That can just be a forum - a forum I've been a member of for more than 20 years has been run by the members since 2010 [1], is registered as a co-operative/comm

That can just be a forum - a forum I've been a member of for more than 20 years has been run by the members since 2010 [1], is registered as a co-operative/community benefit society in the UK and funded by voluntary memberships or donations, with members voting annually to elect people to positions required to run it. A good chunk of those have been part of the same community on a newsgroup, then on a company-owned forum which got shuttered, then on a forum instance set up by a user who didn't want to run it any more after 6 years. The tech and platforms are ephemeral, always have been. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLLMUK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLLMUK