In the past, the place to be to connect with like minded people was on IRC; in particular ##java Now with Slack and Discord, I haven't found a community of folks who are building products, ideas, sharing thoughts, talking tech, talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.<p>This has created a bit of tension mentally for me. The feeling of being caged up with no physical cage.<p>There was a Slack group for startups by Jason a while back, but that looks to have died off.
Of all the places I've hung out online, IRC is still, by far, the very best. It had something to do with the simplicity of it. It had something to do with the organic policing, how channels and voices don't get overrun because it's impossible to understand a conversation after X number of participants (i.e. if too many people chatting, then people leave or silence themselves, like an auto-organic throttle). Of how unique voices and interesting people seemed to bubble to the top simply by the nature of the anonymity and the force of their personalities, of how punishment for bad behavior was carrot or stick and judgement rendered instantly /kick. There was something about the meritocracy of it all. And your name was only so good as your lastest contribution, because you knew that people would remember what you said. You had the power of anonymity, but it regulated itself because you cared about the people you were talking to, because you would develop relationships with them through that anonymity. Those who contributed the most were respected. You weren't competing with NeverEndingWaterfall™ of blah from Facebook, Insta, etc. Yeah, I miss IRC a lot. I know, it's still there, but the privacy and anonymity are all gone, so too the personalities.
IRC is still a thing, and a very popular one at that. I've found that it's a great tool for finding like-minded tech people with relatively less 'noise' than in similar Slack or Discord groups.
I've found that most tech these days are dog fooding their own products. I've been a happy participant on Secure Scuttlebutt for the last 5 years, where approximately a third of the conversation is about Scuttlebutt, where the protocol should be going, what's going on with each client, and coming to consensus on how to distribute funds or encourage further growth.<p>The same thing is true for Disaster Radio, SudoMesh and other mesh networks...you use the technology to talk about the technology, coordinate growth and goof around with inside jokes.<p>I'd be surprised if soon electric cars (...domestic robots, razor crest spacecrafts) didn't all have internal forums where folks talked about the technology itself.<p>So the question is what are you interested in connecting with people about? Robotics clubs have a different needs for interacting than say the folks interested in the Gemini protocol.
IRC is still there, the average age is way over 30 though. Whether that's a bad thing is for you to decide :)<p>Some IRC channels have moved to Telegram, a few larger communities over to Discord.<p>I still associate Slack strongly with work stuff and don't really want to have any non-work related things on there.
My company (just me) hosts a hacking group on Discord. Particularly interested in topics like databases, compilers, emulators, operating systems, browsers, etc. That's where I hang out!<p><a href="https://discord.multiprocess.io" rel="nofollow">https://discord.multiprocess.io</a> for the invite<p>I also just started a virtual monthly hacker night where hobbyists and professionals give talks on any of the above topics (anything tech internals, really).<p>I'm looking for more speakers. If you want to do a lightning talk or 20-30m talk let me know what you're interested in talking about!<p>meetup.com/hackernights or multiprocess.io/hackernights/
This is a great question, because I don't really like Reddit/Twitter/Hacker News/IRC/Discord, but I don't know where else to go.<p>I don't like Reddit's culture. Twitter seems like people shouting into the void. Hacker News attracts psuedointellectuals. IRC seems to have too many channels with 80% idling. Discord is for close friends but not great for discovery.<p>I want something like forums where I can post a topic, but also maybe chat to drop in and talk with folks if people are around and want to hang out.<p>I hate like/dislike systems and karma. I want to be able to say whatever I want within reason without some nerds downvoting something they disagree with. Old forums were great for this, because you had to actually read and think for yourself.<p>I think there are novel social platforms that could be explored, but I don't see anyone working on them.
I'm building my own hang out spot: <a href="https://ansiwave.net/" rel="nofollow">https://ansiwave.net/</a> Strictly a BBS right now, but i'm considering adding chat as well.
Matrix. From my point of view, most IRC communities are slowly moving.<p>Major projects i interact with (kernel, kde, rustlang, mozilla, etc) all have "rooms" in matrix with a considerable quorum (not as good as irc, not as empty as other places)
I hang out on a bunch of subreddits dedicated to hobbies and interests of mine. People shit on Reddit because the biggest subreddits can be toxic wastelands. But, like the web itself, the smaller communities are often absolutely wonderful.<p>I don't do chat or anything synchronous like that because it doesn't fit into the way my free time is sliced into small chunks by family commitments.
anecdotally, this feels like the tenth "Ask HN" I've seen pop up in the past week that seems to be driven by loneliness. A lot of us seem to be creeping up on a breaking point.
