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Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#4
post #3

early days of BBS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system ) circa 1992-1993. Everyone was so nice and thrilled just to be communicating.

Thank you. Did the community do anything to make this happen?

well it self selected nerds and outcasts :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#5
started going online in ~ 2009 (being 8 years old) so after peak of usenet, bbs or any kind of network that has some kind of entry barrier. (using fb, yt, twr is easy compared to usenet, bbs, irc)

nowadays HN is the only online community i really enjoy (and use) because of interesting articles (wide range, some non technical stuff that is interesting as well), good conduct in discussions primary and great people in general :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#6
post #5

started going online in ~ 2009 (being 8 years old) so after peak of usenet, bbs or any kind of network that has some kind of entry barrier. (using fb, yt, twr is easy compared to usenet, bbs, irc) nowadays HN is the only online community i really enjoy (and use) because of interesting articles (wide range, some non technical stuff that is interesting as well), good conduct in discussions primary and great people in g…

edit: i found that irc-channels of most opensource projects are also great in terms of good conduct and a warm atmospheres when having questions etc. (:

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#7
Not what you are asking for here, but whatever, check out Product Hunt [1]. You may find a lot of useful new-gen community building platforms and guides, plus some meta-communities (communities about communities)

However, A lot of it (but not everything) is growth hacking and marketing oriented. And for that reason, it is not itself the best community I've ever joined... I've not found that one yet.

[1] https://www.producthunt.com/search?q=communities

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#8
I was a member of various bulletin boards over the years, and most of them died out. I'm not talking about these: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system). I'm talking about PHP based boards such as Invision, phpBB, vBulletin, etc

Over time the admins just grew old and cranky and probably ran out of pocket money to keep the boards alive as they grew over time. The only surviving ones alive today are funded by donations. Also with things like Reddit, Discord, Fakebook etc means much of the conversation has shifted onto those platforms, and they're 'free' so there's no maintenance costs to worry about.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#9

I was a member of various bulletin boards over the years, and most of them died out. I'm not talking about these: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system ). I'm talking about PHP based boards such as Invision, phpBB, vBulletin, etc Over time the admins just grew old and cranky and probably ran out of pocket money to keep the boards alive as they grew over time. The only surviving ones alive today are fu…

That's a very apt description of Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best online community you've ever joined and why?

#10
some hacking and warez communities around ~2005

They were solving an immediate problem (whether that was finding a movie online or a 0-day behind a paywall) so it didn't feel like wasting time and there was a constant flux of people.

I think enjoying an online community is based on a lot of personal factors: I just don't make serious friendships anymore at my age, I won't bother with an online community.

Do something useful, keep attracting new people, don't be upset when old timers don't give a crap about your efforts.

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