Oldenburg creates a picture of the third place as a gathering place, a live community. Although many think of the third place as a place of escape, this definition deemphasizes the important fact that the relationships and experiences of the third place are real. Oldenburg lists several aspects that characterize a third place: it is neutral, it levels outside status, it is a place of conversation and playful mood, it keeps a low profile, it is a home away from home.

Though his descriptions are rich and informative, Oldenburg's vision of third places seems somewhat limited. His third place again and again draws almost solely on the image of a classic English pub. His defining characteristics put ego-centric limitations on what a third place can be. This is especially apparent in his physical description of a third place - dingy, seedy, plain, but homelike inside. Perhaps this is a third place for him, but couldn't a third place also be brightly colored, brightly lit, well-kept both inside and out? Couldn't the third place exist outdoors, in the open?

Oldenburg is confined to the imagery of an underground bar, as if there is one archetypal and ideal third place. I would argue that each person seeks out his or her own third place - and that is part of what makes the third place work so well. A third place evolves out of people who have found others who share their preferences for escape, de-stressing, downtime - whatever you want to call it. To Oldenburg, this means that the third place is a place of a "playful mood." However, to others, their found third place may have a peaceful mood or a somber mood. The third place becomes a utopia not because it is built from some external paradise blueprint, but because it is build from shared internal desires.

I appreciate oldenburgs estimation that it is the "regulars" of a third place that set the tone and assure that "on any given visit some of the gang will be there". In this case, I might extrapolate that the host's (administrator, creator, designer) creation is a secondary attribute to the presence of the "power users" -- the regulars of an online community.  I think there are many examples where a clunky, poorly executed community continues to chug along, almost in spite of the attentions (or lack thereof) of the "owner" of the site.

People engage in online forums to interact, and it is often more likely than not they will interact with people at the front of a Pareto distribution of usage. I think that it's a useful observation that these users will be vital to constructing the community and their character will greatly influence the experience casual users have in the virtual "third space".

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oostendo@umich.edu

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Throughout this chapter, the subheadings depict the “characteristics of third places that appear to be universal and essential to a vital informal public life” (p. 42). It seems like many of these characteristics are fundamentally true of many online communities, as well. For example:

1.    “On Neutral Ground”: “Individuals may come and go as they please… none are required to play host… all feel at home and comfortable” (p. 22)

2.    “Leveler”: “abolition of all differences of position or rank… an inclusive place… accessible to the general public and does not set formal criteria of membership and exclusion… open to all… laying emphasis on qualities not confined to status distinctions current in the society… the charm and flavor of one’s personality, irrespective of his or her station in life, is what counts… the disadvantaged can be accepted as equals…” (p. 23-26).

3.    “Conversation is the Main Activity”: “Neutral ground provides the place, and leveling sets the stage for the cardinal and sustaining activity of third places everywhere. That activity is conversation” (p. 26). “Third place conversation is typically engrossing. Consciousness of conditions and time often slips away amid its lively flow” (p. 30).

4.    “Accessibility and Accommodation”: “one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there… Most establishments that serve as third places are accessible during both the on and off hours of the day… Those who have third places exhibit regularity in their visits to them but… the timing is loose, days are missed, some visits are brief… there is a fluidity in arrivals and departures and an inconsistency of membership at any given hour or day… the activity that goes on in third places is largely unplanned, unscheduled, unorganized, and unstructured… people are there frequently, both because they are accessible and because [they] are guaranteed the company of friendly and familiar faces” (p. 32-33).

5.    “The Regulars”: “What attracts the regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customers… The host’s welcome, though important, is not the one that really matters… More than anything else, it is the element of trust that dictates the strength of the welcome [offered to a newcomer]… the third place gang need only know that the newcomer is a decent sort, capable of giving and taking in conversation according to the modes of civility and mutual respect that hold sway among them, and the group needs some assurance that the new face is going to become a familiar one” (p. 33-35).

