In Strauss’s thinking this refers mostly to physical buildings etc., but the idea is easily applicable to the web sites. The same name, site, is not pure coincidence. In many cases the web site is supposed to be understood metaphorically as a site, a central place. Its existence itself tells that the community (if there is such a thing related to the web site) exists. (the web site of course has several communicative dimensions, but they will be described below in the Arena perspective.)

There are at least three subprocesses dealing with community web site. Site finding is easier in the web than in physical environment. However, the question of the most suitable server type and the owner-relations must be solved anyway. Funding the site is an unavoidable question if volunteering doesn’t work. If there is a lot of traffic, frequent updates, need of moderators, monetary exchanges etc. Protection is needed in many ways, especially in commercial sites: first thing coming to mind is perhaps against hackers, but also questions of copyrights, pirate products, and many other business-related problems need to be handled. If the web site is wellknown generally, it may be needed to protect itself against, say, worried mothers. In case of a more hobby type web site, there may be more symbolic competition of, say, fame among similar sites, for example fansites of Habbo Hotel.

Examples from Habbo and GeoCaching

In the net-based communities it may sound almost too trivial, but, however, a community must have a place of its own. The site should be organized in the way that it feels, on the one hand homy and familiar, and on the other hand, it should be many-folded enough to be interesting for users. Considering Habbo Hotel, there are 16 national hotels, available from each national website, but also fansites like Habboforum or Nerokala that could be counted as parts of a larger Habbo community.

Respectively, there are Geocaching sites such as Groundspeak's www.geocaching.com, but also the competing sites www.navicache.com, Geommunity, not to mention national or local fansites It can be even said that a group can well live under one community-button but to have a larger community (a social world) with many-sided relations between subgroups and other informal coalitions, etc., you must create or allow this kind of larger "planetarium", constellation of rather free moving sites.