What a way to start the day, with a good gripe session about the troubles with managing a community. It was most amazing hearing stories of flare-up's in other online communities.. it helped me remember, hey, the flare-ups which have occurred in the communities I manage are not unique. Of course I knew that, I've been involved with online community since the 1980's, but somehow I forgot that and part of my mind believed our problems were unique.

Today I'm in at a conference, an unconference that is, about "Online Community". For years I've had this idea of using online community as a means of social change, that by helping people connect on a given topic they can use an online community forum to discuss that topic, resolve problems, help each other learn the topic, etc. An online community focused on a specific topic can focus attention on that topic.