1. A computer program product for implementing an online document sharing community in a network environment including a plurality of participant computers operated by participants in the online document sharing community and a storage system storing documents, wherein the computer program product is implemented in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and includes a computer program executed to perform operations, the operations comprising: maintaining, in a database, participant information for a plurality of participants registered with the database, wherein the participant information for at least one of the participants is associated with document information in the database for at least one document owned by the participant, wherein the document information identifies a document in the storage system, an owner of the document, a public/private status flag indicating whether the document is public or private, a public description providing a description of the document that does not include all content of the document, a provide public description field indicating whether the public description is to be provided to requesting participants not in a group of participants allowed access to the document, and wherein the document information for at least one document indicated as private indicates the group of participants allowed to access the document; receiving a request for a page from a requesting participant computer, wherein the requesting participant computer comprises one of the participant computers operated by a requesting participant comprising one of the participants in the online document sharing community; determining a document to include in the page; determining whether the public/private status flag indicates whether the document is public or private; including in the page an access element to provide access to the content of the document in response to the determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is public; determining whether the requesting participant is a member of the group of participants allowed access to the document in response to determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private; determining whether the provide public description field indicates that the public description is to be provided in response to the determining that the requesting participant is not a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document; including in the page access to the public description for the document in response to determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private, in response to the determining that the requesting participant is not a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document, and in response to the determining that the provide public description field indicates that the public description is to be provided; including in the page the access element to provide access to the content of the document in response to the determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private and in response to the determining that the requesting participant is a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document; and returning the page to the requesting participant computer.
1. A computer program product for implementing an online document sharing community in a network environment including a plurality of participant computers operated by participants in the online document sharing community and a storage system storing documents, wherein the computer program product is implemented in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and includes a computer program executed to perform operations, the operations comprising: maintaining, in a database, participant information for a plurality of participants registered with the database, wherein the participant information for at least one of the participants is associated with document information in the database for at least one document owned by the participant, wherein the document information identifies a document in the storage system, an owner of the document, a public/private status flag indicating whether the document is public or private, a public description providing a description of the document that does not include all content of the document, a provide public description field indicating whether the public description is to be provided to requesting participants not in a group of participants allowed access to the document, and wherein the document information for at least one document indicated as private indicates the group of participants allowed to access the document; receiving a request for a page from a requesting participant computer, wherein the requesting participant computer comprises one of the participant computers operated by a requesting participant comprising one of the participants in the online document sharing community; determining a document to include in the page; determining whether the public/private status flag indicates whether the document is public or private; including in the page an access element to provide access to the content of the document in response to the determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is public; determining whether the requesting participant is a member of the group of participants allowed access to the document in response to determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private; determining whether the provide public description field indicates that the public description is to be provided in response to the determining that the requesting participant is not a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document; including in the page access to the public description for the document in response to determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private, in response to the determining that the requesting participant is not a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document, and in response to the determining that the provide public description field indicates that the public description is to be provided; including in the page the access element to provide access to the content of the document in response to the determining that the public/private status flag indicates that the document is private and in response to the determining that the requesting participant is a member of the group of participants allowed to access the document; and returning the page to the requesting participant computer. 11. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the request includes a search criteria, wherein the operations further comprise: determining documents to include in the page that satisfy the search criteria, wherein the operations of including in the page the access element to provide access to the content of the document based on the public/private status flag and including in the page access to the public description are performed for each of the documents that satisfy the search criteria.