I live in a neighborhood that has a Yahoo group. It started in 2000 and currently there are over 240 people who are "members" - however, I think there are only about 15 that actually contribute on a regular basis (that's just a guess). But I think that there are lot of "lurkers" who read but don't post.Our local alderperson is very active on the list. She shares news with us, solicits our ideas and opinions, and is very responsive to concerns & questions. Our local community center that posts events and activities for people to get involved with... Sometimes they're looking for volunteers or donations, but just as often they're telling people about a new class being offered or the daily menu at the teen-run cafe they have.Neighborhood issues are often debated... we recently had an on-going debate about whether people who use gas-powered snowblowers are "earth-friendly" (I live in Madison WI - this is not an unusual discussion!) This was after we had a blizzard and received 14+ inches of snow.Sometimes I see the yahoo group as a place for people to gripe. That's happened a few times. But it seems that that the members of the group monitor each other.Mostly it's a quick & easy way to share information with lots of people. It's been especially helpful when there have been neighborhood events and people are trying to get the word out. Lately, there's been a sustainability movement bubbling up in the neighborhood and this group is using the yahoo group to tell people about it.So do these ideas create "community"? What do you think?
updated by @deb-wisniewski: 10/25/16 02:08:10PM

There are a couple of interesting resource I just came across about using technology to connect communities.

The first is a report, called Neighbors Online, from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It's about how Americans use online tools to keep informed about and involved in their communities. Steven Clift offers an analysis of this report at: http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/858

The other resource is an website for hosts of neighborhood e-lists, placeblogs and community social nets - it's called Locals Online and is worth checking out.

In my experience the answer is yes of course, but these tools are also really limited in ways that are really inhibitive for diverse communities. Given a community with many groups and interests contained within it, a simple listserv is insufficient to encourage interest-specific development. Ideally there would be functionality for a given community group to contain subgroups that can discuss among themselves without noising up and being diluted by the main listserv. But most commonly available and accessible tools don't offer that kind of tiered subgrouping functionality.

I've seen some packaged services (like Wiggio?) but in my experience, asking someone to register for a site and then pick a set of groups is a non-starter for 95%, everyone other than the already-engaged -- so Google groups is the easiest option to include 'anyone who shows interest' (even moreso than yahoo, which requires an id to sign in). But just try creating a tiered group system in google groups -- it's impossible to really manage well given that people are going to end up in one place and not another, message the wrong group about a given topic, etc.

Would love to see how folks in this space deal with subgrouping effectively.

I totally agree, Greg about the issue of subgrouping. I've used Google groups and have liked them, although they've "simplified" them in the last year or so, which actually means that you can do less with them. My hunch is that they are trying to make each of their tools focus on one function and that people would then use combinations of google tools for what they want to accomplish.

Ning is the platform we use for ABCD in Action and it is pretty good in terms of being able to develop discussion categories and groups. Members of this community seem to be getting the hang of using it more and we're always looking for ways to make it more user-friendly.

At the same time, I'm using Ning for two other online communities and they haven't been as successful using it. I'm trying to explore why that is (I should mention that none of these online communities have a connection to "place" - they are each organized around a central theme or interest.)

Members of those other two communities are very happy with getting up-to-date information & resources, but are reluctant to post anything or to interact with each other. We're currently surveying the members of those two communities so I'll have a better idea of what's working and what's not for them.

I keep coming back to the question reflected in the title of Mike Green's book, "When people care enough to act". What would make the members of those online communities care enough to act - in this case, to act online?