I like the tildeverse.<p>An assortment of pubnixes (I run one[1]! Well, technically only me atm, but others are welcome.), and an IRC network.<p>Edit: If one is interested, they should note that the tildeverse has a different culture than much of HN, and you should be aware of and respect that.<p>[1] <a href="http://marvilde.cc/" rel="nofollow">http://marvilde.cc/</a>
> I haven't found a community of folks who are building products, ideas, sharing thoughts, talking tech, talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.<p>Twitter can be exactly this, but you have to put in some work to curate your follow list. You also have to be quick to unfollow anyone who turns out to be spammy or picking fights all of the time. If you just let your follow list grow unbounded, the quality of Twitter goes way down. If you follow and unfollow all the time, you can get a fairly interesting Twitter feed full of people sharing projects and discussing ideas.
I've been trying to get friends to join me on VRChat. Lower pressure than a Zoom call, and after a day of typing, feels good to just talk a bit from the couch. Of course, VR as a requirement has been a bit of a deterrent.
IRC is still great. I'm using "thelounge" (<a href="https://thelounge.chat/" rel="nofollow">https://thelounge.chat/</a>) to have a pleasant IRC experience both on my laptop and on mobile.
Just reach out to people directly. Introduce yourself. Look at who's active on github, follow the trail of edits and comments until you get to developers that have similar interests. Use direct message services on linkedin, facebook, instagram. Just say "Hey that project your working on is cool".
I'm currently building something like you describe over at <a href="https://sqwok.im" rel="nofollow">https://sqwok.im</a><p>It takes inspiration from irc/aim/twitter and packages it in a way I wanted to use personally and didn't find available.<p>Happy to discuss what I've learned through building it! (blog post imminent)<p><a href="https://sqwok.im/p/R6-x8BdgecDjyg" rel="nofollow">https://sqwok.im/p/R6-x8BdgecDjyg</a>
I regrettably still frequent a certain infamous image board which has been often described as the "cesspool of the Internet." The noise to signal ratio is shockingly high, the risk of brainwashing and indoctrination is ever present. One must always be on guard, but I'm in love with the Wild West feeling. Anything goes, and it feels like going a Indiana Jones treasure hunt for fresh and original content. It's also given me a thick skin in online discussions. I've been called every insult in the dictionary.<p>It's an antidote for the curated, ad profile targeted, walled garden web we've slowly constructed around ourselves. They have a saying: "don't forget, you're here forever." 16 years later ...
Keep in mind social engineering when discussing personal credentials online. They WILL send you phishing attacks via e-mail and other communication methods.
This reminded me of the amazing communities of the early 1990s, when comp.lang.<language_of_interest>, or sci.engr.<engineering_speclialization_of_interest>, or even the soc.culture.<country_of_interest> were places of great conversations and learning opportunities. I poked around Discord, in search of such, but never got interested to the same level ...
Friends and family on Telegram, HN is the stable one for technical stuff.<p>Earlier I have dabbled in Mastodon but they seems doggedly insistent on recreating the same problems that Twitter had (everything public, subscribing to the whole person, not just interests).<p>These days Matrix is finally (IMO, some might have enjoyed it a while already) shaping up nicely (again IMO).
It changes frequently depending on what I'm doing in my day to day life. Nowadays I'm hanging out at r/selhosted. It's amazing community and I have learned a lot from them.<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted</a>
I do Slack for Work, and recently lot of Discord for my many interests like Programming, Python, Cowork Spaces, Activism, Woodworking, No-Code tools, Minecraft-Parenting. And WhatsApp/Telegram for Family and close Friends
I used to hang out at the C2.com wiki, the first wiki ever, actually. It was devoted to software engineering. Unlike Reddit, the discussion topics remained "alive" for several years so that we could revisit ideas.<p>Discussions sometimes turned contentious, but it raised good questions deserving of more formal research, especially in terms of balancing tradeoffs (is getting less of X worth getting more Y?). I had what I call the "practioner's" viewpoint, which conflicted with what I'll call the "academic" viewpoint. We practioners viewed it more from a business expense standpoint while the academics wanted to build what seemed like an overly idealistic model of the domain and/or world. I didn't find such realistic without producing a million clones of Sheldon Cooper, but removing his arrogance so that he could work in teams.<p>However Ward Cunningham eventually pulled the plug on the wiki (it's read-only now), partly to experiment with a "federated" version of it (which is a failure in my opinion), and because he got tired of cleaning up after a nasty vandal. I think the vandal issue was solvable without shutting the whole thing down, but that's another story.
If you are okay to join Telegram channel, I collect all kinds of stories and long forms (and post books) which are worth reading.<p>The link is here: <a href="https://t.me/+pwdYcfBiV1I3Njll" rel="nofollow">https://t.me/+pwdYcfBiV1I3Njll</a><p>I have started with the comments, and I have a similar motive to have a group to share ideas and discussions without being dogmatic. It stays closed and private, and you can have a nice forum for an idea exchange. I haven't used Slack or Discord. The success of building a community depends on either doing it in private or keeping the bar high for those joining in. It takes considerable effort to succeed with that objective. In my mechanical keyboards group, most users stay quiet. At any given point, there are a few active members anywhere.<p>Most users prefer to consume content passively. That should change, because everyone's perspective matters. .
