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Why do you want to? So you can extract money from them? Don't. So you can have someone to control and moderate and exercise power over? Don't. So you can have t

Why do you want to? So you can extract money from them? Don't. So you can have someone to control and moderate and exercise power over? Don't. So you can have the prestige and status of a community owner and/or high traffic website owner and/or successful person? Don't. Have you noticed that HN was originally a small group of smart industry knowledgable people, and gradually they trended towards disengaging as it got too big and busy and it became a crowd of jeering Redditor plebs like me? HN is a marketing machine for YCombinator, not a real community. If what you want is really "to build a big site with lots of users", the word "community" doesn't really apply, ask what you want "how do I build a site which tempts large numbers of casual users?". Communities stay small. If your reason is you want a place where people who like X can discuss X then become a good place for those people to do that, be present, engage all the time, invite appropriate people to it and make it interesting enough that they have reason to come back, make it about what they want (could be a mailing list) instead of what you want ("my new forum written in React with a mobile app backed by an IRC channel!"). That will likely stay small - people probably already have a place to discuss X, there's probably a Reddit about X, and the real thing they'll be interested in is who else goes there (and who is excluded), not where it is or what software it uses. There's way more community in 50 people discussing a thing than in some mega-site built for ad revenue. Not much prestige or excitement in that, though.

djmobley 6y ago
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I’d add that it’s a lot of work moderating and dealing with the drama that online communities tend to create. Nowadays there are also legal implications, with certain jurisdictions making you liable for user-submitted content. Unless you’re really passionate about creating a community of like-minded individuals, I wouldn’t bother.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Unless you’re really passionate about creating a community of like-minded individuals, I wouldn’t bother. I agree. I think most communities are created because of a need for them, not so much because somebody wants to create a community.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Even if OP is really passionate about, say, stamp collecting - I'm asking why people who collect stamps should care that OP wants to rule a large community of them, why should they submit to it? There has to be more in it for them than "OP wants to be in charge, so we will go to OP's place and submit to OP's rules". And OP won't find out what that is as long as OP is asking a general place like HN "how do I collect all the stamp collectors on my site??" like they were collectible things, instead of going to a stamp collecting group and joining and contributing and observing what they might be missing that they don't know they are missing because they aren't technical enough to be aware of all the options, which OP could maybe build or contribute towards. but that's not at all as exciting as being in charge, which I'm cynically suggesting might be OP's motivation.
  - jayshua 6y ago
    For what it's worth I think that's way more exciting than being in charge. I was recently involved (not as a moderator) in a community that burned itself to the ground due almost entirely to poor communication and lack of discussion between the moderators and the members themselves. This lead directly from, I think, the moderators having exactly the opinion you criticize - they viewed themselves as leading and ruling the users rather than supporting them. I've been thinking a lot about how that could have been prevented. Maybe the community could have survived if the system was structured in a way that gave users themselves enough power to hold moderators to account. Or maybe there's some other way the issues could have been mitigated. That's exactly why people who collect stamps should care. The community I mentioned is gone specifically because the very invested members couldn't do anything about the self-destruction. And we knew we were powerless as it was all falling apart. At this point many would be happy to move to a new platform simply if it provided some type of guarantees against a repeat. (Which I think could be accomplished by giving the moderators less power without compromising their ability to moderate. Somehow.) As to your final point about joining and contributing, I've done that. I'm here asking about the general guidelines because there are people here who have walked the path of fostering a community, or know people who have.
gitgud 6y ago
> "HN is a marketing machine for YCombinator, not a real community." I disagree, a large percentage of people that are here for the interesting articles and curious discussion, but have no interest in YCombinator at all...
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  If your disagreement had merit, you’d be saying “what’s YCombinator?”.

djmobley 6y ago

Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I’d add that it’s a lot of work moderating and dealing with the drama that online communities tend to create. Nowadays there are also legal implications, with certain jurisdictions making you liable for user-submitted content. Unless you’re really passionate about creating a community of like-minded individuals, I wouldn’t bother.

luckylion 6y ago
> Unless you’re really passionate about creating a community of like-minded individuals, I wouldn’t bother. I agree. I think most communities are created because of a need for them, not so much because somebody wants to create a community.
jodrellblank 6y ago
Even if OP is really passionate about, say, stamp collecting - I'm asking why people who collect stamps should care that OP wants to rule a large community of them, why should they submit to it? There has to be more in it for them than "OP wants to be in charge, so we will go to OP's place and submit to OP's rules". And OP won't find out what that is as long as OP is asking a general place like HN "how do I collect all the stamp collectors on my site??" like they were collectible things, instead of going to a stamp collecting group and joining and contributing and observing what they might be missing that they don't know they are missing because they aren't technical enough to be aware of all the options, which OP could maybe build or contribute towards. but that's not at all as exciting as being in charge, which I'm cynically suggesting might be OP's motivation.
- jayshua 6y ago
  For what it's worth I think that's way more exciting than being in charge. I was recently involved (not as a moderator) in a community that burned itself to the ground due almost entirely to poor communication and lack of discussion between the moderators and the members themselves. This lead directly from, I think, the moderators having exactly the opinion you criticize - they viewed themselves as leading and ruling the users rather than supporting them. I've been thinking a lot about how that could have been prevented. Maybe the community could have survived if the system was structured in a way that gave users themselves enough power to hold moderators to account. Or maybe there's some other way the issues could have been mitigated. That's exactly why people who collect stamps should care. The community I mentioned is gone specifically because the very invested members couldn't do anything about the self-destruction. And we knew we were powerless as it was all falling apart. At this point many would be happy to move to a new platform simply if it provided some type of guarantees against a repeat. (Which I think could be accomplished by giving the moderators less power without compromising their ability to moderate. Somehow.) As to your final point about joining and contributing, I've done that. I'm here asking about the general guidelines because there are people here who have walked the path of fostering a community, or know people who have.

gitgud 6y ago

> "HN is a marketing machine for YCombinator, not a real community." I disagree, a large percentage of people that are here for the interesting articles and curious discussion, but have no interest in YCombinator at all...

jodrellblank 6y ago
If your disagreement had merit, you’d be saying “what’s YCombinator?”.