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Pieter Hintjens
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Software Engineering Daily
Interview by Adam Dymitruk
Ruby Rogues #188, Community Building
Talks on video
"De afspraak", VRT, May 2016 (panel discussion)
RTL TV, May 2016 (panel discussion)
DomCode 2015, Nov 2015 (keynote)
Coding Serbia, Oct 2015 (keynote)
Euroscipy, Cambridge, Aug 2015 (keynote)
PyGrunn, Groningen, May 2015
Craft Conf, Budapest, Apr 2015
QCon London, Mar 2015
Code Mesh London, Nov 2014
Build Stuff, Vilnius 2014
Build Stuff, Vilnius, Nov 2014 (interview)
Coding Serbia, Nov 2014 (keynote)
Devnology, Leusden, Oct 2014 (keynote)
EuroPython, Berlin, Jul 2014 (keynote)
Build Stuff, Vilnius, Dec 2013 (interview)
Build Stuff, Vilnius, Dec 2013 (keynote)
Code Mesh London, Dec 2013
DevOps Days, London, Nov 2013
NDC Oslo, Jun 2013
CERN - Geneva, Jun 2013
Tech Mesh, London, Dec 2012
Strange Loop, St.Louis, Oct 2012
ZeroMQ@PDX part 2 - Portland, Feb 2012
ZeroMQ@PDX part 1 - Portland, Feb 2012
FLOSS Weekly, Petaliuma CA, Dec 2011
FOSDEM 2011, Brussels
Berlin Buzzwords 2010 (keynote)
FOSDEM 2009, Brussels
Hellenic FOSS Conference 2008, Athens part 1
Hellenic FOSS Conference 2008, Athens part 2
Email me at moc.snejtnih|reteip#moc.snejtnih|reteip if you'd like me to present at your event, or in your organization.
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Building Online Communities
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pieterh wrote on 05 May 2016 06:43
This article packages decades of my experience and practice in building online communities. It is a discipline I call "Social Architecture." This text originates from my books Culture and Empire, chapter 2, and ZeroMQ - The Guide, chapter 6. This is a long article. Note: this was an early draft of my new book, "Social Architecture".
FoldUnfold
Table of Contents
The Wisdom of Crowds
Wiser and More Constant than a Prince
Origins of Social Architecture
The Toolbox
Strong Mission
Free Entry
Transparency
Free Contributors
Full Remixability
Strong Protocols
Fair Authority
Non-Tribalism
Self-Organization
Tolerance
Measurable Success
High Scoring
Decentralization
Free Workspaces
Regular Structure
Smooth Learning
Positivity
Sense of Humor
Minimalism
Sane Funding
Sidebars
The Market Curve
Volunteer Burnout
The Myth of Individual Intelligence
The Collective Intelligence Index, or CII
The ZeroMQ Community
Architecture of the ZeroMQ Community
How to Make Really Large Architectures
Psychology of Software Architecture
The Importance of Contracts
Eat Me
The Process
Crazy, Beautiful, and Easy
Stranger, Meet Stranger
Infinite Property
Care and Feeding
The ZeroMQ Process: C4.1
Language
Goals
Preliminaries
Licensing and Ownership
Patch Requirements
Development Process
Branches and Releases
Evolution of Public Contracts
Project Administration
Designing for Innovation
The Tale of Two Bridges
How ZeroMQ Lost Its Road Map
Trash-Oriented Design
Complexity-Oriented Design
Simplicity Oriented Design
Burnout
Patterns for Success
The Lazy Perfectionist
The Benevolent Tyrant
The Earth and Sky
The Open Door
The Laughing Clown
The Mindful General
The Social Engineer
The Constant Gardener
The Rolling Stone
The Pirate Gang
The Flash Mob
The Canary Watcher
The Hangman
The Historian
The Provocateur
The Mystic
Conclusions
The Wisdom of Crowds
Niccolo Machiavelli observed, in "Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius" that:
"As for prudence and stability of purpose, I affirm that a people is more prudent, more stable, and of better judgment than a prince. Nor is it without reason that the voice of the people has been likened to the voice of God; for we see that wide-spread beliefs fulfill themselves, and bring about marvelous results."
In his book "The Wisdom of Crowds," James Surowiecki wrote, "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." He noted that a collective intelligence usually produces better outcomes than a small group of experts, even if members of the crowd do not know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally.
To put it another way, a group of random people will on average be smarter than a few experts. It's a counterintuitive thesis that mocks centuries of received wisdom. Experts in the field of human intelligence (sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists) did not embrace Surowiecki's opinions. He went further: adding more experts to an expert group will make it stupider,...