Reasons and wishes. Why geektimes is good or how did Habrahabr have a twin

As expected, the news of the creation of GeekTimes greatly stirred up the usual rhythm of the community. Users were divided into two camps: those who like this idea and those who dislike this state of affairs. My hunch tells me that in the near future there will be a whole series of articles in which users will continually wash the bones of a new site. For quite some time, the thought has been ripening in my head about writing a non-thematic post in which I would like to express my thoughts on the topic for which I love Habr and why it is necessary to cultivate its development not only as a highly specialized and "hardcore" IT community. And since earlier the rules did not allow this, but now it’s possible, as well as this pessimistic post about the future of the project gave me the green light for writing this article.

Causes:

Judged by the cover, escorted by the mind.

The first and perhaps the most important reason is that for me the main value and property of the Habr was not at all narrowly 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 most important asset is the audience. Yes, it is the audience.

I don’t know why, but as for me, I always estimated 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 by polite and adequate discussions, in which it was often possible to find out much more useful and interesting information than in the article itself. And no matter how regrettable it may sound, but in modern RuNet, there are not many similar resources, and getting to the Habr is not always possible due to the lack of useful articles.

It’s also worth recognizing that a lot of useful and interesting material, whether it’s new marketing techniques or succes and unsuccess story from the owner of it business, unfortunately remained behind the Habr’s theme, although those who went through moderation 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 relate to the subject of Habr (indirectly does not mean the opposite), but also to post much more interesting material, covering 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 cut.

In my opinion, this is definitely a plus. And those who are afraid that the Gictimes will become a gathering of mothers may 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 everyone. I think many will agree that the audience of Habr is a little stiff 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 positively affects the general vector of its development. On the other hand, it was precisely those same traditions, which were not always adequate, that did not allow new people to join the ranks of the common people. With the advent of GeekTimes, the situation will change radically. Now, if you are a lawyer who is interested in IT but is not able to code in python and is able to talk about a method of resolving a conflict that has matured on the basis of illegal payment acceptance with bitcoin, you will not be driven into deep karmoyama and will not be banned for an urgent political topic, but will be listened to and thanked.

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

As it was correctly noted in the comments of the cited article above, perhaps this resource will teach the new generation of “hikljuda” greater tolerance for their brothers, as well as their ability to come to terms with someone else’s point of view. Indeed, many of those who are now actively involved in community life often find themselves on the verge of relegation or transferring to read-only just because they unsuccessfully joked, spoke out at the wrong time in the wrong place or gave their own, different from most happening in the thread of brand lovers. Unfortunately, the particularly vengeful minus not only the commentary, but also the karma of the writer. And precisely because of this behavior, many good specialists and pumped-up programmers left the community due to an unsuccessful political joke, taking with them 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 not become so embittered, and secondly, because the topic is now blurred and there is no longer any need to protect the usual foundations of hardcore. But also on the space for maneuver, in which an unsuccessful commentary can end 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 to organize the community within the community. Many of those who love scientific research and reviews of those new products have started, so to speak, to organize 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 a new resource, it becomes possible to gently differentiate these groups from each other, giving each of them a platform with blackjack and ... cats, while preserving the general foundations and traditions of the community.

Wishes:

Dance like no one is watching

I was thinking, why not create a “Chulan” section, which would be completely closed from the outside world, with access only to those who have a pumped account. In this case, a UFO can not only relieve itself of some of the responsibilities for content moderation, but also provide an opportunity to discuss all pressing issues, sending everything that could bring trouble to the closet, thereby covering the rear. I understand that such a decision is not a panacea, but in a sense, there are fewer risks and better for freedom.

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

Seven times measure one cut

It is unlikely that dreams of a unified news aggregator from TM will come true. Based on this assumption, I would like to propose creating a separate hub "GeekTimes" on Habr, which would display all the most popular threads from this site. Of course, this will not cover all the needs of the user, but at least it will make it possible to stay up to date with all the main events taking place on a neighboring resource within one open tab.

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 a progressive and educated community. Allows Habr not to be entered in the prohibitive registry for inadequate watered comment. It will help him to maintain the lamp-like character for which IT specialists love him. It will also provide a good platform for people who do not know how to program, but who love IT. People who are nevertheless able to bring a useful contribution to the formation of the IT information field, having received the opportunity to wedge themselves into all kinds of discussions, expressing their point of view, without fear becoming a spit.

Well, and, of course, this will become possible only if it is possible to cut out the idea of ​​the title of Habr. Perceiving the new site not as second-rate traffic, but exclusively as an independent and useful IT resource.

Thank you for your attention, have a nice day!