Still, a dictionary definition can serve as a starting point. Try here . An online community doesn't consist of people living in the same anything, or under the same laws. Often, what seems to be an online community may be no more than a common lurking ground. The community in question was a group of perhaps 200 educators who, through the act of joining the community, ostensibly expressed a commitment to that group.
Some people seem to have more than their fair share of contact without online community.
But I promised something else. I promised that in this column we'd see how people try and actually contact others. To tell the truth, there are truly countless examples of this. These examples can be found in newsgroups, in listservs, in discussion forums, and as responses to queries on innumerable sites. It's not hard to take a peek at these.