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Community Websites - Information, Communication or Amusement?


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Community Websites - Information, Communication or Amusement?

Lately I've been wondering what it is exactly that the majority of people are looking for when they read or join a community website such as chiriqui.life or boquete.ning.

  • Folks will ask for information, but don't seem to want to search for it.
  • People will Chat back and forth in Discussion Forums, but not in provided Chat Rooms.
  • Discussions related to current events usually get far less views than humorous ones.
  • Is an inclination by some folks to perpetuate rumor and ignore fact sensationalist amusement?

 

 

 

Edited by Keith Woolford
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Keith,

I see that you are in a reflective mood today. I wish I had the luxury of doing that once in a while, but CL keeps us hopping.

Specifically to your question:

Another question would be:

What is it predominately that people are looking for when they read or join a community website such as chiriqui.life or boquete.ning.?

We here at CL (my wife and I) spent the month of September sequestered in a faraway place crafting the various governance documents for what was to become CL, and doing a lot of planning, design, configuration work, etc. Your question is one that we asked ourselves many times, not only during the time away, but weekly since the birth of CL. We actually put our answer to your question on CL for everyone to see. Note the date of that entry.

Here is an extract of the relevant section of our "Welcome Aboard" post, our answer to your question long before you asked it:

...

Closing Comments

This is YOUR resource. The team doesn’t create the content, we simply are providing a community resource for you to:

  • share information,
  • share ideas and thoughts,
  • announce things or events,
  • inquire about things that are important to you, and
  • help others in their journey.
...

If anyone believes that we need to modify those words, please reply, either publicly or via private message.

If anyone wishes to see the entire post, here is the link:

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Personally, I value the exchange of local information element, i.e., experiences and recommendations re goods and services from other community members. This is the information that is not searchable. Discussion of current local and national issues also gets my vote. I get my "event" information via News Boquete and don't understand why it is repeated here, but I can just skip it. I can appreciate humor being injected into discussions, but I get a little annoyed when folks post humor just for the sake of humor. To my mind, this kind of thing, as well as favorite videos and photographs, belongs between friends, not on a forum (particularly because everyone's sense of humor and taste isn't the same). And I become very annoyed at those who use the forum as a chat room. Chats, too, are personal in nature and have no place on a community wide forum. In my view, events, humor, chats, etc. clutter up the site, making it time consuming to get through. It's not possible to ignore all of this because sometimes you can't tell from the posted topic what it's about. Just my two cents, since you asked.

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I think Bud and his wife nailed what we enjoy and would be looking for.  Back 8 years ago or so, the NING site was helpful to those wondering what life might be like here.  It was quite a valuable resource.  Learning about Panama politics and government procedures was made so much less a struggle...as laws do change. Lee was so good at sussing all that out.  I remember the long detailed instruction sheet Martine Heyer posted on how to cross the CR border with your car....wow, what a godsend that was!  Hey...it was a ton of useful information.  It all made our lives here run smoother when we learned from others mistakes  and shared what they learned.  Listen, we have elected to no longer live in Kansas and with that comes the dues we all pay in do doing.  When we support each other in our lives here....wow, such a blessing life can be! (..Don Ray comes to mind as well.  What a saint that man is.)  So anyway, I think CL has hit the nail on the head.

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Another question would be:

What is it predominately that people are looking for when they read or join a community website such as chiriqui.life or boquete.ning.?

Keith. Good question but I'm curious as to why you would ask it. it sounds like you might be planning on starting your own website maybe? Just wondering.

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...I get my "event" information via News Boquete and don't understand why it is repeated here, but I can just skip it.

Bonnie,

Some people have asked for a means to provide feedback about events and/or ask questions about information that has been disseminated via News Boquete. That simply is not doable via the listserver technology used for News Boquete. We admit that it doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Not only does having a copy of News Boquete emails on CL provide the feedback mechanism, but it also is a publicly accessible archive of those emails. Anyone can go back and check on something that previously had been read but deleted from their inbox.

It is a bit more work for Penny in her administrator role as NewsLady., but she does it without complaint. And what would we all do without Penny? She is such a gem for her contributions to our community.

P.S., Are you aware that you can "ignore" postings (and/or private messages and/or signatures) by specified members of your choosing? If you would like more information, please ask a question in our Questions and Answers forum.

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Agree with Twin Wolf:

:)

My answer would be

1.  A little bit of entertainment
2.  The chance to learn something new and useful
3.  Something they can take back to their friends and family 
4.  A sense of belonging to a larger group
5.  A place to get help

Not in any particular order!
Edited by TwoSailors
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