Gatekeeping and Community

Communities are built on an anchor point—a story, if you will.

You’ve probably run into this situation before: You profess your interest in a particular topic, and someone tries to test you on how much you really know about it.

This reaction is both an act of initiation and exclusion: Pass, and you are truly on the same plane as this examiner; fail, and you are just a casual. The examiner proceeds to speak to you ba…