Updates to DS|CAFE Onboarding!

I have updated the DS|CAFE Coworking Discord community guidelines and server onboarding! Not only are they looking pretty goodDespite Discord's weird Markdown spacing, a pet peeve of mine!, they also are starting to reflect the ideals I had when I started this server in 2016. Back then, of course, I didn't know exactly what I wanted or what it would look like.

Anyway, here's the new onboarding workflow, which makes use of Discord's built-in "Community Server Onboarding" system.

First, you get a bunch of questions, like the page below!

⊕ show captionFigure 1: there are four onboarding question pages that look like this one. I'll describe them shortly.

Here's the full list of questions and answers (which assign various roles and channels):

Beyond our core chat rooms, are you interested in...

• Sharing Geeky Interests with Others? (adds the SOCIAL CLUBS category)
• Coworking by Profession? (adds entire COWORKING GROUP category)
• Following Member Projects? (adds OPEN STUDIOS category)
• Discussion in Depth? (adds the TOPIC FORUMS category)

What region best describes your active time zone?

• Americas
• Europe/Africa
• Central Asia
• Asia/Pacific
• I am Unbound by Time Zones

What level of chattiness do you like in your working environment?

• Mostly Listening (likes listening in, tolerant of light muttering and ambient noise)
• Casual Chatter (likes light conversations and questions that arise as you work)
• Chat while Working (likes talking and thinking out-loud with others about the work)
• Social Chat (likes to talk about non-work topics as you are working)

Do you have preferred pronouns?

• she/her
• he/him
• they/them
• "noncommittal shrug" (a nod to web comic artist Dan Shive)
• pronouns listed in my profile

After all that, you finally arrive at the Server Guide!

⊕ show captionFigure 2: After the questions are answered, you get this resource page which is the same as the Server Guide link at the top of the channel list.

There's a number of suggested activities that point to the server's documentation channels, and a resource list that describes our operations and culture.

I'm hopeful that these guides help people absorb our overall vibe and behavioral norms. DS|CAFE is a very verbose and heartfelt server by design, using our conversations to create a welcome space that everyone works to maintain.

The vibe of DS|CAFE chat is unusual in that it emphasizes conversation over reactions in our main chat room. We speak in complete sentences and actively engage in thoughtful commentary. The community guidelines set the bar by emphasizing positive behavior over banning negative behavior in most cases. The underlying behavioral theory is that by setting a positive example for both speaking and responding, the culture of our space becomes clearA worry I have is that DS|CAFE's verbosity is a turn-off for people who would otherwise enjoy it, but I've decided that it's OK for it to be that way, because as the person running it this is just the way I am. There are plenty of other online spaces that people will find to their tastes, and it's not my job to cater to everyone. That's a recipe for frustration and doom..

One thing I took out of our onboarding was specific mention for Patreon and people who are interested in Productivity Tools from my old blog at davidseah.com. Maybe I can make a future section that is just for my work, but it seems against the sprit of the kind of virtual sanctuary that I'd like DS|CAFE to be.