Reasons and wishes. Why Geektimes is good or how Habrahabr has got a twin

As expected, the news about the creation of GeekTimes strongly stirred up the usual rhythm of community life. Users were divided into two camps: those who like this idea and those who dislike this state of affairs. My premonition suggests that in the near future there will be a whole series of articles in which users will constantly wash the bones of the new site. In my head for quite a long time the thought of writing a non-themed post, in which I would like to express my thoughts on the topic, why I love Habr and why it is necessary to cultivate its development not only as a highly specialized and “hardcore” IT community, ripens. And since the rules previously did not allow this, and now it is possible, as well as this pessimistic post about the future of the project gave me the green light to write this article.

The reasons:

Judged by the cover, escorted by the mind.

The first and perhaps the most important reason is that for me the main value and wealth of the Habr were not highly thematic posts about new development techniques or a detailed analysis of the source code of a popular messenger, although this kind of information was extremely useful. In my understanding, the main asset is the audience. Yes, it is the audience.

I do not know why, but as for me, I always rated the popularity of this or that material or resource not by the number of pluses or views, but by the number of comments. In Habré, I was always attracted to polite and adequate discussions, in which one could often find out much more useful and interesting information than in the article itself. And sadly it doesn’t sound, but in modern runet, there are not so many similar resources, and getting to Habr is not always possible due to the lack of useful articles.
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It is also worth recognizing that a lot of useful and interesting material, be it new marketing techniques or succes and unsuccess story from its business owner, unfortunately remained behind the Habr's theme, although those who were moderated usually collected much more enthusiastic reviews, rather than a review of the new search algorithm.

The new resource makes it possible not only to write exciting and useful posts, which, it would seem, only indirectly correlate with the theme of Habr (indirectly does not mean the opposite), but also spread much more interesting material, highlighting the events of modern IT developments, project administration and IT development prospects in the next couple of years, creating more and more useful and interesting discussions under the cat.

In my opinion this is definitely a plus. And those who are afraid that Giktayms will become a bunch of mummies, can not worry, self-regulation will not allow frankly lousy material to occupy the top on the main GT.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi

Now available to all. I think many would agree that the Habr audience has become a little numb and covered with a light touch of mold. On the one hand, this is a plus; the older the society, the more traditions and rules it generates, which has a positive effect on the general vector of its development. On the other hand, the very same, not always adequate, traditions did not allow new people to join the ranks of habra people. With the advent of GeekTimes, the situation will change radically. Now, if you are a lawyer interested in IT but do not know how to code on a python and are able to talk about how to resolve the conflict that has matured on the basis of illegal payment acceptance using bitcoin, you will not be driven into deep karmoya and banned for a sensitive political topic, but they will listen and thank.

Tolerance is a very difficult virtue, for some it is more difficult than heroism.

As was correctly noted in the comments of the above cited article, perhaps this resource will teach the new generation of “geek people” of greater tolerance for fellow humans, as well as the ability to reconcile with someone else's point of view. After all, many of those who are now actively involved in community life are often on the verge of departure or transfer to read-only just because they have unsuccessfully joked, spoke at the wrong time at the wrong place or gave their own, different from the majority, assessment what is happening in the thread lovers of the brand. Unfortunately, particularly vengeful minus not only the comment, but also the karma of the writer. And because of this behavior, quite a few good specialists and pumped-up programmers left the community because of an unsuccessful political joke, taking a useful layer of knowledge that they could share with others.

At the same time, with the advent of a new resource, we can hope not only for tolerance and an adequate response. Firstly, because the backbone of the new resource may become not so embittered, and secondly, because the subject matter is now blurred and there is no longer a need to protect the customary foundations of hardcore. But also on the space for maneuver, in which an unsuccessful comment can complete a victorious career on one of the resources, while leaving access to the second.

Divide and conquer

It seems to me that at the moment we can observe that there is a tendency towards community organization within the community. Many of those who love scientific reviews and reviews of those new products began to organize, let's say, their own subgroups, as opposed to those who love only hardcore, which gave rise to groundless aggression and hostility towards each other.

With the launch of the new resource, it becomes possible to gently differentiate these groups from each other, giving each of them a platform with blackjack and ... cats, while maintaining common foundations and traditions of the community.

Wishes:

Dance like nobody is watching

I now thought, why not create a “Closet” rubric, which would be completely closed to the outside world, with access only from those who have a pumped-in account. In this case, the UFO can not only relinquish some of the responsibilities for moderating the content, but also provide an opportunity to discuss all the pressing problems, sending everything that can bring trouble into the closet, thereby covering the rear. I understand that such a decision is not a panacea, but in some sense it is less risk and better for freedom.

upd: I apologize, because of my short presence at Habré, did not know that the section "Closet" already exists and has all those characteristics about which I wrote.

Measure seven times one cut

It is unlikely that dreams about a single news aggregator from TM will come true. Based on this assumption, I would like to propose to create on Habré a separate hub «GeekTimes», which would display all the most popular threads from this site. Of course, this does not cover all the user's needs, but at least will provide an opportunity within one open tab to stay up to date with all the main events taking place on a nearby resource.

Summing up

That's basically it. Summarizing the above, I want to say that the new resource will provide an opportunity for a wide range of people to join the progressive and educated community. Allow Habra not to be entered in the prohibitive registry for inappropriate political commentary. It will help him to preserve the lampiness for which IT specialists love him. And it will also give a good platform for people who can not program, but who love IT. People who are still able to contribute a useful contribution to the formation of the information IT field, having received for this the opportunity to wedge into all sorts of discussions, expressing their point of view, without fear of becoming stiff.

And, of course, this will be possible only if you manage to cut out the idea of ​​Habr's titularity. Perceiving a new site not as a second-rate movement, but solely as an independent and useful IT resource.

Thank you for your attention, have a good day!