yeah, flyers, bulletin boards, etc. -- lot of this stuff, in a sense, you're confined/constrained to doing online things because presumably we don't own / manage / control the building, but we could either operate without the blessing of building management, or work with them.
i'm guessing building management-type community-building software already exists -- i've used some of it to pay rent -- but nothing that actually tried to build community, that i remember.
to me, having building mgmt involved is problematic, but.... not necessarily a dealbreaker. maybe your pitch would be, "hey, use our software for $5/apt/month, and we'll increase your lease renewal rate by 5%, and therefore you'll end up saving/making a net of +$6,000 this year for your 150-apartment complex. (I don't actually have any idea of the economics.)
i did talk to a friend who is part of an investor group that owns apt buildings - he's not interested in this solution from an ownership perspective (maybe he should be?) - but presumably he would be able to get in touch with the companies he/they hire to manage the buildings. i think the mgmt companies get 10% or something to run/maintain a building, and presumably if they don't hit their revenue targets, then a new mgmt company is hired (??) - no idea tho really.
so, we would not have at least my ideal scenario of a perfect apiring-to-be-a-family community -- b/c it would ultimately be controlled by the apt mgmt -- but we could still achieve _some_ level of camaraderie/family/solidarity/friendship amongst the tenants -- and that might be where we have to start.
i kind of think of it like tv during the clinton years (i think?) when he/they/the gubment/tv/media were pushing the whatever communications act of 199x -- basically, giving away much of the tv/some?? spectrum for free to the megacorps (instead of licensing for real money from taxpayers, providing some of the spectrum for public broadcasting, etc.) -- and all the major news channels/shows/etc. just didn't cover it -- so the public/taxpayers never knew about this heist of the century.
so, something similar could happen with an apt community 'bulletin board' -- someone posts, "Hey, my rent is going up $300 this month, wtf??" -- and building mgmt is like "nope, deleted." -- so, that would suck, but....i would argue the tenants could/would at least know each other enough to take their organizing on that topic to another forum and/or offline.
i suspect a lot of this hippie-dippie community stuff is what adam neumann is trying to do with flow.
i like the gamification idea. i usually _hate_ those 'team building exercises' in various settings, so....i might be too biased in this particualr use case to see clearly, but it sounds cool/fun - if you're actually into meeting your neighbors. coming up with things/ideas/games/etc. that would actually work would be difficult, but prob also fun, interesting, etc.
what would the potential negative consequences be? maybe a building has a '0' social score? :-D
to me, right now, most apt complexes with 50+ units deserve a score of approximately 0 anyways.