I’m starting to think the example of Deadheads is a tricky one that may not lend itself exclusively to one categorisation. For example the Educational Technology Blog suggests in “CCK08 – We Need More Than Two Labels“, perhaps “Deadheads would be a collective”.

At this stage I haven’t read up on collectives much yet so I want to take a look next. I’ll try to post a reflection on the subject later and hopefully add to the discussion.

As for a response from Stephen, no I’m afraid not. I did ask what the difference was between a homogenous network and a group and he was dismissive of the question as to vague so I gave up. Some topics are obviously better explored with my personal network I think.

The presence of so many different concepts and terms does make things complicated though

I do agree that there can be some pretty fine distinctions or interpretations, depending on one’s desire for tidy groups or messier networks. Now we have to mix in communities and collectives. And I haven’t heard mention of agents for many years – about time for that idea to reappear.

Have you heard from Stephen? He has strong sorting criteria for groups and networks – some I don’t fully understand where the differences apply in this case. What does he think? Deadheads are…?

Traditional community is all about making the administrators conform to the membership. I have never been involved in a traditional community in which the value system was pontificated from the podium via the office of the presidency. On the contrary, all of the officers were moderated by the membership and the constitution.

BTW, I have a blog http://foc08-artie.blogspot.com/. You might want to attend to it.

artie