I’m fond of silos like the one the author unintentionally created. I’ve always felt like a forum that grows to a sufficient size will just end up being noisy and I’ll avoid getting involved. I’ve previously sought out Swedish-language silos which typically provide a smaller and to me more comfortable environment.
In a sense, I think it’s a sign of maturity for a project to outgrow “everyone active in this hangs out here” places.
The discoverability problem described is a problem with silos, and it seems like that’s an increasing issue to me. Fifteen years ago these silos were indexable by Google and searching for your problem might give you a forum post, an IRC-log, a blog post or documentation. Many of these communities were still readable by all. In that sense the silos of yesterday were more accessible than they are today.
Totally agree. Commercial forums like Slack and Discord are winning for a reason-- they make for a really good experience. Invites, initial friction, feeling of a quiet and private room make a lot of conversation better than it could otherwise be.
Maybe could export chats for archiving/discoverability. Probably need optional anonymization though.
I’m fond of silos like the one the author unintentionally created. I’ve always felt like a forum that grows to a sufficient size will just end up being noisy and I’ll avoid getting involved. I’ve previously sought out Swedish-language silos which typically provide a smaller and to me more comfortable environment.
In a sense, I think it’s a sign of maturity for a project to outgrow “everyone active in this hangs out here” places.
The discoverability problem described is a problem with silos, and it seems like that’s an increasing issue to me. Fifteen years ago these silos were indexable by Google and searching for your problem might give you a forum post, an IRC-log, a blog post or documentation. Many of these communities were still readable by all. In that sense the silos of yesterday were more accessible than they are today.
Totally agree. Commercial forums like Slack and Discord are winning for a reason-- they make for a really good experience. Invites, initial friction, feeling of a quiet and private room make a lot of conversation better than it could otherwise be. Maybe could export chats for archiving/discoverability. Probably need optional anonymization though.
Agreed. Small communities are good, but insular and isolated communities are problematic fragmentation.