Join us on Discord with this link: Code Discuss

As many of us have experienced, there are very few well designed, friendly, responsive online communities for developers.

THE PROBLEMS

They can each have one of several problems:

1. UPTIGHT

Some communities have many strict rules, so that you can hardly do or say anything. This is a problem. These places are not welcoming to new-comers as a general rule, and can even be exasperating if you’ve been with them for a long time.

2. GAMIFICATION

Often times, along with the uptightness, communities can get the gamification virus. In an attempt to promote accountability, they instead create a “peck the weak chicken to death” scenario, where new, or socially awkward, or very friendly coders have a hard time.

3. HOWLING WILDERNESS

Then there are some communities that are very inactive. This is an obvious problem. If you ask a question, it may be a month before you get answered, or maybe never! 😦

4. NOT VERSATILE

Now, some communities, such as dev.to, bypass all these problems beautifully, and are really very pleasant places to be. But, their scope is limited. For instance, dev.to is not really suited for asking questions about code bugs, or other problems. Neither is it really a great place to just chat and hang out.

THE FIX

In light of this, I have created a new community called Code Discuss. My goals for the community are as follows:

1. REAL PEOPLE

I want this community to be managed by human discretion, not robotic insensitivity. So, we won’t be employing a bunch of automated moderation, or new member welcoming methods. We want to welcome new-comers with messages from real people, not a robot who could care less about our new member.

2. HIGH QUALITY MODERATORS

As we all know, moderators have a lot to do with the atmosphere of the community. We will be very careful in our choice of mods, to insure that they are people who listen, and are willing to make room for reasonable exceptions, but also, they must not be pushovers (that’s a good way to ruin a community!).

Also, we want to make sure our group of moderators isn’t exclusive! We don’t want the moderators to be like a royal group, lording it over a bunch of cringing subjects. The moderators will simply be trusted members of the community, entrusted with the responsibility of protecting everyone else.

3. COMMUNITY DRIVEN

We want to be a place where the community has a lot of say. Where everyone feels free to make suggestions to the moderation team, and where anyone, if they prove themself, can become a moderator.

4. NO GAMIFICATION!

No upvotes! Your reward for giving good responses is the respect of your fellow Code Discuss members: not a shiny yellow badge with serrated edges. If you are truly making effort, it will be seen for what it is, and you will be respected, and you will be offered a higher role in the community by the moderation team.

5. OPEN ENDED RULES

We want to rule by the spirit of the law, not the word. Altogether to often, there are edge cases that officially break the rules, but a quite legitimate otherwise. Our rules are designed to govern by principle, and there aren’t to many of them.

6. RESPONSIVE

We want to be a community which responds quickly to it’s members, and doesn’t leave them waiting for hours.

CONCLUSION

So, if you’ve been hankering after this kind of place, and if you want to be part of a brand new, growing community, join us on Discord with this link!