Bootsrapping a forum to empower academics: feedback needed

Quote from leaderoffun on April 22, 2022, 5:51 pm

On why not slack/discord if that's what people want (I'm sure @lucio has more reasons):

https://experts.feverbee.com/t/whisper-it-im-not-a-fan-of-slack-communities/5846/3

All the Slack-only communities I’ve been apart of have eventually withered away. One was a really great writers group, but I think the immediacy of Slack didn’t work well for the type of discussions that people wanted. People would post looking for critique, but then because the focus is on most recent posts, the link to the work itself would get lost and people wouldn’t bother to go back and read it. Which would mean the initial poster would only get one, maybe two eyes on their project.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on April 23, 2022, 2:02 am

Rock on about the new project LOF, looking forward to seeing more of that (and you can also still write that article and link to it once live).

Quote from leaderoffun on April 22, 2022, 5:04 pm

Related: do I want people to use their real names? I'm in Europe so GDPR is a thing. Apparently forum posts are not personal information, but that took some work to figure out. Many of you here prefer anonymity. What's your take on this?

This is the only thing where I have a stronger opinion:

You may have your preferences on that, but they shouldn't turn into requirements.

People should be free to decide whatever they prefer.

The more requirements you have, the more gates you raise.
And while you certainly DO want some requirements, this one should be up to them.

You can only have a community of empowered folks if you empower them to decide for themselves what to share and not to share.

Quote from leaderoffun on April 22, 2022, 5:04 pm

For bootstrapping, I read in multiple places that you want to concentrate the energy on a single category (to avoid ghost town effect) and have remote video masterminds as a way to onboard batches of users. Once they have seen each other's face, it's more likely they will talk to each other. But that would mean the normal 'sing up' page would be disabled, it'd be by invitation only and you have to show up for the mastermind.

What do you think?

What do you mean by "single category"?

I don't have much experience with the video mastermind approach, but I can see how it could work really well if done once you have a minimum number of participants to fill that call with at least a few faces.
Very curious to see it in action if you decide to go for it, so I may even join the first few.

Quote from leaderoffun on April 24, 2022, 6:18 pm

What do you mean by "single category"?

I mean one single category, like 'general' instead of a tree of categories (like in TPM forums):

Public Forum

Power Dynamics

...

Self-Development

Resources

Researches, Studies, Theories

...

Strategies

This is to avoid the ghost town feeling.

On the video events: I'm delighted you would consider joining. I've been researching software to get people to RSVP to such events, and the best I've found is https://lu.ma/

I've been to 2 such events from a company called heartbeat.chat, and it sorta works. After seeing faces, you are more likely to interact with others.

One other thing I've learned is that the organizer/moderator trying to post like crazy to get the ball rolling is a failing strategy. One thing that seems to work is to ask provocative questions so people want to give their opinion. I really fear the content publishing treadmill, and also a passive audience that just consumes content.

The more I read (books and forums) about communities, the more I realize:

1. This is a complex beast

2. You don't expect results in the first 3 months. Perhaps 9 months.

3. You may never see results

4. It's a skill worth learning, because social media is terrible for your health/attention span and I don't want it to be my main timesink (nor inflict it on others)

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on April 25, 2022, 4:58 am

I see.

One thing to consider: if you start out with one single category, you may box yourself into a lot of work later on to move topics in case you then prefer a better structure.

Personally, I'd endure initial ghost-town in favor of a better future structure.

Also, consider that ghost town being an issue might be an ego and validation thing, and can become much less of an issue if you detach.

Quote from leaderoffun on April 24, 2022, 6:18 pm

The more I read (books and forums) about communities, the more I realize:

1. This is a complex beast

2. You don't expect results in the first 3 months. Perhaps 9 months.

3. You may never see results

4. It's a skill worth learning, because social media is terrible for your health/attention span and I don't want it to be my main timesink (nor inflict it on others)

At the risk of sounding like an un-requested preacher:

The more you read about any journey, the more it seems like an impossible complex beast.

Drinking a glass of water is a complex beast, too if you start to look at the full details (millions of neurons firing, neuro-transmitter going from brain to the muscles, muscles calling up ATPs for power, eyes sending signals to the brain to estimate the correct positioning of the glass, muscles contracting and adjusting along the way... ).

Then you start and hey, yeah it may have been complex in a way... But very doable, too 🙂

So:

1.  This is a complex beast yes and no

2. You don't expect results in the first 3 months. Perhaps 9 months too hard to predict, I wouldn't waste any time coming up with timelines

3. You may never see results as it's the case for almost any new worthwhile endeavors