What kind of conversations happen in your community?

[rosiesherry]

I went to Indie Hackers to start a post and I was presented with this, a list of conversation starter ideas.

On the left hand side were the list of categories:

Then on the right hand side was a list of options.

Each option led to a mini guide on how to create a post in that category:

For context I know Indie Hackers has struggle with quality of posts and I can see this as a way to guide people to write better ones.

My questions for you:

• What do you think of this?
• Have you seen any other communities do this?
• What other conversation styles or categories would you add to this list (from the perspective of your community)?

Additional comments/conversations on LinkedIn and Twitter:

https://twitter.com/rosiesherry/status/1610593374666620928

[MattM]

It’s a great idea, and something we’re starting to explore after a brand customer suggested something similar.

It’s obviously not for everyone but it’s a good way to nudge towards better content and remove the “blank paper” fear we can often get when beginning to compose a post.

[rosiesherry]

It’s partly why I love custom built communities.

My hope for the future is that community tools offer more flexibility in design options like the above.

[MattM]

Strongly agree. Custom communities have more scope to personalise but obviously comes with a significant price tag.

A lot of app based community tools don’t have that customisation because they need to be fairly homogenised to appeal to most community needs.

Oddly, forums are probably the most customisable option as they tend to be written in popular programming languages and have robust triggers/events/APIs to allow third party code to be added.