DISQUS

Andrew Lane · 8 months ago

I left a similar comment on Daniel's post, but really wanted to make the point across this community discussion, that I think we're holding our definition of "community" to a really high standard. We're a hyper-connected and well educated group and that's really the basis for our community, so it stands to reason that we might have advantages when it comes to collaboration, mobilization, etc. I really think there's been too many words like "mob" thrown around in this discussion to describe efforts of communities that simply don't organize themselves or represent themselves in the fashion that we've deemed to be ideal or optimal.
As I said on Daniel's post, if a sports team wins 20% of its games, its still a sports team - its just not widely considered a good one. Just because a community isn't living up to the high standards that we've set for collaboration and interaction, I don't think it makes them any less of a community. It just makes them different. Maybe there's room for improvement, but we should still respect that they're a community in their own right. I think you hit on this in your point about Cuba. I think it's an important point to remember in this discussion. My two cents.