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Codidact Meta is the meta-discussion site for the Codidact community network and the Codidact software. Whether you have bug reports or feature requests, support questions or rule discussions that touch the whole network – this is the site for you.

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Q&A How should Codidact "advertise" and gain community members?

This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched. Just ho...

6 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Peter Cooper Jr.‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Logician‭

Question discussion
#5: Post edited by user avatar Peter Cooper Jr.‭ · 2020-05-15T20:42:46Z (over 4 years ago)
  • This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched.
  • Just how should we go about trying to gather people, and generally get the word out about the existence of these Codidact communities? There are a handful of people that have been keeping an eye on it from the kerfuffle of Stack Exchange last fall, but I'm not convinced we really have enough people to grow outside of maybe those couple communities that decided to abandon Stack Exchange entirely, and I think it'd be helpful to ensure we even cover communities that Stack Exchange doesn't.
  • If you want to look at some history (and there may be better examples out there, I'm no "business major" in the slightest so this is just what I'm familiar with), I'm thinking of the [post where Joel Spolsky announced Stack Overflow](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/09/15/stack-overflow-launches/), which has this paragraph that I think is relevant:
  • > Pattern-matching rules fired in my brain. The hardest thing about making a new Q&A site is not the programming—it’s the community. You need a large audience of great developers so you have the critical mass it takes to get started. Without critical mass, questions go unanswered and the site becomes a ghost town. I thought the combination of my audience (#15 on Bloglines) and Jeff’s (#89) would bring enough great developers into the site to reach critical mass on day one. So Jeff and I decided to go in together on this.
  • I'm willing at this point to be optimistic enough that at some point we'll hit that "critical mass" once enough Q&A is posted here, and then people will find their way here regularly by search engines while looking to an answer to some specific question, but I think it'll take a while to get there. In the meantime, do we need some sort of "advertising" strategy, where I'm not sure "advertising" is the best term (though maybe actually buying search keywords and social media ads is an approach if somebody wants to figure out funding for it)?
  • There are communities elsewhere (on Stack Exchange, Reddit, and various forums of all stripes out there on the net), but I'm not sure how to go about letting people here know about Codidact without it coming across as "spammy" and trying to "steal" their users from their community. Do have a Spolsky & Atwood equivalent (for each site?), where a couple prominent people could be convinced to let their readers know about this place?
  • This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched.
  • Just how should we go about trying to gather people, and generally get the word out about the existence of these Codidact communities? There are a handful of people that have been keeping an eye on it from the kerfuffle of Stack Exchange last fall, but I'm not convinced we really have enough people to grow outside of maybe those couple communities that decided to abandon Stack Exchange entirely, and I think it'd be helpful to ensure we even cover communities that Stack Exchange doesn't.
  • If you want to look at some history (and there may be better examples out there, I'm no "business major" in the slightest so this is just what I'm familiar with), I'm thinking of the [post where Joel Spolsky announced Stack Overflow](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/09/15/stack-overflow-launches/), which has this paragraph that I think is relevant:
  • > Pattern-matching rules fired in my brain. The hardest thing about making a new Q&A site is not the programming—it’s the community. You need a large audience of great developers so you have the critical mass it takes to get started. Without critical mass, questions go unanswered and the site becomes a ghost town. I thought the combination of my audience (#15 on Bloglines) and Jeff’s (#89) would bring enough great developers into the site to reach critical mass on day one. So Jeff and I decided to go in together on this.
  • I'm willing at this point to be optimistic enough that at some point we'll hit that "critical mass" once enough Q&A is posted here, and then people will find their way here regularly by search engines while looking to an answer to some specific question, but I think it'll take a while to get there. In the meantime, do we need some sort of "advertising" strategy, where I'm not sure "advertising" is the best term (though maybe actually buying search keywords and social media ads is an approach if somebody wants to figure out funding for it)?
  • There are communities elsewhere (on Stack Exchange, Reddit, and various forums of all stripes out there on the net), but I'm not sure how to go about letting people there know about Codidact without it coming across as "spammy" and trying to "steal" their users from their community. Do we have a Spolsky & Atwood equivalent (for each site?), where a couple prominent people could be convinced to let their readers know about this place?
