One danger of having only localized communication is that it can hinder a sense of community. A common occurrence is for a ccr user to bring their world online and want to go out and find someone to talk with. If the only way to find someone is to randomly walk around searching for people, the simple act of finding someone becomes discouragingly difficult. The problem is that the question ``Where is Adam?'' is a global question about the state of the entire ccr universe, whereas the means of acquiring the information to answer the query only operates on small local regions.
Floyd is a software agent designed to set up a global communication network and use that network to facilitate electronic community. Floyd exists to answer basic social questions that require global information, in particular the questions ``what ccr worlds are running at the moment?'' and ``where can I find this person?''. In order to answer these questions effectively, individual Floyd agents must keep track of other Floyds, be able to ask questions of the entire network, and be able to collect replies and report them. In addition, each Floyd must be able to reply to questions asked by other Floyds.
A second way to foster electronic community, especially in a group of people who are primarily computer hackers, is to build a common base of software for people to use and experiment with. The importance of artifacts for establishing community bonds should not be underestimated. One goal of the Floyd project is simply to convince people that they should all be running a piece of code that one member of their community created, thereby creating a common experience. In addition, Floyd serves as the development impetus behind a set of general purpose agent code for use by other people. By providing library to make writing agents simpler, Floyd helps other people create new types of agents, thereby expanding the diversity of ccr.