The social scientist Ray Oldenburg talks about how humans need a third place, besides work and home, to meet with friends, have a beer, discuss the events of the day, and enjoy some human interaction. Coffee shops, bars, hair salons, beer gardens, pool halls, clubs, and other hangouts are as vital as factories, schools and apartments "The Great Good Place", 1989. But capitalist society has been eroding those third places, and society is left impoverished. Over the last 25 years, Americans "belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often.
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So it's no surprise that so many people, desperate for a little human contact, flock to online communities. In creating community software, we are, to some extent, trying to create a third place. And like any other architecture project, the design decisions we make are crucial. Make a bar too loud, and people won't be able to have conversations. That makes for a very different kind of place than a coffee shop. Make a coffee shop without very many chairs, as Starbucks does, and people will carry their coffee back to their lonely rooms, instead of staying around and socializing like they do in the fantasy TV coffeehouse of "Friends," a program we watch because an ersatz third place is less painful than none at all.
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Creating a community is a noble goal, because it's sorely missing for so many of us. Let's keep plugging away at it.
Thanks to Owens for making, keeping, and upgrading this place for us; and thanks to everyone who contributes, especially the folks who have been around forever.
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