111–120 of 194 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
wat?
If you're old enough you might remember Americans were much more violent from 1960 to 1995 or so and the crime rate was incredibly high in American cities, leading to what was called white flight. Now, if you work with young people (so-called zoomers), you'll notice they are absolutely not like this anymore. At least 30% of this was caused by everyone breathing leaded gasoline.
Speaking of group chats, I recalled an interesting story how MSN Messenger lost Chinese market. Back in 2003ish, MSN Messenger was THE shit in China. QQ, the competitor of MSN Messenger by Tencent, was losing ground rapidly, especially to white-collar users in big cities. To Microsoft, MSN Messenger probably was a toy, but to Tencent it was life and death. So QQ launched group chat. In addition, QQ Group Chat allowed…
As a Westerner, the Tencent smileys are mostly better. On QQ they animate, which I don't like, but on Wechat they're static and they provide much better options than the Western set. I don't think there's ever been a good "looking skeptical" smiley anywhere, though.
For some reason, Tencent semi-recently redid all their smileys in a much uglier style. I wish that hadn't happened.
In several of ones I'm in, we have a dedicated channel for topics that are best treaded lightly about - one is called "adult chat", another one is called "taboo". The understanding is that if you cannot participate in a civil manner, you leave the channel, for awhile.
I've had to leave those channels on occasion. The chat, and I, were better for it.
It also helps keeps discussions going, because I know that if I just want to vent, I can head over to #vent. If I need some tech support, I can go to the tech channel. If I want to shitpost, boy oh boy, have we got a channel for that!
I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…
In one Slack I'm in, I can usually spot these people within 30 seconds, and as soon as they confirm my suspicions, I grab the banhammer.
On shared rituals, the ones I like the most are 1. Good mornings. Where it's a norm to post "Good morning" or equivalent at the start of your day. It signals that you're continuing to participate and value the group. 2. @Welcomes. When a new member joins, they are @-ed with a welcome message by the users currently present. It helps expand the join->engage funnel. Some groups have a lot of people show up and then neve…
I hate 1 & 3. DING morning. (Great, what do I do wi-)DING [...] At least it's over by about 9.30. Worse is the 'brb's, 'just getting lunch', 'school run' etc. - we're not talking, perhaps haven't talked for weeks, I don't need to talk to you, I don't need anything from you, I don't care where you're going, for all I knew you already weren't there. Just set your actual status if you think someone might give a shit. (Y…
I do these things in group chats with people I'm friends with and care about and actually spend time with in real life.
I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…
> This left me wondering if there is enough demand for smaller social networks with very limited visibility that can foster rich and insightful discussions (although this sounds like forums from the nineties). And if it's possible to keep the sales people away, or at least invite-only. You can't keep sales people a.k.a phonies away it will always happen. Every underground subculture gets appropriated as soon as even…
I have learned to avoid group chats. I don't mind actual in person groups, but either group chats I've been in have a serious veneer of in-authenticity or just sheer group think. I know this isolates me from a lot of people especially today who prefer meeting on discord but that's okay, it isn't for me. Chat works for a lot of things but I've never found it to be that great for socialising. Again, I suppose this is a…
I think it works for some, but not others. I get something like 80% of my socializin' done via my various group chats - but I'm very heavily introverted. (And for what it's worth, I would absolutely loathe voice chats.()
On shared rituals, the ones I like the most are 1. Good mornings. Where it's a norm to post "Good morning" or equivalent at the start of your day. It signals that you're continuing to participate and value the group. 2. @Welcomes. When a new member joins, they are @-ed with a welcome message by the users currently present. It helps expand the join->engage funnel. Some groups have a lot of people show up and then neve…
And I’d like to suggest an alternative to a mindless “good morning”: Actually share something noteworthy or check in with the people in there! Share an observation of your surroundings, an article or cartoon that made you (actually) smile etc.
Too hard/time consuming? Then the “good morning” was disingenuous/formulaic anyway and likely served no purpose.
I had an interesting experience with a WhatsApp group recently. In the past, WhatsApp groups had an upper limit of 256 participants. They then increased this to something much bigger (not sure how much, but at least 1,000). Anyway, I was a CTO and was a member of a group chat for CTOs. We had very insightful and rich discussions about topics that affected our roles, like vendor reputation, frameworks, team management…
> This left me wondering if there is enough demand for smaller social networks with very limited visibility that can foster rich and insightful discussions (although this sounds like forums from the nineties). And if it's possible to keep the sales people away, or at least invite-only. You can't keep sales people a.k.a phonies away it will always happen. Every underground subculture gets appropriated as soon as even…
Focus on the community itself, not on the people outside it. Underground is always defined relative to the mainstream, which isn't healthy for the community.
Don't give the original members any special status. They either fit in, or they move on.
The community must reinvent itself once in a while. The world moves on, and the original concept will eventually be obsolete.
Keep the key institutions non-commercial and under the control of the actual community. People trying to make money from the community are not a threat. Turning the community into someone's business is.