gee, i just read the first 100 pages of derek powazek's "design for community" and (apart from some minor language flaws, "make no mistake") it is huge. amazing to get to know the people behind fray, metafilter et al. and to share their experiences in making "something useful that others could enjoy" and getting a wonderful crowd of people using it as reward.

i don't like to make such dispensable statements and only do it rarely, but this is a must-read for everyone involved in "the art connecting real people in virtual places" – be it stricly scientific ones or for the sake of entertainment.

antville could benefit from it just as any of the bigco's forums, e.g. fm4 (but honestly, for latter i question the practical transformation).

although the book mainly aims at designers, powazek contributes a lot to general knowledge about how to attract and guide a website's interest group. stunningly, from a designer's point of view powazek even succeeds in overcoming some of his design principles when they interfere with the user experience. a real walk on the tightrope, but he's looking pretty good at it.

what i have learnt so far:

• content comes first
• design matters (so what)
• bury the post button(!)
• there is always a host (and s/he is bloody important)
• barriers are good