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Testing waters for radical dc ideas - feedback wanted

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40hz:
Any thriving community (or ongoing relationship) tends to be in a constant state of simultaneously dying and being reborn. About the only thing initiating "radical" change does is draw our attention to it. And sometimes that disrupts the perceived continuity so that at some given point there's a clear demarcation between the end of something old and the start of something new.

That's IMHO what most people perceive as "real change" despite that being exactly what goes on most of the time.

Some people will adapt to the perceived "change" while others won't.

Since DoCo seems to have evolved into what it is right now, any break in that evolutionary flow will (for better or worse) change people's perception of it. It's unavoidable - and not necessarily a bad (or good) thing. It's just the way it seems to work with communities.

So to me the question is what does this site really want to be about? My understanding is it started out as a coder's and software enthusiast's gathering place that also advocated an interesting economic model based on donations. Today, it's more like a crazed mashup of TheWell, YouTube, Gizmo's Tech Support Alert, Codeacademy, and The Code Project - with maybe a little of The Onion and Cracked thrown in for good measure.

I find it interesting since I think of it as one of those good all-night coffee and brownie or pizza fueled  conversations I used to get into back in my undergrad college days when I virtually "camped out" in either my university's library stacks or its data center most times I wasn't working or attending class. That's how I see DoCo - a conversation with some very smart and funny people who have a wide range of talents and interests - and who are comfortable exploring whatever paths a discussion may take them. This is definitely what my GF refers to as: "a higher thought process" bunch of people.

That said, it's not the sort of thing that lends itself to much in the way of structure in its present form. And if it's gotten too far away from what those who are responsible for maintaining it want to do, some serious reorganization will probably be necessary. Such a rededication would be fairly easy to bring about by simple expedient of pulling the Living Room and Basement sub-boards out of the mix. Because once those are removed it makes me think that brings it pretty much back to what the original idea for the site was.

Funny how the catchall "miscellaneous" section gets the most activity here. Any other site I've ever joined usually has next to zero activity in the designated off-topic board.

I wonder why that is?

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Note: forgive me if this is semi-incoherent or rambling. I'm bucking some sort of cold or minor flu thing for the last few days and I'm a little spacey and out of it right now.

superboyac:
I think one of the easiest and best things to add to the site is simple/powerful collaboration tools.  Let's say a group of us here want to work on a  project...how do we help make something like that thrive?  It would have to be a place to have live chats, live or recorded video, screensharing, etc.

The forum itself is perfectly fine.  From my experiences, it's the best designed forum I use by a longshot, so I'd be wary of changing it.  But the collaboration thing is something that could really boost the community into v2.0.  the collaboration tools would have to be secure and private, even from other forum members, so projects can be worked on in peace.

Then we could work on projects together during slow moments at work, at night, etc.  and maybe we could do some great things.

40hz...how does cigar box nation approach the "working on projects together" idea?

mouser:
I want to make something very clear -- I'm open to changing the site in any way that the community wants -- I don't really have a strong preconceived notion of what I want the site to be.

And in the past my attitude has been: It is what it is -- I'm not a fan of change for change's sake, or trying to change things to get "bigger" or more popular.

It's just that I think especially in the last year i've started to hear that voice in the back of my head telling me that we are in danger of stagnating, of having people who have an energy to create stuff or be involved in the site in some way, but are not finding what they need, and i find myself worrying that we are in danger of becoming to much of insiders talking to ourselves rather than getting the fresh influx of new ideas and fresh energy that we all thrive on.

I think there has to be a way to build on what is good and keep the spirit of the place but breathe some new energy into the site and maybe fix the things that are a drag on the site..

And one thing that jumps out at me is that DC has evolved to a place where there are so many little areas and unspoken ways of doing things, that I think new visitors can feel overwhelmed and from the outside it doesn't look as friendly as it did when we were small.  I don't know if there is a way to fix that, but i think it's worth thinking about..

tomos:
I dont have time to post much (apologies if a bit staccato):

we are in danger of stagnating, of having people who have an energy to create stuff or be involved in the site in some way, but are not finding what they need, and i find myself worrying that we are in danger of becoming to much of insiders talking to ourselves rather than getting the fresh influx of new ideas and fresh energy that we all thrive on.
-mouser (December 20, 2012, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---
agree here.

I know dc isn't 'supposed' to get involved in politics but it's hard to avoid it these days. Along the way, we've lost people who tended towards one political side of the fence. As someone who either sees on both sides of the fence -or who is at least interested in seeing what people on the other side(s) see- I'm disappointed that they're gone. Makes the place a little (at times) like a club of people with the same viewpoint which is not great imo.
(To me this is pretty clear - I hope you all understand what I mean.)

I dont have ideas how to change this - but I dont know if it's been said before, so, if not, saying it is a start of sorts.

Target:
...I don't really have a strong preconceived notion of what I want the site to be.

I think there has to be a way to build on what is good and keep the spirit of the place but breathe some new energy into the site and maybe fix the things that are a drag on the site..-mouser (December 20, 2012, 03:49 PM)
--- End quote ---

perhaps it might be easier to decide what you (we) don't want the site to be, and/or what things might be 'a drag on the site'

and FWIW I'm with cranioscopical on splitting the site - that seems counterintuitive to me, but a restructure could be a good thing (perhaps changing the way some things are represented, like reviews)

I also liked superboyac's idea for some sort of collaborative functionality.  Plenty of mighty smart people here and putting them in the same room (so to speak) collaboratively could generate some really good outcomes. 

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