The key purpose of the research ‘A study on how public policies affect legitimacy in virtual communities’ conducted by Magda David Hercheui (2009) was to investigate the specific influence of public policies on virtual communities associated with social movements and their perceptions of their governance structures and leaders. The scholar conducted an empirical investigation with three virtual Brazilian communities of environmental education. It is noteworthy that the Brazilian legislation does not usually allow for the creation of such informal collectives to receive funding from the government since there is no legal accountability for their resource. In the summary of the article, it is important to mention that the researcher drew upon the institutional theory as the conceptual framework; the theory suggested that institutions were understood as resilient social structures that were usually reproduced by individuals and societies or collectives to which they belonged. Moreover, institutions usually depend on the mechanisms of sanction, either formal (e.g. punishments and rewards) or informal (e.g. signals of disapproval). Hercheui (2009) involved three communities as empirical objects of the research: Brazilian environmental education network, Sao Paulo environmental education network, and Southern Brazilian environmental education network. All three virtual communities were characterized as collectives that emerged from the computer-mediated interactions. Importantly, the membership in these virtual communities was voluntary, which meant that the members usually shared common interests and ascribed to specific rules. The three communities studied in the research considered themselves independent social movements (Hercheui 2009), even though they had received support and resources from formal organizations such as governments, non-governmental organizations, universities, and others. The researcher focused on exploring how the FNMA legislation influenced the legitimacy of virtual community leaders as well as the decision-making structures (Hercheui 2009). If to summarize the findings of the research, it is first important to mention that the members of the virtual communities had an overall positive attitude towards the FNMA legislation since it provided strong support through monetary donations. If to provide an example, a member of the Brazilian environmental education network stated that “the government funding permitted the community to organize itself, to construct a website and to contract a professional in communication. These improvements were not coming through voluntary work” (Hercheui 2009, p. 12). As to the acceptance of the anchor organization, members of the organizations involved in the research provided contradictory answers regarding community governance structures. On the other hand, the interviewed members of the communities were clear about them not having legal existence; however, the implementation of the FNMA legislation brought some level of formality that reinforced their legitimacy. The most significant finding of the research is associated with the post-funding stage of legislation, which can be characterized by further improvements. Respondents (Sao Paulo environmental education network and Southern Brazilian environmental education network) indicated that even though the funding had finishe