## The difficulty in finding a good community
-I recognize that not everyone can join or build a community. Online spaces have a reputation for not being welcoming places for folks, and in-person group meetings can use up whatever mental resources you have. It took me a long time to find the courage to go to my first in-person meetings as I'd had a bad experience with someone I worked with that I thought would be at these meetings. (I'm not sure if that person ever went it to those meetings). But I'm grateful that I did eventually attend my first meetings. Attending these meetings led me to friendships, opportunities, and other "traveling companions" for my journey. It led me to switch to one of my favorite programming languages (Python) and led me to several jobs. It also helped me to feel like I wasn't alone with my interests and introduced me to others I could rely on. It gave me a feeling of belonging.
+I recognize that not everyone can join or build a community. Online spaces have a reputation for not being welcoming places for folks, and in-person group meetings can use up whatever mental resources you have. It took me a long time to find the courage to go to my first in-person meeting as I'd had a bad experience with someone I worked with that I thought would be at these meetings. (I'm not sure if that person ever went to those meetings). But I'm grateful that I did eventually attend my first meetings. Attending these meetings led me to friendships, opportunities, and other "traveling companions" for my journey. It led me to switch to one of my favorite programming languages (Python) and led me to several jobs. It also helped me to feel like I wasn't alone with my interests and introduced me to others I could rely on. It gave me a feeling of belonging.
-Getting over the initial hurdle is hard. Our fear of rejection and our fear of making ourselves vulnerable to strangers can wear us down. Overcoming that fear takes a lot of our mental energy and can sap us of the desire to be part of yet-another-community. I can't say that it will be easy but I can point to some of the benefits it had in my life. I hope you can find those benefits as well.
+Getting over the initial hurdle is hard. Our fear of rejection and our fear of making ourselves vulnerable to strangers can wear us down. Overcoming that fear takes a lot of our mental energy and can sap us of the desire to be part of yet-another-community. I can't say that it will be easy, but I can point to some of the benefits it had in my life. I hope you can find those benefits as well.
-Another alternative to in-person communities are online communities. Online communities can be a great way to find others. They gather folks from many different locations and bring them to a common area. Part of the reason I made my jump into meeting folks in person was because of the good experiences I had with these folks on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). I enjoyed the company of these folks through our online interactions and felt comfortable meeting them in person.
+ An alternative to in-person communities are online communities. Online communities can be a great way to find others. They gather folks from many different locations and bring them to a common area. Part of the reason I made my jump into meeting folks in person was because of the good experiences I had with these folks on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). I enjoyed the company of these folks through our online interactions and felt comfortable meeting them in person.
-The low barrier to entry for many online communities can allow us to see what the community is about. What are their priorities? Are they kind to folks who are starting out? Do they have a pattern of helping folks like us or do they tend to hurt others? Do they have members who nurture their fellow members or are they cutting each other down?
+The low barrier to entry for many online communities can allow us to see what the community is about. What are their priorities? Are they kind to folks who are starting out? Do they have a pattern of helping folks like us or do they tend to hurt folks like us? Do they have members who nurture their fellow members or are they cutting each other down?
I'm not aware of a good strategy for determining if a community is helpful or hurtful. It takes some effort to follow a community and get a sense of who they are. It is emotionally draining to put ourselves in situations where we are vulnerable in order to see if others will be gentle with us. Communities are made up of people and people are fickle and irrational creatures. What might be an amazing community for one person may be a toxic environment for another. While I don't have a strategy I do have some ideas on key elements that make up a community.
There are a number of things that I would look for in a community. While this is not a definitive list of everything that makes up a good community it lists some guidelines for what I think is important:
-* Code of conduct: Good communities have guidelines for things that the community will accept, tolerate, and abhor. It should be visible to all members of the community, and each member of the community must be accountable to those guidelines. It must also be enforced. If you note situations where the code of conduct is selectively enforced against certain members you should be wary of staying within that community.
-* Moderators: There needs to be someone (or a group) in the community that can diffuse situations and meter out meaningful punishments when folks get out of hand. Moderators should be even-handed and as consistent as possible with their decisions. They should demonstrate that they are also following the same code of conduct by their actions in the community. A good moderator should be visible but not overbearing. You should feel welcomed by the presence of a moderator and feel free to engage the moderators if you have questions about the community.
