A poor netiquette ramble on this subject turned clear:
1.Ramble:
The first thing I think of when I think in terms of creating networked communities is how to engage people in the community without necessarily requiring they sign up, fill our text boxes and profiles and all of that.
Also, how can people contribute collaboratively by just doing what they are doing, but with better infrastructure to get those actions into a connective value basis where their meaning is set to work.
As Noemi mentioned, the basis is attention, and competing for people’s attention implies that you either compete for control over context (by attracting into another context) or you mould your efforts insuch a way as folk can contribute based on their own activity. The simple act of referencing over time grow into focussed attention as the community grows in effect and potential. People get to know the value of the group by this kind of exposure and are more likely to take active part in it.
To this end I always think of how speakers are urged to use humor to get the message across. Standup Comedy has two parts, the first part is ‘standing up’, the second, comedy. To engage people fully our grounding has to be firm, from there, the flow is important. The same applies when networking the networks. Understanding this is key. For the reason of its being possible at all (which it is, being conceivable) this implies that the method of connecting the initial community is not directly content specific, what I mean is that its not the stuff but the stuff between the stuff that connects people and this is even more important in making that a creative arrangement. What becomes important is moreso the infrastructure, which is built on values and information flows. The success of the ‘product’, in network terms, is not a product but the relation of a value associated to a purpose.
Given that ‘meta-bullshit’, as Petros would lovingly say 
, there are some core things that we can start to do. I have mentioned the Centup and Flattr model (thanks Alberto for filling that gap), and how it can be used to generate funding circuits by rerouting ‘donation’ funds through culture and the arts into societal change organizations and events. (You could even swing funding for this one , worded right, on a community basis)
Jasmine was working with Ele on DIY days, Ele works as a writer for Good.is who umbrella Centup. Good.is have recently started a new venture called ‘Goop Open’ which could be a route in, and Centup itself just got donor funding enough to give a free dollar to a bunch people on the system to get them into it. (hence my thinking about the funding, I wrote to Good.is on behalf of ER before and they are open to future collaborations of this kind.) The Good.is people have a large readership or their ‘newsletter’ which is populated by writers like Ele who are working on their own initiatives.
Think about FastCo, people love it when they get in their newsletter/publication, this is another way to work it. Set that as your ultimate manifestation goal. Make it a weekly featuring content from the community, not only original content but content that gets ‘scooped’ from other sources. If you encourage this kind of behaviour: that people use the facebook page to publish articles promoting balance in community awareness, and then if there is good stuff, you ask the poster to write a 5 - 10 sentence intro and scoop that for the weekly. As it grows, cultivate the partnerships with others working in the same way, share content and weave the communities further in this way.
And thats in addition to the use of media, we need more digital video media. A track at Lote might be developed just for this. Competing for attention is easier if you make it accessible, engaging, informing, fun, and amazing. - Leverage the Remix culture and the creative commons, the digital video community, the streamers from activist circles. Its clear that the value structure in general is the same, the processes are the same, some have learned tricks others dont know yet, lets get these folk talking.
In this case then, with both digital video content, written content, collaborative content, you start to cultivate a community by reaching to their hearts as well as their minds, to the sense of community as to the individual sense.
I know these are how-tos, but I figure it helps, I’m in a certain position as I am, I can only do what I can do and this is it. We need some who can see, others who can listen, others who can love, as many as possible those we trust…there are those who reflect and those who react, put them in the same room and you get the best possible outcome. This is not a prisoners dillema.
By the way, I reckon I’ll be the far side of the pond during Lote, I’m up for contributing as I can, but things are taking me elsewhere physically at the moment. Just so ye know.
And before I forget, this was published today: http://crisisobs.gr/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Opinion-Article_9_May-2013-Avramopoulos_Konstantinidis-ENG.pdf
Matthias, Alberto, Vinay, Doohan, Demsoc (Andrew right?) and Asta might have a look at this for a possible track. I know that the pirates will have a lot to offer on this, and recent US movement here, (OS and Githubbing of some US Policies and the IFTF program in ‘Future of Governance’- Evan HArris is a friend and researcher on team there and the SoCap team are also very interested in this one, naturally given the transnational network perspective of Hub Global) Reccomended viewing is Clay Shirky’s talk on Ted (he’s a bit of an ass but he’s super smart): http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_the_internet_will_one_day_transform_government.html
I see the Greeks piece as the foundation of what Shirky is talking about here.
All the best folks,
Eimhin 
