On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 11:34:38 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> For instance slashdot is very poor in social boding terms, but much better than the dlang forums for aggregating helpful advice. So the "learn" forum is beneficial socially, but does erode the slashdot presence.

slashdot = stackoverflow... What was I thinking?

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 11:34:38 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>
> Not quite, if you split up then each community might have stronger social bonding, but in terms of aggregating helpful advice you will be worse off. It would be suitable for geographic groups (e.g. for a country/city).
>
> For instance slashdot is very poor in social boding terms, but much better than the dlang forums for aggregating helpful advice. So the "learn" forum is beneficial socially, but does erode the slashdot presence.

You have a valid point, but still I am sure the facebook group is a net positive for the community. I'd see it as a digital version of a local user group.

Would be useful to have the option to post D.learn questions automatically on stack overflow as well.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 13:04:42 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:

>
> You have a valid point, but still I am sure the facebook group is a net positive for the community. I'd see it as a digital version of a local user group.
>

Yeah, I see no problem with the group existing. I think it's great. It will reach people who might otherwise not have heard of D, and it's an option for those who are used to using FB groups instead of forums/IRC/Discord/etc.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 13:04:42 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:
> You have a valid point, but still I am sure the facebook group is a net positive for the community. I'd see it as a digital version of a local user group.

It certainly has some benefits, especially in the past when there was more activity and hostility in the dlang forums which could alienate some users. So, yes, if it is local and friendly, and people in the group direct members to the learn forum when they have questions that go unanswered then it can be helpful. Many islands is a net negative though. There has to be some kind of networking between the communities.

Also, topical communities can be negative, in the sense that if you have one 3D group, one audio group, one algorithm group then a user trying to implement a game might miss out on the best advice. That is a good reason to have one big community that has "rooms" (forums) for each topic.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 11:34:38 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>
> Not quite, if you split up then each community might have stronger social bonding, but in terms of aggregating helpful advice you will be worse off. It would be suitable for geographic groups (e.g. for a country/city).
>
> For instance slashdot is very poor in social boding terms, but much better than the dlang forums for aggregating helpful advice. So the "learn" forum is beneficial socially, but does erode the slashdot presence.

Sorry but I don't think you get it.

These people are on Facebook, and it seems they would rather hear about D on Facebook. That's all there is to it.

You don't choose the platform that people prefer for hanging out. And not everyone want to have a strong affiliation with the langage and come to this forum. As the community grows, we of course need those loose links a lot, like any other computing language.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 14:53:43 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:
> On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 11:34:38 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> Sorry but I don't think you get it.

So, this hostile ad hominem tone is why it is beneficial with local groups... I've studied online communities for many years, please don't challenge me to a competition about who "does not get it".

> These people are on Facebook, and it seems they would rather hear about D on Facebook. That's all there is to it.

No, the OP clearly stated that he made the group "official". That is a deliberate attempt to fracture.

> You don't choose the platform that people prefer for hanging out.

That is not the topic. The topic is what approach is more strategic.

If you end up with D-experts spread out on many "official" groups then the net effect is likely to be negative. If a group has not experts in it, then the newbies will get lower quality advice.

One can absolutely preempt the formation of many small groups by increasing the quality of the central hub. Or one can destroy the central hub.

Google quiet deliberately destroyed their central hub by dismantling it and strongly advocating all Go users to direct all their questions to stackoverflow. It was a very anti-social approach, but Go is a bigger language than the other new languages. Is there a correlation, hard to say. I wouldn't have done it, but I cannot prove that it was a net negative.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 15:06:07 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> hostile ad hominem tone
> [...]
> deliberate attempt to fracture.

tu quoque.

Let's not assume any motives here. I wouldn't call it "official" either (and indeed, the title on facebook doesn't include that word) but no benefit calling it nefarious.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 15:16:24 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 15:06:07 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>> hostile ad hominem tone
>> [...]
>> deliberate attempt to fracture.
>
> tu quoque.
>
> Let's not assume any motives here. I wouldn't call it "official" either (and indeed, the title on facebook doesn't include that word) but no benefit calling it nefarious.

WHAT??? No adhominem in my post. The OP quite clearly states that he is working to make it appear as the official group for D. I have to trust the motives that people explicitly state. Unless they correct their statement.

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 15:06:07 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>
> The topic is what approach is more strategic.
>

I see what you are saying, but that is a "controlling" position to hold.

Once a language break into the mainstream, there is no way to control the community. Any attempt to contain the community to this or that medium is the reverse way to think: it is the community that dictates where it should hang out. You would't expect the C++ or COBOL community to hang out in the same newsgroup, don't you?

(OT: no ad hominem at all in my posts... but you talk about a "deliberate attempt to fracture", this is imo far from reality)

On Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 15:36:47 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:
> I see what you are saying, but that is a "controlling" position to hold.
>
> Once a language break into the mainstream, there is no way to control the community. Any attempt to contain the community to this or that medium is the reverse way to think: it is the community that dictates where it should hang out. You would't expect the C++ or COBOL community to hang out in the same newsgroup, don't you?

It is not a controlling position, it is more like a seeding, weeding and cultivating exercise. So, you can have many small patches of land, one advantage might be that it is more resistant to disease. But it is also a lot more work to reach the same productivity levels and what happens if the person that takes care of that local patch of land leaves it unattended?

It is not a question of dictating anything, but of having a clear strategy where people gravitate towards a desirable outcome. Rust did this by heavy moderation in their forums, "preventing disease", then you have have a quite large hub. Many smaller hubs allows more local norms, but small communities tend to dissolve when the main caretaker leaves, so that is a significant weakness.

One can probably write 20 pages on for-against, which I have no intent of doing, but if it is ENDORSED by the D community then there is a responsibility for making sure that the quality in that group is high (both socially, long term availability  and in terms of advice given).

> (OT: no ad hominem at all in my posts... but you talk about a "deliberate attempt to fracture", this is imo far from reality)

(Maybe not intentional on your part, but yes, it is ad hominem to make claims about what the other person does or does not understand.)

If you have multiple groups that are perceived as official then that is obviously a fracture. I fail to see how that is not a deliberate attempt to fracture. How many seemingly official groups have to be established before the effect is fracturing in your opinion?

Just like the D community gravitated towards dforum announce (and the programming reddit) and more or less agreed to not use the D subreddit for announcing their projects. If you have an official group then you have to be prepared to follow up that group so people get good advice. Two groups is more work than one, not complicated.

Clearly, anyone can create a group for anything, anywhere. That is not an issue, the issue is to make it more than a local group (e.g. "official") and what the overall long term outcome actually is (strategic).