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Dan Moore!
My place on the web

Do you want to build a community where users search or hang?

Everyone wants to build community, especially developer focused
companies.

A community helps your customers and users succeed, creates content
that your team doesn't have the time to do, and builds a competitive
moat.

But what type of community are you building, or looking to build?
Every community is different. Which should be no surprise.

After all, offline communities aren't identical. Neighbors are one
type of offline community characterized by certain expectations and
interactions. Maybe you watch their dog, wave when you see them, and
get their mail for them on vacation.

Friends and family are another. You invite them for parties and see
them during the holidays, discuss politics, and stay in touch through
the years. Depending on family bonds, you might even lend them money
or donate a kidney.

Similarly, developer communities have different levels of engagement
and commitment. These can serve different audiences and needs.

A community is not a community is not a community.

One easy way to think about the community is to ask the question: are
you a "Facebook" or a "Google"?

No, I'm not talking about whether you should "move fast and break
democracy" or "don't be evil" and set up a panopticon.

What I mean is: "what does your typical user want to do: hang out or
get a question answered and move on?"

Facebook is where people go to hang out. It's the dominant social
media site, even if the kids are moving on to something else these
days. In this type of community people chat, hang out, and get to
know each other better. The technology or software solution is often
the original impetus and the source of much discussion, but there are
other aspects to the community. Topics range widely. In some cases,
people remain members through job and role changes.

The community may even have a real life component, such as a
conference or members meeting up if they are in the same area.

In contrast, Google (the search engine) is where people go to get
answers. This involves searching, then leaving Google as quickly as
possible. Community on Google is tenuous. It really means "people
there at the same time" or perhaps "people asking the same
questions". Anonymity is fine and even valued.

The point of search engines is to send people on their way as fast as
possible so they can focus on solving the problem that they are faced
with. When you are looking up an error string, you don't want to chat
with someone about their hobbies, you want to get your answer and go
fix the bug.

This is also a crucial, often ignored, purpose of a developer
community.

What are some examples of these two types of community?

Examples of developer communities that are "Facebooks":

  * The Rands Engineering Slack
  * The Ruby community
  * Orbit.love's discord

Examples which are "Googles":

  * StackOverflow (for almost all participants)
  * The Elasticsearch forum
  * Almost any other forum, for that matter

What makes a community more likely to be a Facebook or a Google?

There are many reasons why a community might tend toward a hangout or
a search engine. Consider:

  * How self contained is the technology? Components or tools snapped
    into an existing system, such as a security framework or logging
    library, are more likely to be a Google-type community.
    Frameworks and other solutions that are bigger and more self
    contained lend themselves to a Facebook approach. Few folks want
    to hang out and discuss the intricate details of logging, but a
    bigger project like Haskell or Rust will have more to discuss.
  * Are there events that happen in real life around the community,
    such as conferences? These are likely to make the community more
    of a "Facebook". There's a feedback loop; when I meet someone in
    real life, I want to hang out more with them online.
  * Is the community open source? Does it have a unifying philosophy?
    Or is there a strong common interest such as gaming? These all
    make a community more likely to be a Facebook, since there's
    already more to discuss than simply problem solving.
  * How do members interact with the software supporting the
    community? If often, there's incentive to invest in getting to
    know other members. If, instead, the tool is used once in a
    while, then there's less incentive. This correlates to the tool
    vs framework point above.
  * How big is the community? The smaller the pool of members, the
    more likely any interaction will be personal, and hence similar
    to Facebook. This is especially true if combined with a
    philosophy, as mentioned above.
  * How long has the community been around? Longer lived communities
    have, by definition, more chances for members to interact.

All other things being equal, a community where people want to stick
around and chat is more valuable. It's also harder to build, and may
be impossible. And it's only part of the picture. People hear the
word "developer community" and think of IRC or discords where
developers hang out, but community is so much bigger than that.

What are the ramifications of this characterization?

As a community builder, when you are starting out, you are likely
building a "Google" type of community. To help it succeed, provide
the most help you can in the time you have.

Help builds trust. It shows you care about your community and their
success. Offering help shows you value your users time and is
foundational for any other type of community endeavor. Few community
members will volunteer time to help answer questions on your forum/
chat if the company doesn't seem to care enough to provide good docs
about the tool or software solution.

So, your job is to help developers using your software get the
answers as quickly as they can. How?

  * Well structured documentation. If possible, allow users to
    suggest changes to it.
  * Publicly searchable question and answer archives. I like forums,
    myself.
  * A clear roadmap for the product. Yes, it'll change, sometimes
    rapidly, but offer as much guidance as you can.
  * Multiple channels for community feedback. GitHub, StackOverflow,
    hosted forum, Twitter, email, Slack, Discord, conferences. Pick
    some to focus on, but support as much as you can. There are
    plenty of tools to consolidate these disparate sources.
  * Share the changes the community has suggested that are
    implemented. This can be as simple as a shout out in release
    notes.

You can help work towards a deeper community by helping members get
to know one another. This can be done in a variety of ways,
including:

  * Virtual or in-person meetups
  * Profiles of community members
  * Encouraging direct communication between members, if you see
    people with similar interests or problems
  * Synchronous chat platforms like slack or discord

Just like it takes time for a sports team or company department to
gel, it will take time for a community to do so. In fact, it will
take more time, since members spend less time in your developer
community than they do in others. Prepare for a long journey with
missteps along the way.

Why not both?

Of course, a community can be good for hanging out and getting
answers. Different users can have varying expectations and
experiences within a single community.

Stackoverflow is a good example. Most people arrive there via search
engines, ask or answer a question, and then leave. But there is also
a lively community, meta.stackexchange.com, where users get to know
each other, hang out and argue over the rules and culture of the
Stack sites. It is important to design and be aware of these
different needs, including lurkers.

But, in general, most communities have a clear tilt toward one mode
or the other. Either you are a watering hole where folks hang out or
an encyclopedia where developers come for answers. When you are
helping foster a community, you'll want to have a clear understanding
of which type of community you can realistically achieve.

Thanks to Rosie Sherry for her review of this post.

Community Devrel | moore | December 11, 2021
Security Engineering
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