Building in community | Hacker News Reader

Building in community

rosie.land

57 pointsrosiesherry12 comments

I think we're still in the experimental phase of lots of novel types of social information exchange.

Building in public is very much an experimental form of communication. It's a new way to think and operate and it's not something with a strong set of conventions and norms. That means that you have to think much more about how you're communicating, not just what you want to say.

Building in community means sharing information with a specific set of people who have a shared perspective. Conventions and norms do exist and you have a good sense of how people will interpret and understand your words. This is the kind of context where it is easier to be more authentic and less performative.

I think that a good chunk of people who build in public whould say that they are actually building in community. They get the sense of a shared perspective and the community has established some its own conventions and norms. I don't think there's always a clear seperation between these two concepts.

As an interesting example of how these two concepts overlap is in the Zig community[0]. The community is decentralized - does that mean they are building in community AND in public?

[0] https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/Community

There are definitely nuances and unclear boundaries of where the boundaries between 'public' and 'community' are.

I think the more active building in public people feel it is a community, but it probably takes them a while to get there. Some people need extra support to get to that public stage, or need a more private space to talk about things they feel they can't do in public.

Part of building in community is to create a supportive environment to help them build in public better. For example, I often say tell people 'in community' that something they've just said would be a great tweet. They tweet it and then I share or jump in the conversation there too.

I did this while working on an OSS project. I used slack starting with just 3 people including myself. It eventually reached 4k members. At that scale it's no longer community but instead a support channel. Keeping groups small or interconnected is really important. Each person joining really needs to be an invite from someone else already in the group.

Community also implies each member adds value. Again if you use invites it's reputation based. If any random person can join that's a dilutive effect.

Long term if a community stays small or private it maintains what it always had but people might outgrow it or it may no longer serve the same purpose. If you want to grow and evolve then there really needs to be some shared values, goals, beliefs that continue to be the core pillars of why the community exists and what new members look to when they arrive.

Even though I liked some of this article’s insights, I found out at the end of it that it is just a hidden ad for the author’s own community ($100)

Calling the whole article "just a hidden ad" is a bit of a stretch. Sure, it might attract interested parties, but imo the reference to their community is more of an example than an ad. In the same section the author recommends building your own and wanting to keep the community small.

It's an article about a community site about building communities. Not calling it an ad is a stretch

I don't know... The article does look like a veiled attempt at advertising their own community where they get to earn a $99 fee for every new registration. What I felt was in poor taste was that this motive of advertising and profit was hidden until the end of the article. Not calling it a hidden ad would be a stretch IMO.

I write about community from lived experiences and reference my lived community experiences, it's the most authentic way to do it.

I'd actually prefer people don't join that community. It's a very special little place on the internet for me. And people that know me know understand it's got nothing to do with money, that it's a fun experiment and the money is just a way to attract the right kind of people and make the community a joy to run.

Yeah, I think that if this is the conclusion, at least partially, you might as well open the article with, "I have started a Community starter hub for people doing X and I want to explain why I believe it is useful"

> When I built in public I rarely found a deep connection with people. Whereas when I build in community I can open up more and say what is really on my mind and get more relatable support and advice.

really great insight, Rosie - ive found myself migrating raw thoughts to my discord and private twitter alt more and more. perhaps unsurprisingly, people are more open when the community is semi closed.

Thanks swyx. I think people underestimate the benefits and need to express ourselves in more trusted spaces.

Overall I like this and agree with it, but I feel like there's a deep contradiction or at least inconsistency in it.

It's hard to articulate, or maybe I just haven't had enough coffee yet.

> The most valuable part, I think, is that [being as open as you feel comfortable] really is a positive move towards honesty and transparency rather than a fake hustle culture that has long loomed in our capitalistic society.

> (This doesn't mean there is no hustle culture, there still is, it just shows up a bit differently.)

> Typically, in the creator and founder space, people share learnings and outcomes via Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, blog posts or in specific places like Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, Hackernews or Reddit.

First, let me say that I like that this points out that the problem with hustle is the proportion, not the existence. You've got to have some pep in your step to get by, but when "the hustle" becomes a desperate game that warps the good things in life, well, it's time to retire, play some other game for a while, eh?

With that out of the way, I think the problem shows itself in the way OP thinks of these massive corporate for-profit platforms as "public". These corps are our capitalistic society. Can you build in community in a shopping mall?

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