But I don't want to spend all my time hanging out with newbies. That would be like hanging out for four years in the freshman lounge in high school. It's the community I most closely identify with. I haven't disowned Kidsphere yet. And as I make that shift, I've taken to thinking about what it is that makes a person identify with a community.
People identify with a community, online or offline, for all sorts of different reasons.
Usually a community is composed of people who share a similar outlook and values as you do. Usually community members are people who find themselves in somewhat of a similar situation to yourself. Community Communities are composed of stated and unstated rules and guidelines of behavior. Courtesy to fellow community members is an underlying theme of all communities. When the courtesy begins to break down, the strength of the community itself begins to erode.