Community is exactly the right word, yes. All good forums are communities, and they all welcome new people to join the community. As you say, everyone's there for the same reasons, after all. The idea of forum-as-clique is, to me, a definition of absolute failure.
My banner doesn't say 'The Chaos Cascade Welcomes All Nice People' for no reason, believe me! People are the life blood of any forum, and the more people the better!
