A blog that I read today highlighted the topic about online communities meeting offline. Whilst I agree that it is a great idea for members of an online community to meet-up in real life, I'm not sure this works for all groups.
Communities that concentrate on shared interests such as cars, bikes, health issues, business, computing etc, etc have a theme in common, and the people who participate would probably enjoy taking that communication one step further by the sharing and exchanging of ideas, and experiences face to face. However, there are many different types of communities on the net these days, and some have been created so that people from different walks of life can get together online and learn about each other: more a "social" community rather than one that has shared interests, or hobbies. In these instances they may not gel well in real-life.
I also wonder if meeting off-line with a community helps or hinders a volunteer moderator in their duties. I have had a couple of instances where members have arranged meet-ups offline, and at these gatherings they have pumped the poor moderators for information, and questioned the decisions the moderators have made online, etc. This does not happen all of the time, but when it does, it certainly puts the moderators in a difficult position: especially when they have become friendly offline with a member and at some point have cause to speak to them online about their forum behavior. In some instances a member assumes they have preferential treatment because they have meet the moderator offline.
What do you think?
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