The words this field keeps mixing up.
Almost every choice here is a choice between two things that sound similar and are not. Each page settles one pair — a table near the top, then when each is the right answer.
Community Governance
The topic →Consensus vs consent
One asks whether everyone agrees. The other asks whether anyone has a reasoned objection. That difference decides how your meetings feel in year three.
Sociocracy vs holacracy
Both organise a group into circles and both were built for companies. One adapts to a community; the other expects the community to adapt to it.
Vision vs purpose vs mission
Three words most communities use as synonyms, in one document, adopted once. Separating them is what makes it possible to change your plans without reopening why you exist.
Decision Methods
The topic →Intentional Communities
The topic →Cohousing vs ecovillage
They get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. One is an architecture; the other is a purpose.
Commune vs cohousing
The dividing line is money. One pools income and decides together how it is spent; the other shares a building and leaves your bank account alone.
Intentional community vs commune
One is the category, the other is one option inside it — and a minority one. Most intentional communities are not communes.
Three questions beat any pair of words.
What do we actually hold in common — land, money, decisions, or only goodwill? Who decides, and how? And what happens if I leave? Every form answers those differently, and the answers predict daily life far better than the label does.