I don’t believe that is even close to reality. The community consists primarily of those who are independent. When they cease to get out of it what they want, their involvement will wane or cease. Agenda #1 is never the community. TW may have been the closest to reaching that idealistic goal.

But vertical market sites that promote themselves as communities commit to another agenda to which individual agendas are secondary. That is why they succeed. Everyone supports the success of the community as agenda #1, and then everyone works their own agendas secondary to that. Volunteerism works because of that common cause, and discussion takes place as the gray areas define themselves. That affinity community is forced to reach concensus on how it will behave (as a collective) on gray areas, as the urgency of the secondary agendas encourages compromise and fast issue resolution.

The value proposition comes from the commitment to a vertical. Otherwise Sphinn is just a little Digg. If the Sphinn community doesn’t provide value to its members in exchange for participation, it will fail.

When Sphinn moderators or “leaders” or “voices” work their own agendas first, sacrificing the community agenda or leaving it for others, the value of the site diminishes rapidly. That’s what I see when I see obvious propaganda promoted by so-called leaders, or mob-like voting up/down based on alliances (personal agendas). The most telling signs are holier-than-thou attitudes and bullying, concurrent with behind-the-scenes alliances. If Sphinn brands itself as the home of deceptive, slimy marketers it will not succeed except as a proving ground for newbies looking to break into search marketing or make-money-fast.

I don’t ask marketers to leave their agendas home. On the contrary, I love to watch good marketers perform. But I hate to see poor quality promoted as good marketing. That’s what it is when a post is obvously biased, obviously agenda driven, obviously deceptive, obviously bad for the community, etc.

It would be great if this topic was debated by marketers. Not in the tired framework of complaints but with an effort to find a working alternative. I don’t believe Google has won this one, like cutting interest rates, they have only delayed the inevitable. There is still plenty of time to offer a solution that takes account of market forces and human nature - I’m sure Google are searching for it themselves.