-* Spaces for questions and guidelines for good questions: There should be a place for folks to ask questions related to the topic of the community. People should feel safe in asking on-topic questions, and the community needs to be clear on what it considers an on-topic or good question. Is the space OK for beginner questions? If not, could such a space be made? What sorts of questions would the community be happy to answer and what sorts of questions would upset the community? These need to be clearly defined so beginners can have a sense of what the community will welcome and what it will not tolerate.
-* Joy: Do the people in the community seem pleased to discuss things? What is the tone of the conversations? Are folks interacting in a positive way with each other or are they resorting to insults and name-calling? Are questions welcomed or are they discouraged or ignored? If there's no joy in being in the community then the likelihood of folks sticking with it will be lowered.
-* Compassion and empathy: Does the community allow for people to make mistakes? When something goes wrong does the community try to help? Does the community remember what it was like to be beginners and act with compassion or do they expect everyone to be more experienced before participating?
-* Kindness: This is the most important factor --- does the community behave in a kind manner to others or do they split off into factions and try to cut each other down. Do they view new folks as friends or as outsiders that must prove themselves? This relates to compassion and empathy above, but we tend to see acts of kindness before we see compassion and empathy. Kindness manifests itself in community members being OK with folks not getting everything right away and acting with gentleness rather than taking a stern approach. They let folks know that they too had trouble with whatever is puzzling them and suggest ways to work together to smooth things out for folks who might also fall into this puzzle. They act in a way that does not put their ego first, and instead behave as though they have been given a gift that is best shared with others.
+* **Code of conduct**: Good communities have guidelines for things that the community will accept, tolerate, and abhor. It should be visible to all members of the community, and each member of the community must be accountable to those guidelines. It must also be enforced. If you note situations where the code of conduct is selectively enforced against certain members you should be wary of staying within that community.
+* **Moderators**: There needs to be someone (or a group) in the community that can diffuse situations and meter out meaningful punishments when folks get out of hand. Moderators should be even-handed and as consistent as possible with their decisions. They should demonstrate that they are also following the same code of conduct by their actions in the community. A good moderator should be visible but not overbearing. You should feel welcomed by the presence of a moderator and feel free to engage the moderators if you have questions about the community.
+* **Spaces for questions and guidelines for good questions**: There should be a place for folks to ask questions related to the topic of the community. People should feel safe in asking on-topic questions, and the community needs to be clear on what it considers an on-topic or good question. Is the space OK for beginner questions? If not, could such a space be made? What sorts of questions would the community be happy to answer and what sorts of questions would upset the community? These need to be clearly defined so beginners can have a sense of what the community will welcome and what it will not tolerate.
+* **Joy**: Do the people in the community seem pleased to discuss things? What is the tone of the conversations? Are folks interacting in a positive way with each other or are they resorting to insults and name-calling? Are questions welcomed or are they discouraged or ignored? If there's no joy in being in the community then the likelihood of folks sticking with it will be lowered.
+* **Compassion and empathy**: Does the community allow for people to make mistakes? When something goes wrong does the community try to help? Does the community remember what it was like to be beginners and act with compassion, or do they expect everyone to have more experience before participating?
+* **Kindness**: This is the most important factor --- does the community behave in a kind manner to others or do they split off into factions and try to cut each other down. Do they view new folks as friends or as outsiders that must prove themselves? This relates to compassion and empathy above, but we tend to see acts of kindness before we see compassion and empathy. Kindness manifests itself when community members are OK with folks not getting everything right away and act with gentleness rather than taking a stern approach. They let folks know that they too have had trouble and suggest ways to work together to smooth things out for the next folks who might experience this same trouble. They act in a way that does not put their ego first, and instead behave as though they have been given a gift that is best shared with others.
We'll talk more about kindness in upcoming chapters.
-These are just a sample of what I find in good communities. Feel free to add to this list as your experience grows (and let me know so I can update this list for future readers).
+These are just a sample of what I find in good communities. Feel free to add to this list as your experience grows and let me know so I can update this list for future readers.
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / commitdiff