I'm still on IRC. Rizon, Libera, OFTC. Rizon is the most "fun" network of those, but I'm in pretty small/intimate channels I wouldn't want to share.<p>The other ones mainly have tech-related channels for specific projects, but can still be entertaining. Also useful when you need help with something.
I have my own personal chatroom for friends, which I now spend most of my time on. Most of my favourite forums and IRC rooms died, and the few remaining hardcore users moved to Discord, and it's just not the same.<p>I have the same problem you do. It's very difficult to find a community similar in scale or content to the stuff I used to post on. I used to be able to pop into a community and learn just by listening to people far smarter and more experienced than I.<p>You should try Matrix and XMPP chats. It's the closest thing I've experienced.
Do large text groups count on this one? Some friends and I have one that's been going for years, and at times I wonder about this. We drop in and out of MMO's, and some of us have dropped off of most "social media" for one reason or another. But the text thread remains.<p>I used to be on specific Reddit threads, but the toxicity started to leak into even them, so I started to go into them less and less, until one day I stopped; when I realized I didn't like how I felt when I went on.<p>HackerNews is about the last one I have.
Interesting to see more people who used to hang out on ##java on Freenode. That channel was horrendous back in the day with uncool admins who took pride in insulting people who were asking normal questions<p>These days I actually mostly hang out on Facebook Groups discussing interests like photography and music.<p>I also hang out on tech slack servers and have many Discord servers open. The problem I see with Discord is I join many servers that I never return to but sometimes don't leave due to FOMO :).
> talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.<p>I don't hang out there but you could check indiehackers.com?
There was a "metaverse"-style chat room in the mid-90's that I loved. It looked like a side-scrolling game that was actually a chat room, and you chose an animal avatar to interact with the other avatars. There were ways to unlock different avatars, as well as some sort of currency, but I don't recall any of the details.<p>Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It's been in the back of my mind for almost 20 years.
Personally I'm not that confortable on places like Discord and Slack since I can't keep up with the wave of messages. My replacements have been Facebook Groups, in the early days of FB they used to be so good but they fall out of fashion until recently (on my social sphere at least); some good specialty communities have emerged and they're awesome.<p>The only reason why I keep a FB account tbh.
Facebook group chat with the family. Mostly dank memes and dark humour on there. It's fun posting memes with a select few people that you trust. By all means, broadcast memes to 5000 randos on your Facebook timeline, but you can't beat the personal touch of a small group chat. Plus: the memes sometimes have context for what's happening in the family at any given moment.
I run a Discord server that focuses on the tech side (Java, TDD, Hexagonal Architecture). It supplements the things I do on my Twitch live coding stream (<a href="https://JitterTed.Stream" rel="nofollow">https://JitterTed.Stream</a>). We have weekly book study groups, an "office hour", etc.<p>(You can DM me on Discord for an invite if interested: JitterTed#4770)
Mostly city specific slack groups or game specific discords. There are great Chicago and Missoula tech slack channels. I don't live in either of those places anymore and I'm still really active in both because they provide a lot of value to me.<p>I don't have as good of a casual non work related hangout place though. Just Twitter generally.
If you just want to play a multiplayer cube drop game and chat you are welcome at <a href="http://fuse.rupy.se" rel="nofollow">http://fuse.rupy.se</a><p>You can make rooms but they get the name of the user, so I guess you need to create a user with the name of the topic you're interested in! Xo
I hang out with the good people of the C# Discord server[1]. My username is NathanAldenSr#2130. Come say hi!<p>[1] <a href="https://discord.gg/csharp" rel="nofollow">https://discord.gg/csharp</a>
I'm currently hanging out in some Rust discord servers. They're fun and you learn a lot, but Discord does have a younger demographic so the audience can be a bit immature at time
Usually in this small and open source MMORPG called The Mana World: <a href="https://www.themanaworld.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.themanaworld.org/</a>
I quite like BoingBoing bbs.<p>You will find a mix of knowledgable on a very wide variety of topics discussing current events. Many techies, but also doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, etc.
I do a lot of unreal engine hobby stuff and hang out in the unreal slackers discord. Tons of different focused text chats and have occasionally hung out in voice chats too. Met people and been in some of their discord. Also same applies to blender.<p>There are newbie questions but there are also plenty of advanced convo too.<p>Also out of curiosity what it means to grow a community. I've started with a subreddit called r/StylizedArt<p>We just about hit 1000 people. Eventually I might add discord. Its been interesting so far.