How many members do we need or want?

I'm thinking a minimum of a dozen, that may even be the best number to start because fewer people will have an easier time coming to agreements. Once the right seed is planted in the right principles it will grow and flourish...god I've been gardening too much. But people will find it much easier to join up when they can see pictures or videos of it, when they can see it, it's easier to believe it, although for something one has to believe in it before they can see it.

I agree, a dozen would be a good number. It would make it easier to supply the necessities at first too.

something I had been considering is what about having a larger than on site community, so some of the members can remain in the system to get more land, and can help with support until it is fully self sufficient or possibly a bit beyond, this to be sure it will be capable of producing extra resources for expansion?

What do you mean Thomas like people who participate in the decisions we make but don't actually live there atm or yet, they just donate money instead of their time? If so I kind of think that defeats the purpose. However in the beginning the people who live there should and most likely will need to be able to carpool or something to a nearby city for work or just extra personal money, unless enough jobs can be created on site, but they would live on site because it's way cheaper.

actually I see this process even this group is working toward, like being on a sinking ship (the current system) and abandoning it ahead of others so we can get a new ship together for those still stuck on it as it sinks so no one has to drown. and doing as I said is kinda like taking parts that are breaking off of the sinking ship and using it to get the new ship up and going. :) but I am not talking about people just being armchair activists. I am talking about the act of supporting the movement to help propel it forward, so that at some point these others can join us, outside of the failing system, in this better system, created by us and maintained by us, rather than being shackled by it, the way we all are currently, but the system we are in now.

We'll need to do the math out on this one...
But first, there shouldn't be a max limit.
If we're going to attempt at an optimal system, we'll need to look at what it would take to sustain a single person vs x amount of people: how much work and resources needed.
I've read that we require .05-.07 hectares of arable land to feed one person (on a vegan diet). This would be a lot of work for a single person while not maximizing use of space. The minimum number of people needs to be the amount of people it takes to make it more feasible.
I think with the right application of technology, we can feed 3 or 4 people with the same amount of land: aquaponics systems (reduces water consumption by 900% and increases rate of growth), vertical (maximizes space use - increases yield), greenhouse (controlled environment - maximizes time use).
Anyway, I think we should think modularly - starting from small village sized modules. As our number grows, we'll replicate the modules until we get to a certain size, then we'll start building town/city modules, and so forth.

Using those numbers, even at 0.8 hectares per person, we could fit 5 people into an acre, Not including houses. But like you said, if we can make it more efficient then we could include the houses in that too. So lets say for comfort we put 3 people in 1 acre that means for twelve people we need a minimum of 4 acres. So anything bigger than that would work nicely. And if we do vertical farming in a multi story building the food production would take up even less space.

has anyone considered moving to a local area in a town or city, using our funds to rent say a house, (5 or more BRs with a basement and garage) and plan from there? we could arrange the house so that two people can share a room each, work somewhere even at crap jobs like a call center, and use off time to test out processes to get everything in order, and be certain of what we are doing., as well as know each other solidly, work out a solid rule structure, and by the time we are done we should have saved enough money to just flat out buy what ever land we want, and not skimp at all.

Also if people are moving to the country of location, some sort of arrangements will need to be worked out to allow them to become solid residents such as becoming a citizen here in the USA.

That might be the plan most choose Mr. Anderson, but renting is expensive and you'll never get the money back, I would rather live out in the forestry until I had enough saved up and carpool to work, provided I wasn't alone out there, can save faster, but many would not choose that.

Valid points everyone. Living out in the woods would have added difficulty: no shower, etc.. Not having an address will complicate things: getting jobs. Renting can be cheap if we do it right - plus, we don't need luxury. Any hole with access to the internet and close enough to places we can get shit jobs or whatever would do. I think we should get a studio so that we can work on and store things and live out of (this bit can be tricky, but doable).