I don't want this to sound too harsh... but sometimes I get a little annoyed with people who talk, endlessly or otherwise, about certain websites (say, TPM) as a "community."  Not to say it isn't a community; one definition (#3 here), "a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists," certainly describe the MyTPM users.  Broadly, we could probably be accurately described as politically involved and inclined, and left-leaning as a group, for which we perceive ourselves as being different from some other segments of society (not in an elitist way, necessarily, in case that's what you thought I was getting at); and, obviously, we are different from the rest of society in that we have TPM blogs.  However, people often seem to use the term almost like it means a group of people living in one locale, and then seem to infer into online communities all the characteristics that go along with the stereotypical, suburban residential neighborhood, such as neighborliness, friendliness, and helping each other out.  That's all great, and I definitely do believe that people should be friendly to each other online, but we are not neighbors.  Our children do not play together on the street, we don't hold meetings to discuss the speed bumps that the city wants to put in front of Mrs. Walker's house, and I don't drop bags of zuchinni off on your doorstep when I find I've planted too many.  We probably don't even know each other's names or what each others' faces look like!  Now, I'm not saying everyone's like that on sites like these- they definitely aren't, and I've "met" (but not really) several people on here that seem like nice people, but there have also been some people who get an almost narcissistic air about this issue, like they're "helping the community" or something.  They probably aren't.  The likelihood is that they aren't really doing anything except giving themselves a soap box to stand on and then feeling all puffed up about themselves because they feel like they've gone out and made a real difference in the world because they wrote their blog posts.  So my message to those aforementioned e-narcissists, if you will, is basically: STOP TAKING YOURSELVES SO SERIOUSLY.  YOU ARE PEOPLE WHO WRITE POSTS UNDER FAKE NAMES THAT, FOR THE MOST PART, RELATIVELY FEW PEOPLE READ.  GET OVER YOURSELVES!  A sense of humor might be useful, too.

Sorry if that sounded bitter!  I've just had some annoying things happen lately that made me feel like writing this.  And, for the record, I don't view myself as some sort of tamer of the masses or something for doing this; I'm doing it for purely selfish reasons.  Not because I feel like "helping the community" or something.