

Ask HN: How to develop and maintain online community of very high quality? - rayalez

Hi! What are some ideas on creating an online community that has the level of quality similar to HN&#x2F;LW?<p>Are there some methods that can help me to keep my community positive, intelligent, creative?<p>Please share your thoughts and advice.<p>P.S.<p>Specifically, I am developing a community for writers, and I want it to consist of the kind of people who like to hang out here, on LW, and on &#x2F;r&#x2F;rational. If you can share some ideas on how I could go about doing that - I would really appreciate it.
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veddox
I tried to build an online community of youths interested in politics and
failed for lack of people. (We did have a very narrow target group: German
youths who were both interested in social matters and enjoyed writing. That
probably killed us, since we didn't (yet) manage to spread our advertising net
wide enough to attract enough people for a snowball effect.)

So I think you're first problem isn't going to be how to _keep_ your
community, but how to _grow_ it. I'd like to hear what ideas others here have
on that?

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chipsy
1\. Good content, advertised occasionally

2\. Heavy moderation

3\. Esoteric writing

The first two are pretty simple. The third one is theoretical, based on the
book I've been reading lately: Arthur Melzer - _Philosophy Between the Lines_.
It's a dense and exhaustive but compelling history of esoteric writing in
philosophy and its sudden disappearance in modern times. Writing esoterically
acts as another, explicitly elitist filter because it locks out the people who
would reach wrong, unenlightened conclusions.

(I recommend the book, it is a slow read though. I'm only about halfway
through it.)

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ThrustVectoring
Write high-quality content, and allow people to discuss it. It worked for
slatestarcodex.

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brudgers
What is LW?

~~~
rayalez
[http://lesswrong.com](http://lesswrong.com)

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MichaelCrawford
Clearly state - in writing, what the true objectives of the community are.

compare slasdot to
[http://www.slashdotmedia.com/](http://www.slashdotmedia.com/)

Many engineers object to facebook for many good reason. I rather enjoy it but
I havent configured any favorite books or movies because I dont want SkyNet to
comoute my psychological profile.

I dont by any means object to advertising but I do object to tracking.

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paulhauggis
The only way is to be exclusive. Every community that allows everyone in
eventually gets watered down and destroyed by the masses.

~~~
MichaelCrawford
"Forty below keeps the riff-raff out." \-- Marguerite Payne, Muskegon,
Michigan

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Zigurd
In general: Pick a specific topic or set of related topics. Limit the audience
to the literate. No pictures. No video.

I don't think writers will go b-tard on you.

