You make a good point, though the next question is what constitutes a community or group, or what kind of community/group is it? Think of it as a continuum wher

You make a good point, though the next question is what constitutes a community or group, or what kind of community/group is it? Think of it as a continuum where on the one hand you have the fleeting, shallow kind of community (including, I would argue, most groups online) and on the other you have the stable, deep kind (an increasingly endangered species both on- and offline). The more a group tends toward the shallow end, that means by definition that it is about, and membership in it means, not much. So the signifiers we're talking about become all-important. Speak the code and you're in. Speak the wrong code and you're out. Whereas a "deeper" group based on some significant mutual interest (let's say at the extreme, a life-or-death interest) - that group is going to depend less on talking the talk, because everybody is visibly walking the walk. And as a result, they'll accept more of your natural native quirks and things that make you unique.