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Derek Powazek - A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar.

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I’ve been writing about social media since it was called virtual community, and in that time, the most common metaphor I’ve used is gardening. It’s a good metaphor, because it demands a delineation between what you want to grow and what you don’t, and it emphasizes nurturance, perhaps the most important quality of a community manager. But it’s almost 2023 now. The world is different, the online world is very different, and I’m pushing 50. So I think it’s time we all start talking about online gathering places with a more apt metaphor: bars. (When I say “community” here, I mean a place online where people can talk to each other. Nothing more, nothing less. We can go deep on the nuances of community another time.) The most obvious way an online community is like a bar is that bars serve alcohol, and alcohol makes people loud and stupid. It actually depresses your hearing, so you can’t hear yourself talk as well, so you speak louder. And a room full of people speaking louder means a very

Derek Powazek - A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar. A community isn’t a garden, it’s a bar. On 5 December 2022 tagged Community , Fediverse , Mastodon , Twitter , Uncategorized I’ve been writing about social media since it was called virtual community, and in that time, the most common metaphor I’ve used is gardening. It’s a good metaphor, because it demands a delineation between what you want to grow and what you don’t, and it emphasizes nurturance, perhaps the most important quality of a community manager. But it’s almost 2023 now. The world is different, th

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