See also:

• Computers: Internet: Cyberspace: Culture  (60)
• Computers: Internet: Web Design and Development: Authoring: Webmaster Resources  (524)

About.com: Community Online - - Editors' web site picks for fostering an online community and personalizing web sites.

Autospec Thematics: Virtual Communities To Match Goals with Resources - - Detailed strategy for creating virtual special interest groups.

Benton Foundation: Community Building - - Detailed articles, tools, and resources about community building. Topics range from software recommendations to profiles of successful communities.

Building an Online Community: Just Add Water - - The dos-and-don'ts of building a website community by Matt Haughey, the creator of MetaFilter.

Building Community: Online Resources - - Has papers, presentations, stories, indexs, and surveys.

Club about Online Communities - - Whenever you provide people with the ability to communicate online then community develops. This club is about the development and management of online communities.

Code begets community - - Information about Daniel Pargman's Ph.D. thesis on the social and technical aspects of managing a virtual community, a study of a Swedish MUD. Sample chapters in PDF format.

Community Networking Movement - - "Realizing that communication and information are increasingly dependent on networked digital information, community activists all over the world are developing community computer network systems..

Community Networks: Putting People First - - Editorial by Michael Mulquin. Discusses the role of Community Networks in delvering new information and communications technologies to UK residents. Most content is applicable elsewhere as well.

CommunityAnswers.com - - Questions and answers and advice for online community builders, users, moderators, managers, and owners.

Communitybuilding.com - - The secret to success on the web is to build a community, not just a web site. Here one can find tools and tips to make a web site interactive and, as a result, a place of community.

CornerWays: Community Development, Training, and Moderationn - - Online community development company that provides online community building, consulting and design services worldwide.

Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community - - Essay by former Wells conferencing manager John Coate explaining what happens in an online social environment.

Design Principles for Online Communities - - Academic paper by sociologist Peter Kollock, drawing upon community design principles by Axelrod (1984), Ostrom (1990), Godwin (1994).

Digital Geographer - - Information architecture, interface design, and strategy for online places. Tips, tricks, and articles comparing real and online communities to improve your relationship with customers, clients and employees.

Full Circle Associates - - Provides strategic facilitation, online community development, marketing, and project management services. Includes a listing of online community building and virtual group facilitation/moderation resources.

How To Kill Community Networks - - By Doug Schuler. Essay describing three common means for the downfall of community networks.

Howard Rheingold - - Online community builder, acknowledged expert on social and cultural implications of cyberspace. Includes informative articles and advice and commentary on current online communities.

The Mailing List Gurus Page - - A resource for finding, participating in, creating, and managing Internet mailing lists, from the authors of The Internet For Dummie.

Membership Agreements - - Article by lawyer Ivan Hoffman discussing membership agreements and resolving issues that arise from them. Applicable only to U.S. Law.

Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet - - Online book by Fay Sudweeks et al. Addresses the mutual influences between information technology and group information and development. Discusses network norms and experiences and the essential nature of network communications.

NTT Social Communication Laboratory - - Aims to develop a social information infrastructure and create a new lifestyle for interpersonal communication via the Internet.

Online Community Building Concepts - - List of fundamental principles to consider when starting a new community site.

Online Hospitality: Moderator Guidelines and Community-Building Tips - - Gail Ann Williams writes about building conversation and community in online environments, adapted from the WELL Host Manuals.

Peter Kollock - - Associate professor of the University of California, Los Angeles. Includes curriculum vita, course syllabi and recent papers on online communities and markets, which is his current research.

Suite101.com: Communication in Cyberspace - - Articles, links and discussions on various programs used to communicate on the internet. Covers messaging, conferencing, discussion forums, telephony, chat and email.

The Virtual Communities (VirCom) Project - - Five PhD students out to study virtual communities, their rise and development, evolution, meaning and its effect to traditional organizations. (Some papers are in Swedish..

VirtualCommunities Start4all - - Directory of resources and tools for building online communities. Rich content for analysis of virtual communities. With a list of popular communities and vendors in this field.

WELL Conferencing Team - Community Building and Hosts Manual - - The WELL's description of conferencing, why it's the best tool for building community, and how to get starting in a conferencing environment. Links include the WELL Host Manual.

Xgencia - Best Practice in Online Communities - - UK online community specialists providing planning, RFP and ROI analysis services. Requires Flash.

First Monday - Phantom authority, self–selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia - - Peer-reviewed journal article by Andrea Ciffolilli. (December 1, 2003)

First Monday - A Social Network Caught in the Web - - The authors present an analysis of Club Nexus, an online community at Stanford University. Through the site they were able to study a reflection of the real world community structure within the student body. (May, 2003)

Salon.com Technology: Must AOL Pay "Community Leaders"? - - Article by Janelle Brown discussing issues on the use of volunteers to manage a site's online community. "The volunteers may feel good about giving their time, but the for-profit online communities are clearly profiting from those volunteers' services." (April 16, 1999)

Salon.com Technology: Netscape to community: You're evicted - - As Netcenter's forums fall casualty to AOL-merger cutbacks, participants mourn. (April 6, 1999)

CNet.com: Will Media Giants Bulldoze Communities? - - News Analysis by CNET observing how Disney and Time Warner, by building enhanced entertainment sites, threaten topical online communities. (March 31, 1999)

Community is Dead; Long Live Mega-Collaboration - - Usability expert Jakob Nielsen's take on Online Communities: "The Web is not a community: a huge impersonal city is a better metaphor. User-contributed content can be valuable (if edited), but chat rooms should be avoided because of participation inequality." (August 15, 1997)

Fragmented by Technologies: A Community in Cyberspace - - Early academic paper studying the human interaction within an online community. The author observed antinomy, atomisation, carnival, decentralization, disembodiment, impersonality, intensification and lurking. (April, 1997)