My friend Rachel and I tried to develop community with our gallery space that we rented for a year. You walked into the tail end of that for a PHXedit. We were trying to connect with people in physical proximity, but they couldn't seem to get their asses out of the house most of the time. What was surprising was the response from the web, which may or may not be what brought you there. I was afraid we'd fail, and ultimately we did, but I'm proud that we tried. I know I'll always pay more to support local, and do it happily.

For us, I can tell you, community was important to us as artists. We wanted to connect with other artist to facilitate collaborative works and meaningful critique that would help us all to grow as artists. I still want that. A lot of that appears to be right place/time, and right personalities. It's hard to find, and it's magic when you find it.

Community is facilitated by the transfer of something valuable. Sometimes the valuable thing is goods and services via money. But my experience shows that if only goods and services via money transfers, the community is fleeting, at best.

True community fostering comes from sharing personal things like volunteer services, discussions, parties (transferring fun) or other things that don't directly involve financial transactions. We all need to make a living but doing that while actually living is what a community can bring.

Thank you for a much more in depth analysis of what I was trying to say. :) I guess I am just bothered by how easy it is to think that money is evil. In turn forgetting it altogether, especially online. Of course there is value in relationships and community is built out of a very complex combination of all social behavior. Still, money is the foundation of value in our society and I think it is folly to ignore that. :)

n/0 = NOW. :) #L4T http://tinyurl.com/at95xf <-- include this link on twitter and my blog will make it a comment.