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by rectang 1934 days ago
The assumption that community building is an unalloyed good pervades tech, especially FOSS. I never see any analysis that concludes "building a community takes lots of work, requires skill sets that not everyone possesses in equal measure, and often can't justify the ROI".

I'd like to see an article on why you should not build a community.
2 comments
hoi234 1934 days ago
The assumption that learning to program is an unalloyed good pervades the world, especially the USA. I never see any analysis that concludes "programming takes lots of work, requires skill sets that not everyone possesses in equal measure, and often can't justify the ROI".

I'd like to see an article on why you should not learn to program.

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rectang 1934 days ago
I've actually seen plenty of "not everyone needs to learn to program" articles.

https://www.google.com/search?q=not+everyone+needs+to+learn+...

I'd like to see analogous skeptical articles about community building.

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hoi234 1933 days ago
Short of writing your own, you'll have to wait until the shrillness of "OMG you have to learn community-building NOW or else you'll be sleeping in a cardboard box on the streets" reaches the same levels as learning programming so that sufficient numbers call out the BS in such hype.
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skeeter2020 1933 days ago
>> I'd like to see an article on why you should not learn to program.

This abstracts to a set of unlimted topics, so essentially you're asking for justification to not learn about anything. This seems a little absurd so perhaps the question is framed incorrectly and should be "why you should not learn to program and instead learn [something else]" i.e. the basis for time/energy/focus being scarce and deciding how to allocate them for maximum utility, however you define that.

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ad404b8a372f2b9 1934 days ago
Hard agree, building a community takes year and you have to be constantly available. You're the one who's going to do most of the talking for the first few years so you better be more skilled than 90% of the people who join if you want them to find value in it. Can't speak on ROI, mine isn't business focused but I'll say it's a great way to meet interesting people, especially if you're not the outgoing-type because it forces you to be.
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