Abstract

The emergence of social networking is closely related with the new technologies improving user interface experience thus making the interaction between users more natural and intuitive. Before, the first online communities of interest were user lists and asynchronous discussion groups resembling more the form of mass mailings than informal discussions in a cafe or in a classroom. The impact of web 2.0 on scientific practices has become evident in establishing more and more epistemic communities as virtual communities and vice versa. With respect to the role of the paradigm in the constitution and operations of an epistemic community, the framework of values and the ethical reflection of that become its own form of binding and guiding principle of the theoretical action. Thus any individual who joins an online community with the ambition of an epistemic effect must develop the morals and ethics necessary to enable him/her to understand the relevant forms of their theoretical practice