#4: Post undeleted by user avatar Peter Cooper Jr.‭ · 2020-05-15T19:28:14Z (over 4 years ago)
#3: Post edited by user avatar Peter Cooper Jr.‭ · 2020-05-15T19:28:07Z (over 4 years ago)
  • This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched.
  • Just how should we go about trying to gather people, and generally get the word out about the existence of these Codidact communities? There are a handful of people that have been keeping an eye on it from the kerfuffle of Stack Exchange last fall, but that's not really going to be enough to grow. Presumably at some point we'll hit "critical mass" once enough Q&A is posted here that people will find their way here regularly by a search engines while looking to an answer to some specific question, but I think it'd take a while to get there. In the meantime, do we need some sort of "advertising" strategy, where I'm not sure "advertising" is the best term (though maybe actually buying search keywords and social media ads is an approach if somebody wants to figure out funding for it).
  • If you want to look at some history (and there may be better examples out there, I'm no "business major" in the slightest so this is just what I'm familiar with), I'm thinking of the post where Joel Spolsky announced Stack Overflow, which has this paragraph that I think is relevant:
  • This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched.
  • Just how should we go about trying to gather people, and generally get the word out about the existence of these Codidact communities? There are a handful of people that have been keeping an eye on it from the kerfuffle of Stack Exchange last fall, but I'm not convinced we really have enough people to grow outside of maybe those couple communities that decided to abandon Stack Exchange entirely, and I think it'd be helpful to ensure we even cover communities that Stack Exchange doesn't.
  • If you want to look at some history (and there may be better examples out there, I'm no "business major" in the slightest so this is just what I'm familiar with), I'm thinking of the [post where Joel Spolsky announced Stack Overflow](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/09/15/stack-overflow-launches/), which has this paragraph that I think is relevant:
  • > Pattern-matching rules fired in my brain. The hardest thing about making a new Q&A site is not the programming—it’s the community. You need a large audience of great developers so you have the critical mass it takes to get started. Without critical mass, questions go unanswered and the site becomes a ghost town. I thought the combination of my audience (#15 on Bloglines) and Jeff’s (#89) would bring enough great developers into the site to reach critical mass on day one. So Jeff and I decided to go in together on this.
  • I'm willing at this point to be optimistic enough that at some point we'll hit that "critical mass" once enough Q&A is posted here, and then people will find their way here regularly by search engines while looking to an answer to some specific question, but I think it'll take a while to get there. In the meantime, do we need some sort of "advertising" strategy, where I'm not sure "advertising" is the best term (though maybe actually buying search keywords and social media ads is an approach if somebody wants to figure out funding for it)?
  • There are communities elsewhere (on Stack Exchange, Reddit, and various forums of all stripes out there on the net), but I'm not sure how to go about letting people here know about Codidact without it coming across as "spammy" and trying to "steal" their users from their community. Do have a Spolsky & Atwood equivalent (for each site?), where a couple prominent people could be convinced to let their readers know about this place?
#2: Post deleted by user avatar Peter Cooper Jr.‭ · 2020-05-15T19:17:20Z (over 4 years ago)
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Peter Cooper Jr.‭ · 2020-05-15T19:17:04Z (over 4 years ago) 
This came up a bit in my post to try to get a TRPG site going, but I think it's really a broader issue, not just to starting new communities but also to the ones that are already launched.

Just how should we go about trying to gather people, and generally get the word out about the existence of these Codidact communities? There are a handful of people that have been keeping an eye on it from the kerfuffle of Stack Exchange last fall, but that's not really going to be enough to grow. Presumably at some point we'll hit "critical mass" once enough Q&A is posted here that people will find their way here regularly by a search engines while looking to an answer to some specific question, but I think it'd take a while to get there. In the meantime, do we need some sort of "advertising" strategy, where I'm not sure "advertising" is the best term (though maybe actually buying search keywords and social media ads is an approach if somebody wants to figure out funding for it).

If you want to look at some history (and there may be better examples out there, I'm no "business major" in the slightest so this is just what I'm familiar with), I'm thinking of the post where Joel Spolsky announced Stack Overflow, which has this paragraph that I think is relevant: