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I realize it might be worth taking some time to articulate what I've learned about how to run and manage a community effectively, particularly for those of you who are newer and don't know my style. It's a lot more painstaking and involves a lot more work than most people realize https://t.co/bV3GtX22mp
It is my experience that, if you create a "safe space" for a minority group, sparing them the stress of having to explain themselves to clueless outsiders, the level of criticism, argument, discourse, etc inside the group INCREASES. People challenge and spar with each other https://t.co/Q4GytO9DJH
If you have the time, read the links in this post. I have thought about this long & hard for many years, + I have run & participated in dozens of communities – I've witnessed people build amazing relationships & I've witnessed groups burn to the ground https://t.co/a05ORRQN35
Any group of people – even 2 people – has a culture. It has norms. It has rules about what is acceptable and what is not. If you're going to start one, it's very, VERY important to be super-deliberate and precise about what they are. Here's the pinned post from one of my groups https://t.co/6tX9b6I45Y
Creating lots of different groups from scratch and growing them carefully with different groups of people has taught me a LOT about what people are like, and how different people operate. Real talk: Most people are quite ignorant about the effect their words have on others https://t.co/HQYCvfdyFP
This is also true for groups and communities in meatspace https://t.co/ub0wAU4KN8
When I was a teenager, I fell madly in love with the local music scene. It seemed to me like a dank oasis of sincerity on a sterile, shrink-wrapped island of lies. It was my church, and I was convinced that it could save the world if only everyone would join in its sweaty embrace
No matter how carefully you articulate your principles, when you meet new people, you're going to see them violated them in all sorts of unexpected, unforeseen ways. This is because your principles are shaped from your experience, which contains assumptions you aren't aware of https://t.co/x3CdSSZkFl
