It is locality though that makes an online community home from home. There is a virtual accent that is unmistakable. New Yorkers have a different style of communicating, regardless of where they happen to be, and they talk about different things. Even online, I wanted to be with them. This sense of local identity is important.
Online communities develop a sort of local dialect.
Like certain parts of the country that have their own expressions, each online place develops their own slang, their own unique way of saying things. It's an important tool in cyberspace for recognising and identifying with your group or online home. One of clearest points that the Echo experience spelled out to me is that the strongest virtual communities are not strictly virtual. Offline contact is an essential part of online community building. It isn't so much what they look like, you simply want to be with them in the flesh.