I just started reading it and found it very useful on a meta level. Sadly the examples used are grosly outdated as the book is from 2000. (geocities is used as a prima example of how a thriving community works )
Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” and “Cognitive Surplus” are both great reads (and are best read in that order). They’re primarily about self-forming communities, but that’s really a key ingredient to any community; some are just helped along more than others.
The following two personal suggestions (and favorites) are considered “dry” reading.
That, for someone like me, means “really insightful text requiring tenacity of the subject to digest in a gleeful hyperfocus”.
If you are into community management, these two books are engaging, no matter the diction.
Design To Thrive focuses on creating community culture. Cultivating Communities of Practice may entice intranet communities for corporations and those communities built around a subject with a lot of valuable user-driven information lasting beyond the community itself.
And, while this next suggestion and personal favorite is not a book on the subject of community management, it is highly relevant as a logical tangent.
How to manage yourself among a lot of users and staff.
It focuses on three general options when it comes to someone in your life you feel you can “do without” (air quotes). Choose one.
Attempt to change the someone.
Place the someone out of your life, or at least knock them down the lower digits (ie, away from single digits) on your life’s priority list.
This is a very general summary that only teases by a glimmer to the wealth of personal and highly self-empowering info contained in the book.
Also, how to possibly understand situations involving “problem” users. Replace “you”: People can’t drive your community crazy if your community doesn’t give them the keys.
此外，还有一些在线社区，人们主要在那里分享他们建设在线社区的经验（例如 FeverBee）。Meta 上也有整个 Community Building 分类。不知为何，我直觉地认为，阅读真实人物的经历与失败教训，能教会你很多东西，而且比阅读关于在线社区的书籍更加多元。现在，既然这个帖子已经有些年头了，而且其中有些人已经读过一本或多本相关书籍，我想请教大家一个问题：请分享你们的反馈——这些书籍在实际的社区建设工作中是否真的有用？这相当于对这些书籍进行一次“事后回顾”式的重读。
Other than the technical bits, i think the book will help us newbies learn how to manage our platforms without feeling like our heads are about to burst.
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for Buzzing Communities. 
