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What Makes You Stay In A Community?

Ayu Adiati on November 29, 2022

Hello Friends πŸ‘‹, When I was writing 7 Supportive Tech Communities You Want To Be Part Of, some thoughts crossed my mind. Why do people want to sta...
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moniquesmithn profile image
Monique Smith

I'm a major noob so i've been checking out a bunch of different communities from Slack, Reddit, Discord and Forums. I think the welcome is a huge one. You can kinda tell right away whether the community is a good fit or not by the way they treat someone new.

Tech bro attitude is a major turn off but I sometimes overlook that so i'm not isolating myself and letting them gatekeep.

Sometimes testing these online commuities feels like being in high school or primary school and hoping someone picks you to join their team at PE lol. But I know it's important to put myself out there and atleast try.

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adiatiayu profile image
Ayu Adiati

Sometimes testing these online commuities feels like being in high school or primary school and hoping someone picks you to join their team at PE

Totally agree! And you described it well! πŸ˜€

I sometimes overlook that so i'm not isolating myself and letting them gatekeep.

Love this!

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard
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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

That's some pretty good answers yes.

I guess the general thread is that a good community gives you the message that you matter.

As a counter example, I'm not in Twitter because I dislike being in a "global village" (remember that terrible idea?) where everybody speaks all the time but nobody really listens, since we have the attention span of a golden fish. Where everyone is being trained to chase vanity metrics (likes! retweets!) that are important mostly for the engagement KPI of the platform that hosts us and sees us as a hogs in a roasting machine. We are in society where people have less and less friends, they have 42k TikTok followers and Facebook "friends" but the day they need some actual help to move on to a new flat, nobody answers the call for help.

So a good community should IMHO thrive to do the contrary of that and build genuine mutually beneficial human connections.

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adiatiayu profile image
Ayu Adiati

Exactly! I love communities with person-first approach.

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bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

Love this so much, Ayu.

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adiatiayu profile image
Ayu Adiati

Thank you, Bekah ❀️

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ssd profile image
server side digest

Love the way you write Ayu. Thanks for this one. I read the previous blog "7 communities to be a part of" and I found that insightful too. You can check my blog too on lovepreet.hashnode.dev/ and I would love to collaborate with you in hackathons. So, let's connect on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/lovepreet-singh-a1...

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adiatiayu profile image
Ayu Adiati

Thanks, Lovepreet! πŸ˜€

I'm afraid I don't have the bandwith for hackathons πŸ˜…
But thanks for the offer!

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Natalia Asteria • Edited

Size of the community

Yupp!!! With small circles it's easy to handpick who are you spending time with.

I'm not really feeling fine in communities that are so male-dominated. I mean, I'm okay with guys that are chill and cool! I love them! They're my type.

But I always get uninterested when there are lots of "guys doing guys thing", because for me, there's nothing for me to relate about. (that's gender summed up pretty much)

It's easy to have small circles of female friends irl, since school and all that stuff, but in tech communities, sadly lots of them are still so male-dominated. It's just a big turn off for me. πŸ₯²

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samiNCL • Edited

I have some issues with being a member of an online community. Of course have I participated in some of them but never felt like a loyal member of a particular community. I have never got an online friend whatsoever , and never felt comfortable in communities with moderators who exclude some posts for different reasons.

I feel communities should be decentralised (without public owner and moderators who control others). I imagine it like I can select some members from social media. No one see my community, but everyone can see the community outcomes (posts, comments, etc.).

Some social media provide many options to create sub communities. But they re very closed and do not benefit the public. So there is some kind of design gap still needed to be handled such as addressing the size and publicity issues, while also empowering me as I am the only moderator of my community, without hurting other people feelings. So basically my community is just a dashboard with some controls.

Only if this dashboard also can suggest friends for you by letting you know who frequently interact with your community posts, this would be nice.

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elliot_brenya profile image
Elliot Brenya sarfo

Thanks for sharing Ayu πŸ™‚

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adiatiayu profile image
Ayu Adiati

You're welcome, Elliot!
And thanks for reading πŸ˜„