On-line communities

I have been hearing about building communities on-line for a while now. While I understand the advantages of building a vibrant community of interest or community of practice there are more examples of failed on-line communities (newsgroups destroyed by trolls, blog comments turned off due to spamming) than there are successful on-line communities. The Daily Kos is a successful political site because it is made up of individuals within a fairly narrow political stripe. While discussions may be lively, the participants by and large share a great deal of common ground and common assumptions.

Kuroo5hin, another blog/online community interested in building a more vibrant community, has A Simple Plan to address some of these issues.