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Reminder to follow the code of conduct

Ben Halpern on October 25, 2018

Hey folks, we just want to remind you of the importance of following the community Code of Conduct. It’s very important that we all work to mainta...
 
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Sandor Dargo

I think we shouldn't be so selfish. Every article has at least two reasons. One is teaching. Okay, maybe a not so great tutorial doesn't give you much value. But every coin has two sides. That tutorial is written by the author because he wanted to learn. He wanted to learn how to teach, how to write and probably to understand the subject better. Instead of banning them, we should help the authors by giving them honest, but gentle feedback.

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Ben Halpern

Hear y'all on all this, but I think the answer is a bit more involved than enforcing this kind of thing through the code of conduct.

Overall we don't want to be too gatekeepy in terms of types of content allowed to exist on the platform, but we do want the ranking algorithms to reflect good stuff. Ultimately your feed will include a lot of stuff people follow.

Anyway. Valid thoughts, but the answers will require more time and thought.

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Fen Slattery

Thanks so much for this. You folks are a really great example of having a Code of Conduct and enforcing it.

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Kasey Speakman

So far I think DEV has done a good job being compassionate with "having a bad day"/vent posts, and taking action on posts which are intentionally damaging. I think this is an excellent balance, and hope to see the trend continue.

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Ben Halpern

Thanks Kasey! Yes, we do try to strike this exact kind of balance and I feel like you articulated it well.

 
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Ben Halpern

Thanks, yeah.

And I definitely agree with Sandor here. Many tutorials are written as an exercise, and somebody might find it valuable if they stumble on it now or in the future.

We don't want to say any kind of good faith content can't live on the platform, but we will continue to make efforts to have content become better discovered by those who need it and less likely to be visible for those who don't. Folks should get to write whatever they want within the scope of software development and we should give them the tools to do it more effectively. And then readers should be served stuff that's more relevant for them.

It's an exciting type of problem to tackle!!!

 
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jess unrein • Edited

Just out of curiosity - there are several people here posting about content they find unsavory or not useful. What is the content you most enjoy engaging with on dev.to? What keeps you coming back? What would encourage you to engage even more?

I’m fairly new here and trying to feel out the community and how to get the most out of the site.

We’re pretty far afield of the Code of Conduct issue at this point, but the comments here have been super interesting and I’d love to hear more.

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kaelscion

I think all Dev communities could use more tutorials on using the core or standard libraries of languages. I think the best thing any newcomer can learn is what goes on under the hood. However, I also agree that the best way to learn something is to try and teach it to somebody else, as anybody who has tried to learn another spoken language well knows. I remember another thread on Dev that mentioned how our community is mostly new developers looking for an inclusive place to learn and ask questions. I believe @ben mentioned that as Dev grows it will attract more senior folk who can provide more constructive criticism. IMHO I'd say let the React and CSS guides roll on within reason and all of us will grow in time. Even a not-so-great tutorial can tell us something we didn't know.

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Ryan • Edited

I understand if authors want to 'cross-post' their articles from other sources to Dev.to, but what irks me is when they just post a link to the article. Why not format it here at Dev.to and let's have a discussion on it?

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Ben Halpern

Yes, we agree here. Not necessarily within the scope of code of conduct per se.

We have a ranking system which needs to get better at accounting for this kind of content effectively.

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Ryan

You guys are doing great - keep it up!
Just providing some feedback of what I'm seeing.

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Jonathan Irvin • Edited
  1. Pobody's Nerfect
  2. You capitalize "Internet" as I do.
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Ben Halpern

As you can see by the DEV name/logo, I seem to be quite fond of capitalization in general.

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Spiro Floropoulos

This is easily one of the top two communities I've ever had the privilege of being a part of. Thank you everyone.

 
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jess unrein • Edited

That makes total sense. I was going to ask some follow up questions here, but we're pretty far off the original post topic. I've created a #discuss post for this topic because I think intended use vs actual experience on social sites is super interesting! Thanks!