How does one feel "integrated" online?

[InvictusCobra]

How do you personally feel integrated and that you belong/are attached to somewhere on the Internet? I mean, IRL one would feel integrated and belonging in a community by having more interactions with it, being taken into consideration when that community makes decisions, being accepted and not left out/ being invited to most gatherings.

How does that happen in, let's say an online forum? I've never actually felt like I belonged to any forum/online community, so I wouldn't know.

[Mr Poltroon]

How do you personally feel integrated and that you belong/are attached to somewhere on the Internet? I mean, IRL one would feel integrated and belonging in a community by having more interactions with it, being taken into consideration when that community makes decisions, being accepted and not left out/ being invited to most gatherings.

Pretty much what you said, yeah. I partake on other forums as well, and I can say that this is the only one I feel integrated in.

[Yuuko]

It doesn't :3

[Nosebleed]

Forums work similarly to real life in the sense that you can integrate yourself by interacting with users and the more you partake in discussions with other people the more involved you'll feel.

 

I've felt integrated in more places outside of Fuwanovel.

 

I think it has a lot to do with the people you get along with, so for example there's specific people on Fuwanovel I get along with better than others and I feel more integrated when I'm talking with them and sometimes in other communities it's harder to form that bond with users because you're not sure how to approach them.

 

So really I think it has more to do with the people you talk to rather than the site in specific. I'm not integrated in Fuwanovel, I'm integrated with the people in Fuwanovel who acknowledge my existence and discuss things with me, but other places might be tougher to get integrated with because I might not be able to approach its users.

[hsmsful]

I don't feel integrated anywhere. :c

[Sovereign1612]

I don't feel integrated anywhere. :c

i know that feel bro

[astro]

How do you personally feel integrated and that you belong/are attached to somewhere on the Internet? I mean, IRL one would feel integrated and belonging in a community by having more interactions with it, being taken into consideration when that community makes decisions, being accepted and not left out/ being invited to most gatherings.

How does that happen in, let's say an online forum? I've never actually felt like I belonged to any forum/online community, so I wouldn't know.

[Stray Cat]

How do you personally feel integrated and that you belong/are attached to somewhere on the Internet? I mean, IRL one would feel integrated and belonging in a community by having more interactions with it, being taken into consideration when that community makes decisions, being accepted and not left out/ being invited to most gatherings.

How does that happen in, let's say an online forum? I've never actually felt like I belonged to any forum/online community, so I wouldn't know.

[ExtraMana]

I post on 3 forums at any given time sometimes within the same hour and my integration is different. The forum where I'm getting close to a thousand posts with 2+ years time there is where I'm most integrated to no suprise. I've done the whole forum thing long enough to see the pitfalls of actually becoming too involved. Anyway aside from posting posting status updates, blogs, videos etc helps with integration. fuwanovel doesn't have status updates as well optimized so that side is cut off hence why its a secondary forum.

Then of course there is the time factor spend years anywhere IRL or a forum and you'll bump into the locals more and more and they will learn your face. Lastly of course there is the speed of movement, 4chan moves incredibly fast but thats all it does for integration, fuwanovel moves fairly slowly so there is less to engage with. I digress.

[Kyoroto]

Lurking is best 

[krill]

i feel integrated because of friendships i have gained through discussions here, i have a few members here i talk to pretty often and a handful i speak to daily through steam, skype, the forum here, and rarely these days the irc.

[Eclipsed]

1. You register to the forum
2. You find the biggest ongoing thread / thread that interests you & adds to your post count and post in it often, getting to know those people
3. You eventually 'get used to' posting often and can then start posting in all other parts of the forum and get to know all the other cliques
4. Stick to the clique(s) you like
5. Integration complete

[Kaguya]

You start ordering people around and being unreasonable. If people enough pretend to obey you, you did it.

[Zalor]

A couple months ago I had the same question and started a topic titled: What are "Forum communities". I recommend checking that thread out as there were many interesting replies.

 

To answer your question. In my experience feeling a sense of belonging is difficult in online communities (specifically forums). I've found that most people who feel like they "belong" generally communicate with other members outside the forum (through Skype, irc clients, etc.). Personally I never liked Sype and irc, since I'm primarily only interested in focused discussions. Also, I like having the freedom to disconnect from the online world when I feel like it. Sype and irc make that more difficult since they are real time.