6.    “A Low Profile”: “As a physical structure, the third place is typically plain… They are not, with few exceptions, advertised; they are not elegant… third places do not attract a high volume of strangers or transient customers” (p. 36).

7.    “The Mood is Playful”: “Having been part of the play, the individual is drawn to where it took place… the feeling of being ‘apart together’ is an exceptional situation, of sharing something important… retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game” (p. 38).

8.    “A Home Away from Home”: “third places compete with the home on many of its own terms and often emerge the winner… the third place is often more homelike than home… Those who claim a third place typically refer to it in the first person possessive… and they behave there much as if they did own the place… Often, the regular is extended privileges and proprietary rights denied transient or casual customers… appropriation increases with familiarity… The fourth theme of ‘at-homeness’ is the feeling of being at ease or the ‘freedom to be’. It involves the active expression of personality, the assertion of oneself within an environment… it is a matter of leaving one’s mark, of being associated with a place even when one is not there… Warmth emerges out of friendliness, support, and mutual concern. It radiates from the combination of cheerfulness and companionship” (p. 39-41).

However, there are a few of Oldenberg’s characteristics that I would not say are universally applicable to online communities. For example:

1.    “Personal problems and moodiness must be set aside as well… The temper and tenor of the third place is upbeat; it is cheerful. The purpose is to enjoy the company of one’s fellow human beings and to delight in the novelty of their character – not to wallow in pity over misfortunes” (p. 25-26)

2.    “The persistent mood of the third place is a playful one” (p. 37).

In fact, Oldenberg cites a counterexample (by Richard Goodwin) to these two characteristics: “The steps of Santa Maria del Fiore swarm with men of every rank and every class… A thousand minds, a thousand arguments; a lively intermingling of questions, problems, … the changeable temper of a thousand spirits by whom every object of discussion is broken into an infinity of sense and significations…” (p. 27).

--- Beth

We are lucky in Ann Arbor: we have a relatively small, safe, and walkable city that features cafes, bars, bookstores, and any number of small boutiques that invite us to come inside and escape our commute or the elements. Ann Arbor, especially in the Midwest, is a rarity though. Most Midwestern cities are laid out in a way that require or encourage driving to every destination. Culture and literary critic Jim Collins (of U. of Notre Dame) wrote about Barnes & Noble in 2000 as the new community meeting place. He described these ubiquitous big box stores as "mixed used sites" that encouraged not only commerce of books, but also coffee, calenders, and conversation by offering ample seating areas, long hours, and sympathetic acceptance of patrons who don't purchase anything.

What struck me about this chapter is how every "third place" was a sight of commerce. Cafes, bars, and clubs all require cost for admission. We could obviously debate whether or not $1 for a coffee at a cafe is a negligible cost, but the point is that the infrastructure exists to make money. I wonder if public sites such as gardens, parks, or free museums (those few that still exist) could be discussed in the same ways as Oldenberg does here. Likewise, as we turn our attention to online communities I wonder if inherently commmercial sites like Facebook, Google, AOL, etc offer the same subtle yet persistent urge to spend to belong.

I came across the term 'third place' for the first time in this reading. Oldenberg has given a emotional argument in favor of third places. Third places are less conspicuous than the relationships they harbors. He argues they are needed as a place to escape from work and home. Socializing is the main activity at third places. Third places provides more opportunities to meet new people and have relationships with them. The cliques formed at these places have few simple rules. Newbies can join the cliques after they meet the rules. Third places are a getaway for the woes of work and home. However they have many traits of a home - like provide a physical "root" for human activities.

I think Oldenberg has described an ideal third place. I have never come across such a third place. Cafès are not always filled with socialable people and not everyone get stressed at home and work. Also I don't think work, home and third places have clear demarcations as implied in the chapter. However I think his arguments are valuable to assess and create new communions. Socializing is a very important activity at community, sometimes more important than the advertised purpose of the community. People should not feel as guests and should be made aware of their contributions.

