I’m having a difficult time fully understanding your posts in this topic, but I find the question I quoted above really interesting. Especially the part about whether Discourse could be used to create types of communities that have never existed.
My understanding is that Discourse provides a tool kit for creating online discussion communities. That is even implied by the name of the company that develops the software: CDCK (Civilized Discourse Construction Kit.)
As long as you are willing to work within the limitations imposed by the software, it should be possible to create new types of communities with Discourse. I find myself suggesting this from time to time. Recent examples include:
- Discourse as an interface between elected officials and the general public
- Discourse as a commenting system and community building tool for mainstream news media
I’m sure others can come up with better, more viable ideas. The biggest difficulty I see with creating a new type of community is getting beyond the idea stage and actually executing the idea. Possibly a new type of community could be developed to help with that issue.
In practice, I’ve seen Discourse successfully used by educational institutions, non-profit organizations, professional associations, open source projects, academic research groups…
Somewhat related, who would ever thought this idea would get off the ground: