Since I couldn't attach a file in the comment, I've created a posting here.

Taking over Brian's summary.. 

Practice as connection 

Practice is the source of boundary for both outsiders and insiders through mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Practice is a form of connection by offering something to do together and some productive enterprise. The connection itself gains a history of mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. Wenger discusses three types of practice-based connections: boundary practices, overlaps, and peripheries.     

At this point, I think I have to ask a question - are social networking communities (e.g., Facebook or Myspace) communities of practice?  Actually, this question came up to my mind from Wenger's chapter 2 when I was reading about the connection of practice with the formation of communities.

He says that practice is the source of coherence of a community by three dimensions - mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire - and each concept seems to be clear in its own. However, when I tried to connect those concepts to my online community (Cyworld, a Korean social networking site) I got confused again because I couldn't explain what the joint enterprise of the community is. In social networking sites, a mutual relationship itself is their purpose and goal. Members seek to sociability rather than practicality. Also, although the communities create a shared repertoire somehow, it is created by rather an individual than members' cooperation.

I've been thinking about the relationship between reification and shared repertoire and concluded that those are two different concepts but have an intersection. Anyone is not a part of each other.

Wenger says, "the repertoire combines both reificative and participative aspects" (p.83) As Paul said in the class, there are both reified and unreified repertoires shared by a community. Symbols could be an example of reified repertoire. Ways of walking might be an unreified repertoire.

Likely, some reification (either product or process) can be a shared repertoire but some cannot. For example, the Constitution is both reification and a shared repertoire, but a painting by an individual is a reification but not a shared repertoire because it is not created by mutual engagement.

I am going to study “Cyworld”, a Korean social networking community. Launched in 2001, it has been reported that as much as 90 percent of South Koreans in their 20s are registered users of Cyworld and there are 15 million members, about a third of the country’s population. It also ranks as the 17^th most popular site in the world (www.alexa.com).

The main feature of Cyworld is the service called “Minihompy”, which includes (1) a photo album that allows unlimited photos, (2) a personal bulletin board that is often used for personal journaling, and (3) a guestbook upon which guests – often buddies – leave messages and the owner replies to them. What sets Cyworld apart from traditional blogs such as Blogger and LiveJournal is its powerful support for customization. The users can choose to buy wallpaper and furnishings for decorating their Minihompys. Background music and other decorations such as digital furniture, art, and TVs can also be purchased.

In this chapter, Kim asserts that the sense of belonging is reinforced by participating in scheduled events and that an event programming reflects the needs and interests of people. However, I am skeptical about the importance of events in online communities, especially when they are a large scale such as performances and competitions. It seems to me that the impact of those events on online communities is much less than that on real communities. As Nika said, heavily pre-planned events might lead to an unexpected result. 

Let me talk about my experience. Four years ago, I saw an advertisement while surfing the Web. It was about an event of an online community - a young women’s community that provided useful information. The community was new and I guess they held the event for promotion. The event was a Tetris tournament. In the first phase, 48 high performed participants were selected through online games. I remember that I had to play about 300 games for 3 weeks to be selected. The prizes were quite attractive and the community got a number of members in a few days. Furthermore, the community organized an offline event and invited the 48 participants. There were a lot of people in the event place and they watched us playing Tetris. The event seemed to be successful and the community got enough members during the event period. However, once the event ended, people did not visit the site any more; they were not interested in the community without the Tetris tournament! 

From Kim’s dichotomic view, it seems that these days unofficial leadership prevails in online communities. Kim defines unofficial leaders as ‘anybody who’s active in a community’. While unofficial leaders are valuable role models for newcomers, the quality of the enthusiasts’ contributions may not be guaranteed because ‘anybody’ can be an unofficial leader. As both the author and Matt mentioned, decentralized/distributed leadership could be a possible way to mitigate the weakness. 

Another idea that came up to my mind is a “layered” leadership: Slashdot does it in its meta-moderation system. The basic idea is that members are allowed to moderate other members’ moderation so that members can correct it if the rating is biased. This is somewhat similar to decentralized leadership, but here leadership is layered by multiple leaders so that some active but indiscreet leaders cannot influence the community significantly. This kind of leadership seems to work in online communities that have a number of members and limited official/paid leaders.