I would add public transport as a third place, albeit it may not exactly fit with Oldenberg's description. I'm thinking of commuters who regularly take the same routes to work. It provides an opportunity to meet new people while providing a degree of certainty of meeting other regulars. In some way this becomes like a forced dense community.

From comments above , I observe one frequent word to describe the third place, escape.
From my opinion, participating in the third place or modern online communities is another way to enrich individuals’ activities. It is a tool to satisfy individuals’ higher spiritual needs. Everyone needs to release himself, especially in this fast-paced world, why not for a drink? Why not for a funny Youtube? The third place and online communities also provide place for people to express their idea and talent. We can image that a henpecked clerk would be a great critic after three glasses of cocktails in bar. And one of my favorite writing forums almost brings my writer dream in childhood to be true (Well, my biggest dream now is to get my Ph.D!)
The emergence and existence of the third place is to satisfy individuals’ spiritual needs, as well as many online communities, such as facebook, myspace. However, compare to traditional third places, online communities are more non-excludable and more information are produced and spread, which consists their uniqueness (Advantage? Disadvantage?)
In the sphere of regularity, I am quite interested in the censorship of online communities. From my own experience, there are so many websites I could not access when I was in China. But the question is that whether the information is true or not, valuable or not even if we are open to get it? Information floods on Internet, which is true? Which is just a rumor? What would be the consequence if what we get from Internet is just a rumor?

All in all, it is a good reading for us to think about online community from spiritual and moral level

Oldenberg sets out in this article to define the ineffable qualities of “third places”. His overly flattering depiction of them renders them as an establishment somewhere between a bar and a utopia. Despite too much time in the article being spent heaping praise on these venues he did find characteristics that I believe are universally true of these third places.

Of the characteristics that Oldenberg outlined the ones that seemed most relevant to online socialization were neutrality, leveling, conversation as the main activity and accessibility. He argues that for a community to offer rich associations there must be neutral ground to gather. This point was related to the idea that a third place should also act as a social leveler, by not demanding criteria for membership. In online communities these two criteria are often the rule but give rise to a number of problems such as spamming and sock-puppeting.

As Oldenberg states in the article “The eternal sameness of third places overshadows the variations in its outward appearances”. This couldn’t be anymore true then when applying his template to FaceBook or MySpace. But, we find that his characterizations hold largely true of these establishments as well, especially his assertion that conversation is the main activity.

Finally, I felt that the idea of accessibility and accommodation were interesting features that were relevant to online communities, but their application was quite different. Oldenberg argues that the atmosphere of a third place is created because at anytime an individual is likely to encounter to a friend there. However, online this is not exactly the case. Whether or not our friends are there we still are able to engage them through the interface of the site, by responding to their postings or writing on their wall in FaceBook. In this sense it is more the idea that we know that are friends will be there, rather than are there, that motivates our patronage.

Oldenburg introduces an intriguing notion of the third place – the first two being home and the workplace – as a place whose benefits have historically not been given its due. His take on the third place as one where a person can “escape” to free of any of the rules of conduct the first two places place on him is interesting because it marks the beginning of a definition which defines the third place not as a “place” but as one defined by the frame of mind of the person and the type of interaction it facilitates. In fact Oldenburg hints at this when he states that the “eternal sameness” of the third place is unaffected by “outward differences” and “cultural perceptions”.
Interestingly, the Oldenburg article reminds me of one of India’s most famous poems “Madhushala” (bar). A line from the poem goes “bair badate mandir masjid, mel karati madhushala” which in English reads “Your temples and mosques exacerbate differences, my bar brings people together”. Ironically this is really true in India and I am quite certain is the case in at least few other cultures. Oldenburg echoes a similar sentiment for the third place when he writes “It is a fortunate aspect of the third place that its capacity to serve the human need for communion does not much depend on the virtue of a nation to comprehend its virtues.”
Oldenburg further goes into a deeper definition of the third place: one that forms a kind of neutral ground to facilitate easy conversation, one that is a leveler where people of different social classes can mix and get to know each other better without bias, one where conversation is the main activity and the other activities create the environment to facilitate that conversation. Here it is also important to note how Oldenburg subtly differentiates between what is really a third place and what is not. For example a room full of people playing video games individually is not a third place since it doesn’t facilitate conversation (interaction).
The third place is also distinguished for each person by the other kind of people who visit it (the regulars). The regulars in a way define the community and hence the kind of place that the third place is going to be. Finally the mood in such a place is playful and it is a kind of home away from home for the person.
If we apply these properties to an online communities we see a (surprising?) feature that these are almost exactly ways in which one could describe online communities. Online communities are levelers because there is no concept of social class or affluence there. Your reputation is built by how you interact and behave in the third place. Second, it forms a neutral ground where anyone can leave or come as he wishes with full freedom. There are regulars who visit the online “space” and become regulars of the community. These regulars determine to a large amount the kind of other people who will visit there. Thus in this way online communities provide a perfect “place” that satisfies most of the qualities of a third place and has other attributes of its own thus making it one way people can “escape” to.

