, or be expressing an opinion for the first time.
But where do the opinions come from? I’d suggest that residents are taking an active role in a community by their presence. Forming opinions from their unique viewpoint, and affecting the viewpoint of other residents by their behaviour are inescapable actions which culminate in a type of community.
Perhaps passive and active communities would be a useful distinction? Guardian readers would be an example of a passive community, as opposed to Guardian letter writers which I would call an active community.