REe utopian / dystopian, Milena Gulia & I do a 4 page riff on that from early in the internet age, at the front of our "Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone" [still my favorite article title]. It's on my website, and published in Kollock-Smith _Communities in Cyberspace_ and with some revisions in my edited _Networks in the Global Village_. Most of the article is an exasperated shout at comp sci folks who write about "community" online without any realization that there is a century of relevant scholarly research/lore about how communities function. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network () ASCII ribbon campaign -- don't use HTML email /\ _____________________________________________________________________