Many of the properties of "third places" described by Oldenburg can be applied to online communities. Online communities are frequently neutral, leveling, available in off-hours, jovial/playful, psychologically comforting, etc, etc. Many successful online communities do not have a low profile, although in contrast, I would argue that they are often taken for granted.

The concept from this reading that I found most interesting was Oldenburg's identification of the value of 'regulars'. He states, "What attracts the regular visitor to the third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customers." (p. 33) This type of network effect is evidenced in many online communities... not only in social networking sites (Fb, mySpace, etc), but also in virtual worlds. Third places (partially) explain the persistence of users/players in virtual worlds beyond completion of the 'game'. This is a behavior exhibited in many MUDs and, presumably, in more modern MMOs, and is a behavior that is sought after by many gaming companies. As Preece noted, "E-commerce entrepreneurs anticipate that online communities not only will keep people at their sites, but will also have an important role in marketing..." (p. 10) When these communities serve to maintain long-term users, they are acting as third places, and lucrative ones at that.

Like Mouly, this is the first time I've read of a "third place." I figure it means "not home and not work."

It's difficult not to draw parallels between this described "third place" and an online forum. The greatest difference that I can think of is that of equality. Ideally, people in forums are equal, but then there are the moderators, the flamers, etc. Even among forum participants there "levels" denoted by post count. I've seen members denounce others simply because of their low post count. Now that I think of it, maybe forums could use a bit of the Oldenberg treatment. The only problem is that the levels I described often act as an incentive for members to participate in a forum. High post count = higher level = virtual sense of superiority.

To me, Oldenberg’s third place is an overly cheerful and unrealistic setting. A place that allows people to meet others without intruding each other’s personal space? A place where status and success are cast aside and everyone is simply there for enjoyment? It seems to me that almost any place fits the first description, be it a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar (where perhaps occasionally individuals do meet up with people they are not familiar with). In most situations, people visit such places with acquaintances. Oldenberg mentions that if these third places do not exist, meaningful relationships would be scarce because one simply can’t have any personal space if each get-together took place at someone’s house – this much is true.

The second characteristic of the third place is just as unrealistic. Sure, there are local neighborhood bars that people of varying status may patronize, but aren’t there also exclusive clubs and restaurants that are only available to the socialites and elites? It seems to me that status is hardly something that can be forgotten such easily. Obviously, this works for some people, as we see in Oldenberg’s anecdote about “Yale invading a working-class bar.” What is ironic is that this particular third place is already associated to some form of status – a working-class bar. It makes me wonder if the working-class folks go to this bar in order to cast away their status and misfortunes. Seems to me this is more about affordability, convenience, and practicality. Along the same lines, Oldenberg’s anecdote on Brian Jackson’s research is likewise ridiculous. To me, it’s unfathomable that people of “higher status” would have to experience “leveling” to reach a common ground where they can finally be “struck by the eloquence of common working people”. I think most of us are intelligent enough to realize that status alone does not mean someone has brains.

