[scubbo]

The best of both worlds - a friendly community that welcomes newbies, with a searchable archive - is possible. Limiting to only chat-based support means that support is bottle-necked by the folks who are available and engaged at the time of the question, and that knowledge will "drop out" of the community as people forget it.

[falcor84]

Apologies for my skepticism, but is it just "possible", or do you actually have an example of a long-lived community that remained fully welcoming to newbies while utilizing a searchable archive?

In any case, I'm not arguing that it's impossible, but rather that the more comprehensive the archive, the less welcoming the community would tend to be, all other things being equal. To take it to the extreme, I'll posit the following law: "A well-curated archive is the grave of a community"

[throwaway675309]

Hard disagree. If anything you'll find that the most knowledgeable members get burned out answering the same questions over and over again, so they begin to simplify their answers until they just become copy pasta.

You can still have channels open to welcoming new people while at the same time having a large archive of answered questions so that over time a reservoir gets built.

Saying that the same questions getting asked over and over again by new people is somehow a more welcoming community, is like saying that there's any meaningful interaction happening when two people say "What's up?" followed by the response "not much". It's a handshake protocol equivalent without actual depth.

[falcor84]

    I see friends shaking hands
    Saying, "How do you do?"
    They're really saying
    I love you.

[scubbo]

A very reasonable question, and I'll admit that I'm not deeply-entrenched in enough technical communities to give you an actual example. But yeah, intuitively I do agree with the sibling commenter - a well-curated archive is a tool of technology which allows skilled respondents to preserve their time and energy for new and interesting questions. A pointer to search is not necessarily dismissive - there is a world of difference between the following _technically_ equivalent responses:

* FFS, read the fuckin' archive noob and stop wasting our time

* Hey there, thanks for asking! This is actually a pretty common question, and we have guides written up for just this case. Try entering some of your search terms here [link], and come back with a follow-up question if that doesn't help you!

But yes, in fairness, I'll certainly agree that a community which _chooses_ to respond as the former will stagnate and die.