prato2012-differences

Prato 2012 Sub-theme 2: Reconciling differences between clashing communities
Much community (informatics) research has focused on how to build single communities. Issues like the lifecycle of the community, its governance, tool support and facilitation all have received a great deal of attention over the years. However, ever more, communities meet, mingle, and overlap. Healthy communities have enough of an identity for their members to experience common ground, yet at the same time they can "breathe", in the sense that there many ties and constructive interactions with relevant communities around them. However, in practice, many communities do not interact, but clash. How to avoid such clashes? How to deal with the differences in community cultures? What are early-warning signs for a collision course? If conflict has broken out after all, how to best resolve it?

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