 In essence, this third place is supposed to be a place where people can go alone, but still feel accepted and interactive within a community. While every now and then, everyone needs such a place, based on the characteristics and trends mentioned by Oldenberg and perhaps imagined by myself, sooner or later, you might as well start looking for a new third place.

Despite my otherwise genial nature, I'm really going to take on the Oldenberg.

The very notion of a "third" place presupposes the other two: work and home. Work is increasingly being done from home, and a lot of home is being done from work. More and more the binary nature of industrial era life is dissolving into a heterogenous mix of places, spaces, and activities, overlapping and fluid, not bounded and distinct.

Neutral Ground presupposes a variety of assumptions about privacy and interaction that are not only culturally biased, but also in the midst of serious transformation. And can landscape ever be neutral? Conversations at my local Starbucks do global harm to such a degree that many of my friends will not go there with me. Conversely, I go to my friend's local pub because I want to patronize his business because of our relationship, not because I want neutral ground.

Leveller compounds the problem. The claim that a third place "does not set formal criteria of membership an inclusion" (24) simply makes clear that the system of inclusion and exclusion has been dislocated to an invisible and elusive mechanism that may mask prejudice and oppression. This is actually stated explicitly later: (40) special places for "friends of the house."

To continue, "conversation" is not the main activity; communion is. As numerous others have pointed out above, communion can take place in many ways and with many Others: friends, strangers, nature, etc. My point is that communion requires many kinds of interactive presence:

the taste of the beer
the sounds of familiar voices in the ambient background (even when you aren't listening to them)
the smell of the fish and chips coming from the kitchen
the feel of the seats on your butt

The remainder of his characteristics -- access, regulars, plain-ness, playfulness, and a "home away from home" -- are too problematic to tackle in detail here.

What is probably worth asking is whether or not his characterization attempt might be fruitful for what it does not do, rather than what it does. Here, I think we are on positive ground. If we begin by approaching the future pluralistic heterogeneous overlapping interpenetrated global social space with the question "what kinds of spaces exist and how are they characterized?" then we have some seriously useful traction. Instead of reifying the home/work/thirdplace division, we can instead get a view of how spaces carve out niches for themselves among a vast population with differing needs and preferences.

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PHartzog@umich.edu
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The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser

I like the Oldenburg’s explanation about regulars. Oldenburg vividly described practices of these regulars and the interactions between regulars and newcomers. Oldenburg said: “Acceptance into the circle is not difficult but it is not automatic either.” It takes time and effort for strangers to become regulars. I just wonder, without physical cues, if the relationships between people are more fragile in an online environment?

In addition, I agree with Mouly that socializing would be a very important activity at communities. I am curious how important this factor is and what rule does this factor play in various kinds of online communities. It seems that socializing may be an important means for people to achieve goals in some online communities.

John Blair

Great article.  Perhaps the most relevant, for me at least, regarding the missing element in the other readings regarding community.  The quote from Richard Sennett that "people can only be socialble when they have some protection from each other" was very much to the point.  While we're social beings, some of us need/desire significantly less interaction with others and appreciate outlets that provide that.

The paper primarily talks about 8 properties of the "Third Place":

On neutral ground
The third place is a leveler
Conversation is the main activity
Accessibility and accommodation
The regulars
A low profile
The mood is playful
A home away from home

This article didn't bother me at first, but after the gender dynamics were discussed in class I was a little put off by it upon a second reading.  I would be more comfortable with an integral space that was a forum where people who otherwise wouldn't meet could find friendship and conversation across differences. 

What I'm picturing is Cheers, Homer Simpson, et al; The quest to escape the bonds of connection and be utterly disconnected for awhile.  The bar is also a complex place, often a messy, messy one at that.  I see potential in the concept of third spaces, but not through the same lens....

Lisa McLaughlin