I have had very little experience with online communities in my past. I am a part of two different Facebook groups that attempt to be online communities to the best of their ability. Both groups are composed of devout Christians that met other devout Christians at events that lasted a couple days to a week and realized that these environments were something they could not find in their own geographic communities. The majority of the communication is prayer requests and advice requests. This is along with sharing of some personal stories.
The online community that we are a part of has some of the same aspects. We are all very interested in an idea of intentional community and we do not know where to find others of like minds in geographic proximity to us. However, there do exist people that are interested in intentional communities and we have all found each other from some way or another.
The biggest way i think that having this community can help us is giving direction to help the groups start their research and support when we run into issues. While some of the groups have had some interactions with intentional communities before many have not so the professors and students with experience can help to teach the students without experience how best to interact learn and help the intentional communities we choose.