JoelOnSoftware: Building Communities with Software

Interesting article by Joel. The beginning of the article discusses why chat rooms, irc, etc. is popular. The second part of the article discusses a forum he has built (and is less interesting in a "why are such communities formed" - but may be interesting in terms of why he believes certain features are good or bad.)

Note:One site he references does contain profanity in its site name... so if you don't want to see that, don't go read the article.