 

Regardless, even if you are like me and don't want to use external programs to communicate with members, you can always Pm people. Personally I like communicating through pm as you can take your time to reply. This generally results in longer and more interesting conversations. I'm not sure how well you can "get to know a person" if you only communicate with them through pms and forum posts, but you can definitely exchange a lot of interesting ideas with only those 2 methods. In fact, if you are interested in having good conversations with other members, I would argue Pming is a better choice than irc. 

 

Also, just as somebody else said. The more you post and frequent a forum, the more likely you are to run into the same people over and over again. Eventually you will be able to learn about them (or form an opinion of them) simply by reading a bunch of their posts over time. That's how I got to know most people on fuwa, granted it took a while. ;P  

[Cyrillej1]

I kinda thought how Fuwanovel felt like a high school setting sometimes... there are certain classes (threads) I participate more in than others, so the people I respond to and see often, it sort of feels like classmates.  Then there are other people I see around but never speak to really or at all since we don't really attend the same classes.  So I may know of them, but am not part of their clique or w/e.  There are people I can call acquaintances/friends that I talk only when in school, and then there are closer friends I spend time with outside of school (chatting outside of the forum).  I guess how integrated I feel in the forum depends on how often I attend and get involved with everyone & what's going on.  If I skip and don't attend enough, I'll probably start to feel less integrated overtime and my connections with people on the forum may start to fizzle out too.

 

I think to feel very personally integrated.. maybe have a lot of recognition by members, feel like your contributions affect the forum, and feel like your presence matters if you disappear.  People like that probably have like more "school spirit" kind of feeling, wanting the forum to do well and prosper because they care about it so much.

 

Yeah~ just some weird comparisons I was thinking about before. 

[Zalor]

I kinda thought how Fuwanovel felt like a high school setting sometimes... there are certain classes (threads) I participate more in than others, so the people I respond to and see often, it sort of feels like classmates.  Then there are other people I see around but never speak to really or at all since we don't really attend the same classes.  So I may know of them, but am not part of their clique or w/e.  There are people I can call acquaintances/friends that I talk only when in school, and then there are closer friends I spend time with outside of school (chatting outside of the forum).  I guess how integrated I feel in the forum depends on how often I attend and get involved with everyone & what's going on.  If I skip and don't attend enough, I'll probably start to feel less integrated overtime and my connections with people on the forum may start to fizzle out too.

 

I think to feel very personally integrated.. maybe have a lot of recognition by members, feel like your contributions affect the forum, and feel like your presence matters if you disappear.  People like that probably have like more "school spirit" kind of feeling, wanting the forum to do well and prosper because they care about it so much.

 

Yeah~ just some weird comparisons I was thinking about before. 

 

That is a great analogy. To the point that the way I interact in this forum in many ways reflects how I behaved during most of  high school. The only difference really is that while I have some friends that I hangout with outside of school, I don't communicate with people much outside of the forum. But again, that's mostly because I have a weird relationship with the internet, and I enjoy the freedom of being able to disconnect. Also, I am a bit more of a humorous personality irl than I am online. But despite the fact that people behave slightly different while online, I still agree with the gist of your point that forum interactions are eerily similar to high school interactions.     

[sanahtlig]

I was bullied in high school, whereas I'm described as having an intimidating presence online.  The dynamics are fairly different, though the maturity level is often similar.  Nowadays, I think people tend to find that picking fights with me is not in their best interests.

[Snowtsuku]

I still remember my dota-allstars and early playdota days. Basically you have a set of members you fool around with and it feels pretty nice. Different boards also have their own communities so you meet a lot of people when you start to become active on a certain part of the forum. Fooling around and having serious discussions are pretty fun. Mods are also pretty chill.

[arakura]

When people talk to/about me without my direct involvement, probably. So basically "friends". The term is used loosely because it's the internet, but whatever.

[astro]

Related:

I'm finally nearing 500 forum posts after almost 4 years. My post count was below 100 for the longest time, but even then I'd say that I felt something resembling a sense of belonging here at Fuwa. tl;dr - I don't think you have to necessarily post a lot to fit in

[CatSoul]

I've felt integrated in a few old forums but they're long gone...

[Tyrael]

Once people start mentioning you in thank you esque shoutouts you know you've made it to the top

[astro]

Once people start mentioning you in thank you esque shoutouts you know you've made it to the top

That brings us to our next point: be nice to Ren