Yaicha

What does it mean to be a good citizen? Perhaps it is my upbringing, or the few months I spent in the Boy Scouts, but I associate good citizenship with helping others. Perhaps the election season provoked this line of thinking, but the political and governmental aspects of citizenship are not what is on my mind today.

Instead, I am thinking of citizenship in the broader sense of being a member of a community. It is commonly accepted that we humans are social creatures, and the communities that we form and join are fundamentally important parts of our lives.

When I juxtapose those two ideas above, about good citizenship and the role of communities, I reach the conclusion that those who help – “good citizens” — are greatly responsible for enhancing the quality of many other people’s lives. This is certainly not an original thought, but I wonder why so little is said about it in the context of all the hype about social networking websites.

In fact, social networking websites are commonly described as online communities, but not all of them deserve to be called that, in my opinion. When there is a critical mass of helpers who enhance the experience of others, then I’d call it a community. Without these good citizens, however, social networking websites tend to be little more than an idle way to pass time (social = socializing) or to form connections that are about as meaningful as the encounters we have with strangers in line at the grocery store.

So how do you make a social networking website into a true online community? You need enough good citizens to not only help others but set the tone for them. Good citizens are what make a good community, whether in the real-world or online. And where do you get these people? You start off by making them, one at a time, by being a good citizen yourself, and by inviting good citizens you encounter elsewhere to join your community.

At least that’s the kind of community I want to belong to, and I’ve met plenty of others who seem to be seeking something similar. So, I’ll try to be a good citizen and encourage you to do the same, in whatever community you join.

Now don’t ask me why I went down this feel-good path today. I’m really just pulling together ideas that I have held for years and wanted to articulate. Seems to me that’s what a blog is for. And it really does feel good to me to be a good citizen.