I've been thinking a lot about "communities" recently... both because of what is happening in the greater world, and because I recently found myself having to *shut down* a 21-year old web community I had been the Admin of.

What *are* communities? What makes something a *community,* rather than just *"a group of people?"*

![0716Gable.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/denmarkguy/dZ9MfJzX-0716-Gable.jpg)

The reason I ended up closing my own old community was primarily that *the interaction and engagement had simply dried up.*

We are talking about what you might call a *"web discussion group,"* centered around a particular personality/psychological trait.

The problem wasn't so much that people didn't send their thoughts and questions through the group anymore... rather, the problem was that people had stopped *answering* and *interacting.*

As such, our small group of just under 2,000 members had gone from at one time posting 1,500-2,000 messages a month and having lively — and often entertaining(!) — discussions to a *handful* of people just posting links to "Helpful Articles" that nobody every replied to. 

![0716Daisies.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/denmarkguy/QnvXvI4S-0716-Daisies.jpg)

I tried to liven up the flow a bit, but the bottom line was that we'd get new members and they'd soon enough use the *"contact admin"* feature to ask me if something was *"wrong"* with their membership because nobody seemed to be posting.

This sort of made me think back to my earliest days on Steem (early 2017) and how it wasn't all *that* unusual that one of my posts might get 30-40 comments... and keep in mind that I was *nobody of importance!*

These days, most of my posts here seem to have *ZERO* or maybe 1-2 comments. And I haven't really *changed,* as a content creator... the greater *environment* has changed.

And — worse — there is not much sense of *community* here. 

![0751SedonaCreek.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/denmarkguy/mIRzzQkF-0751-SedonaCreek.jpg)

Of course, I'm not trying to be an excessively harsh critic here... simply *observing that there are changes,* and I'm sure there's more of a sense of community within some of the country-specific sub-groups of Steem.

But that doesn't help put forth a *positive vibe* to encourage new membership. It doesn't help project that we have the sort of *vibrant community* that would encourage people to think *"I wan't to be PART of that!"*

Now, I don't pretend to have any perfect answers! However, *personal experience* in running my *own* online communities tells me that without *interaction and engagement* you just can't have a community!

So that's the tough nut that has to be cracked.

![0796Leaves.jpg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/denmarkguy/xAssjE7U-0796-Leaves.jpg)

Thanks for reading!

*What do YOU think? What are the core elements of a strong community? What exactly attracts people to communities? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!*

***(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200620 00:17 PDT
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