I belong to four online communities. Two are very comfortable places for me. Livejournal is a very happy community for me because it allows me to follow content I am interested in and to be oblivious to the mass of other content. I love being on Livejournal. I love the connections and new friends that I have made by being here. I’m also very comfortable in the Schlock forums, but this is because I have a special status as “Goddess of the Schlockiverse.” The status means that people are always polite and attentive when I decide to post. I don’t post often. I’m a lurker by nature. (This is true in person as well. In a small group I’ll hold up my part of the conversation, but in a large group, I will lurk.)
The problem with lurking is that while I get to know other people, they don’t get to know me. This isn’t such a big deal with in-person contacts, because even though I don’t speak, other people can read attentiveness in my body language and learn a little about me. It is different online. People who lurk in online communities are invisible. I lurk in a community for a long time. I learn who everyone else is. I learn the social rules of the community. Then I post something, and I get little or no response because none of those people know me from Adam.
One of the other communities I belong to is a private writers forum. I got into it on the strength of one professionally published story and knowing several members. It is full of fascinating information and interesting people. But I’m not writing fiction right now, so very little of the information is immediately relevant. There is also an emotional disconnect because I wonder if I should be there at all. I’m not writing right now, and even when I do start writing again, I don’t know if I’ll be following the traditional paths to publication that they are all focused on. Much of this disconnect will likely be alleviated when I meet many of these people at Worldcon in August. They will become more real to me and I will become real to them.
The last community is one I just joined last week. It is http://www.workitmom.com/. It is a community for working mothers. I signed up primarily because it was the best way I could find to get in touch with one of their featured bloggers. Since I’m already signed up, I want to go ahead and give the community a try, but it feels like an awkward fit right now. I’m definitely a working mother, but I spent a full decade completely happy as a stay-at-home mom. This site has several discussions where mothers who work are trying to deal with thoughtless comments from mothers who don’t. It was never said right out, but I felt like these women did not believe it was possible to be an intelligent, completely fulfilled woman without working. I know that is false because I was completely happy and quite thoroughly challenged being a stay-at-home mom. That was a good way to spend a decade. The fact that I’m now happy and challenged to be a work-from-home mother has more to do with the fact that, after a decade, I was ready for something new, than that working from home is better than not working. If I’d spent the first decade of my adult life working, I would probably be shedding my job right now so that I could stay at home with my kids. I’m sure that there are wonderful people on the Work It Mom site who will truly understand this perspective. There are kindred spirits there, but I’ve no clue how to find them. I want to lurk, but that doesn’t help them find me. I also was hoping to use the site to promote Hold on to Your Horses, but that feels like sheer commercialism unless I also get involved in the community and make friends.
I’m not sure what the answers are, if there are any. Much of the problem may simply be the newness of these second two communities in my life. I’ve been in the Schlock forums for 8 years and Livejournal for 4 years. Perhaps online forums are like shoes that have to be worn awhile before they are truly comfortable.
… You know, a post pretty much exactly like that would be a good start.
Don’t mind the rabid evangelists that will inevitably reply stating how You Are Wrong, Working Is The One True Way To Happiness etc (There is a subset of any community who is, well, pretty much exactly that, so don’t mind it too much…), having such a well-written and honest statement will attract those who find your stance agreeable.
And if it /doesn’t/, then one fears that the like-minded people may well have been driven away from that culture all along – at which point, there was little to gain from remaining.
It’s a risk, to be sure, and you’d want to make sure you’ve got a reasonable handle on the culture before you post it (If only so you don’t accidentally say something in terminology that people will react to as flamebait), but other than that… it’s probably the best way to give it a go, if you ever felt up to it.