Reflection - Developing a Commmunity

Observing an online community is relatively easy, especially when you keep a log and follow a checklist of what to observe. I found observing the two communities for the community paper were pretty easy to do. After I learned about Wenger's Communities of Practice during a previous course at FSU, I started taking an interest in observing them. I looked at communities both online and offline that I'm involved in. When it was time to observe a couple communities and write about them, it was not too far of a stretch for me.

Part of observing communities for me is to critique them. I look for what they do well and how they do it well, but I also see their shortcomings. When I see shortcomings, I think of ways that they could improve.

Now that we had to develop our own produsage communities, that is entirely different. It is much more difficult! It is easy to know the general rules and ideas of what they should be, but it takes so much work and effort to actually set things up. It really makes me appreciate those set up communities so much more!

My community, /r/KoreanForKids has been moderately successful in its infancy, but it will take so much more work to keep it up. On top of that, I had to learn how to use Reddit's moderation tools. There is a bit of a learning curve to them!

Overall, I am really excited to see how my community develops!