Hey all! 👋 I’m Ryo, a Sr. Design Technologist at PlayStation. I do web dev with React/TS/Node and game dev with Unity/C#/C++/OpenGL/DirectX. Feel free to ask me any questions! 🤘
I'd like to note that although Sandeep doesn't actively post, he is constantly active on the community. As a member, he constantly recommends other people answer questions (rather than himself). He also actively edits my posts if I forget to add tags and adds them for me 😅 I'm sure he doesn't want to draw too much attention to himself vs other more public C-level execs.
Hashnode has been trying hard to adapt and grow with the changing web tides. They tried a program recently called Hashnode Elites or something where top users were invited to a private chat with founders/team members in order to offer feedback on the site growth. They closed the program recently (don't think it did well), and they've been making a lot of incremental changes to their UI to improve the UX for users. Over the course of a couple months they've made a significant number of minor tweaks that improve the aesthetics.
I think there are other key issues with Hashnode.
Logging in requires using social platforms, or if you use your email you're forced to login using an email link. If I'm ever logged out, or have to log in on the go, I'm much less likely since I have to click login, then login to my email, click the link there, and I'm finally on the site.
They dont cross-promote on social media / Twitter like Dev.to, or work on building a community outside of their own. The reason Dev.to is so popular is because the founders work hard on making the Twitter relevant. Dev.to had an easy job starting a Twitter community with memes and funny pics, and have grown it into a great place for design/dev discourse. So when Dev cross-posts articles to Twitter (AND tag the author's twitter!), people actually care -- vs Hashnode which gets no attention and doesn't post.
There was an issue for a while with a toxic community member that was spreading some hate on questions/answers. It got so bad - the hater talked smack about GatsbyJS, and the creator found the post on Hashnode, and proceeded to hate on Hashnode for allowing such a negative influence to antagonize people. The lack of moderation on this member, and the way it was handled, show that the Hashnode team don't know how to properly manage a positive prosperous community.
The community tends to lean towards very specific countries, despite being international. It can feel like they're not advertising or reaching certain audiences.
Dev.to overall seems better with their PR and marketing game, and Hashnode seems like the perfect example of the app with everything that doesn't know how to sell itself.
Lots of great thoughts Ryosuke. I think you hit the nail on the head with a lot of this stuff.
Nobody on our team has a CS degree or any formal web design training. (Of course, I hope as the team grows, we will have some folks with these types of educations!)
Our team mostly has done a lot of random kinds of work which really helps us do well what we do well. We have backgrounds in customer support, hospitality, marketing, inventory management, and lots of other random things. I think this is a big part of what we do well.
Overall, I agree with your points. And the way we handled the "toxic community member" was definitely not optimal. But I can promise that we are working on the above-mentioned things and are going to fix the issues. :)
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Funny to see my article in the GIF 😂
I'd like to note that although Sandeep doesn't actively post, he is constantly active on the community. As a member, he constantly recommends other people answer questions (rather than himself). He also actively edits my posts if I forget to add tags and adds them for me 😅 I'm sure he doesn't want to draw too much attention to himself vs other more public C-level execs.
Hashnode has been trying hard to adapt and grow with the changing web tides. They tried a program recently called Hashnode Elites or something where top users were invited to a private chat with founders/team members in order to offer feedback on the site growth. They closed the program recently (don't think it did well), and they've been making a lot of incremental changes to their UI to improve the UX for users. Over the course of a couple months they've made a significant number of minor tweaks that improve the aesthetics.
I think there are other key issues with Hashnode.
Dev.to overall seems better with their PR and marketing game, and Hashnode seems like the perfect example of the app with everything that doesn't know how to sell itself.
I was excepting this, a review from a real Hashnode user. 😊
Thanks for pointing out some other insightful points.
Lots of great thoughts Ryosuke. I think you hit the nail on the head with a lot of this stuff.
Nobody on our team has a CS degree or any formal web design training. (Of course, I hope as the team grows, we will have some folks with these types of educations!)
Our team mostly has done a lot of random kinds of work which really helps us do well what we do well. We have backgrounds in customer support, hospitality, marketing, inventory management, and lots of other random things. I think this is a big part of what we do well.
Thanks, Ryosuke! Great points. I just wrote my thoughts here: dev.to/sandeepgk/comment/77b2
Overall, I agree with your points. And the way we handled the "toxic community member" was definitely not optimal. But I can promise that we are working on the above-mentioned things and are going to fix the issues. :)