This post is influenced by post from Guilty Parties. You can read his post here. The post asks for ideas that might improve communities, through a post brainstorming session. The importance of communities will vary from user to user and again from the creator of a community. The following is my view about communities and what they could be.

To start, I am showing where the list of communities can be found (for new members to the platform) and then to my view about communities and what they might be.

Currently I do not see a link to communities on the Hive Blog link. The closest I can see is the Our Dapps link.

The Our Dapps link takes you to a page showing a limited number communities. Among them are alternative front ends to the chain, games and applications that work on the Hive Blockchain. This seems to concentrate on the more high profile community's.

Through PeakD a wider range of communities can be seen.

The communities tab odder a drop down menu for all communities or your own communities that you follow/subscribe to.

This screenshot does not show all communities.

My Opinion

I see communities in two ways. They will unite or divide. This mostly come down to the individuals and why the community was created.

I feel I should expand a bit on that opinion. I will do so with some examples I can see for a community.

1. A community can be something simple. It could be a family group who share their photographs and experiences with each other, making use of the Hive chain instead of other media sources.
2. It could be a photography group. Listing their group photography. As an additional option not just gaining a reward from the present community through rewards. This photography could be listed for use on the internet, in a manner something like Pixabay. Pixabay boasts a whopping 1.8 million photo's. I am positive the number of pictures posted in Hive history would be getting close to that too. All unique images.
3. A games group. Currently there is quite a few games out there. They all work under their own group community. My understanding here is, The games run independent of the chain and link to the chain actions through Json code. They are also linked through the eco system through token exchange and the creation of NFT's.

The list goes on for community's literature of various kinds, General interests or hobbies.

With 1 the family group. Thousands of these can be set up and their should be no no dividing except for family quarrels.

With 2 I can see small divisions. While I agree competition is good overall. Is one type of photography better than another? Does it matter if it is Black and white or colour? Micro or macro?

With 3 each game seems to form its own community. Ownership seems to play a big part here. (I hold strong to the opinion that effort put in to the development of a game should be able to bring rewards to the creator.) But a game does need a community of people to play it too. To find a game that uses the Hive chain. You must know the game first or hear about it from a third party in many instance.

My philosophy of Hive Communities.

Hive is like a Mega Store. It is somewhere to go for almost anything. (Granted there are many things not yet available through the Hive chain.) (Everything not here is what we can bring.) You enter into the Hive chain like you would a mega store. The communities act like a department within the store.

For photography, This could mean books or tips on how to take a better photograph. It could be a photograph itself.

For games. It could be books for a walk through of a game or the game itself to be played.

With both, there is more than one type. There is more than one game. There can also be different types of games. There is a need I feel to bring these things together.

Example:
Computer:

1. Build your own computer.
2. Computer coding.

Games:

1. Shoot em up.
2. Strategy.
3. Racing.
4. Card game.

Literature:

1. Books.
2. Fairytales.
3. Fiction.
4. Non-fiction.

Photography:

1. Black and white.
2. Colour.
3. Macro.
4. Micro.

Preset Tags for communities could be established and when searched would bring up a list of all sub categories within that tag. This would make it easier for specified communities to be found. By clicking a main category, things could be more user friendly and give visibility to a wider range of the same thing to the searcher. Like going to a department in a mega store.

Ownership of the main tag should be the chains and communities list under that tag. These can be added to and expanded as new interest groups come about. We will never be able to think of all categories to begin.

My understanding right now is that one community can be used on a post. After the post has been published it can be cross-posted to another community. The ability to post using more than one community tag and having the post go to all might serve as an advantage. Though to do this might result in the same post being listed numerous times in different communities. This could be considered as spam or plagiarised content? Let's make a nightmare for coders and have any Hive-000000 tag used list as the first tag. Effectively, listing one post under several communities at the time of publishing and avoiding the need to cross post to other communities. Or cross post at the time of publication.

One post can be a game, a walk through of the game, be considered a book.

One post can be photography, a tutorial, be available for internet publication.

Some moderation of communities is needed. Maybe this ends up being done by front-ends. Maybe front-ends do become the tags. If someone see's the benefits to creating a front-end for photography publications. That could be a step toward this.
Maybe a front-end with a direction toward games could gain traction in the games community. This could offer an advantage to any new game being developed or moving to the Hive chain. Having their new or existing game listed and or advertised through that front-end.

Maybe specialised front-ends is a way to move communities forward. Though this does bring in costs for the developer of those front-ends and running costs of the front-end.

From here I would veer off into how to fund front-ends for the development of communities and other projects. So I will end the post here. I might have already veered away from the objective of the post. I might also have put an idea into someones head about ways to better the communities and the influence they might have on the platform long term.

In the things we do undertake on the Hive chain. By bringing people together, to work for the benefit of the chain and not just the benefits for an individual. We can produce benefits for all on the chain. We are all pieces of a jigsaw. Coming together we create the bigger picture.

Others, who quite often have alternative views to my own could share alternative opinions. Some might be better informed. To share their opinion of communities and what might improve them I will tag @foxon @bluerobo @hiro-hive