Community is a group of people who have shared values within the context of their common social purpose. The community members use a shared language that can be semiotic as well as verbal. In general, communities encourage and validate particular forms of participation. Participation can encompass disagreement, agreement, and all degrees in-between. Communities differ in their level of hierarchies of participation (e.g., some are flatter, some are more bureaucratic and hierarchical). Membership often depends on the adoption of certain social behavioral patterns that are established by the community as a whole.