> the recurse center social rules foster collaboration and psychological safety, consider using them
> No well-actually’s
> No feigned surprise
> No backseat driving
> No subtle -isms
There seems to be something really magical about the Recurse Center social rules. Or maybe their admissions process. Or both. I did a batch a couple years ago and I was stunned at how fun and drama-free people are there. I've heard occasional stories of negative experiences but nowhere near what Id expect for a group of passionate intelligent creatives working at vastly different levels of expertise.
Anyway glad to see the RC rules propagating and love this idea. I'm inspired to try to start a computer club at my 5yo's school! *crossed-fingers
Reading the list for the first time its amazing how well it captures some of the worst parts of "nerd" culture. Interacting with kids and public school will help you navigate regular jerks, but it was always frustrating joining an anime club, programming club, etc and finding these exact people in there, but being unsure why these normally quiet people are actually just as awful and instantly regretting even making the effort.
How do they make that work, you think? Could you say a bit more?
One weirdo can severely mess up group dynamics, which is deadly for a small nascent club-type thing.
What if you have someone join who's ferociously intelligent, and not outright evil but just inherently socially maladjusted? You just kick em out if they can't help themselves to continuous "well actually"s, even though they mean well? That in itself might create drama...
In talking about how they manage to keep it so drama / toxicity free with other alums all we can ever really do is speculate. But people being asked to leave seems to be very rare so we've often concluded it must be in the admissions process. Admissions interviews sound like they are very different experiences for different people but I know that in mine at least there were moments where I could have responded with toxic behavior but didn't. At the very least it seems like any pair programming interview gives ample opportunities to accidentally violate those rules so they might be naturally selecting folks who already organically follow those rules rather than having to artificially conform to them. All speculative though who knows.
Anyway to actually answer your question I think that unfortunately asking people to leave is the mechanism by which they enforce those rules after a few attempts to course correct. I believe I heard stories about that happening but didn't witness it personally and it seemed clear that they weren't interested in broadcasting those instances to the larger community.
Overall, not arguing over the minutia of the rules probably is the best way to do this. I liked the way ggerganov just ended the anti-jt PR drama that started on llama.cpp by banning both participants. Sometimes if you just stop things, they go somewhere else and that's life.
Have faced "feigned surprise" from coworkers in my career and can confirm that it is very damaging for self-esteem. Remarkable that this is so widespread that it found a place in the list as one of just four rules of behaviour to avoid.
> The best rule of thumb is, if you’re not sure whether something needs to be said right now, hold off and see what happens. You can always say it later if it turns out there’s no way for the conversation to move forward without your correction.
From the context, it sounds like it's not so much about "don't correct people" as much as it's about "don't uselessly correct someone to showcase your own knowledge and not advance the conversation".
I am very glad that we have Chaos Computer Club in Germany. It's by far more than just a time and place where nerds meetup to do computer, they are already some kind of institution, they have a voice in politics and often requested for independent consulting. But "doing computer" is how it all started.
I run a maker space in Saint Charles, Illinois. We have space to host these sort of things. If you live near here and (like me) are interested, please reach out. My contact details are easy to find.
Do maker spaces federate in any way? Examples I can think of are a bit bougie, but golf clubs or professional clubs where there are sister chapters/courses in other regions.
It would be so cool to visit a maker space when in a different town (or country) with some degree of attached reputation (won't damage things, know the safety rules, history of good conduct).
Sort of. We work pretty closely with the nearest makerspace and have a thing where we will split membership fees of people who wish to join both (a common thing if you live half way between the two places).
Unfortunately, there is nothing like this at the national or global level that I am aware of.
Pollyanna and graceful ordinary aren't terribly bad neighbors to have. That's some nice real estate you got there! Farmbot is one of the coolest projects around.
Hey Rick! I visited Fox.build a few years back - your maker-maker space is truly an inspiration, and I'm looking forward to visiting again soon. Thank you.
I would quite happily volunteer some of my time to help interested kids with computer programming. I recently looked around and none of my local school (here in the UK) seem to have after school programming clubs. I am a bit put off by all the organizational and safe guarding issues that would come with starting something.
Yes, I had a DBS check before and it wasn't an issue. But I wonder how onerous safeguarding policies are. Also I would be wary of being in a room with a pupil without another adult present. Even the slightest accusation, where you are completely innocent, could make your life hell.
Similar to computer clubs, I really liked doing coding days in various small communities in Tokyo (in Japanese they're called moku moku kai).
The Python minihackathon[0] group model was particularly great. You show up, write a line or two of what you're thinking of working on onto a whiteboard, and towards the end people go up and present what they worked on for a couple minutes.
It's usually "learning how to use this library" or something, but it's a great way to schedule some OSS work.
This is a bit different from a computer club, but if you have a space you can lock into and can get even 10 or so people together once every couple of weeks (or once a month), then it's a great way to be sure you _at least_ work on something 12 times a year.
referred to by the post link, i like it. The link is also cc0, which is the only license i'll put on something, really. This sounds like it would be challenging and rewarding and fun; but the only places a "group" can get together and have space is churches around here, so i'd have to travel like an hour to get someplace more amenable to "several computers running" even if laptops that are wall powered.
I have enough spare computing hardware that realistically i can provide equipment for quite a few people. lugging it around would be a pain.
Two other things i've been seriously contemplating is a hyper-local podcast http://adam.curry.com/html/HowtoStartAHyperLoca-16wQvxtGFbH0... and stand up either a static blog server or something "like a wiki" but just for managing information. I saw that johnny.decimal post earlier and maybe i can put something together that is like a "notes and data" blog but organized with johnny.decimal or one of the other alternatives for organization mentioned in that thread.
One of my fondest early memories of computing was going to my uncle’s computer club held at a school I think after hours. All they did the whole time was copy Commodore 64 games and it was awesome.
Readit News
> No well-actually’s > No feigned surprise > No backseat driving > No subtle -isms
There seems to be something really magical about the Recurse Center social rules. Or maybe their admissions process. Or both. I did a batch a couple years ago and I was stunned at how fun and drama-free people are there. I've heard occasional stories of negative experiences but nowhere near what Id expect for a group of passionate intelligent creatives working at vastly different levels of expertise.
Anyway glad to see the RC rules propagating and love this idea. I'm inspired to try to start a computer club at my 5yo's school! *crossed-fingers
One weirdo can severely mess up group dynamics, which is deadly for a small nascent club-type thing.
What if you have someone join who's ferociously intelligent, and not outright evil but just inherently socially maladjusted? You just kick em out if they can't help themselves to continuous "well actually"s, even though they mean well? That in itself might create drama...
Anyway to actually answer your question I think that unfortunately asking people to leave is the mechanism by which they enforce those rules after a few attempts to course correct. I believe I heard stories about that happening but didn't witness it personally and it seemed clear that they weren't interested in broadcasting those instances to the larger community.
From the context, it sounds like it's not so much about "don't correct people" as much as it's about "don't uselessly correct someone to showcase your own knowledge and not advance the conversation".
So, as long as the conversation is about the colour of the sky, (or about green things) you can just answer it.
It would be so cool to visit a maker space when in a different town (or country) with some degree of attached reputation (won't damage things, know the safety rules, history of good conduct).
Unfortunately, there is nothing like this at the national or global level that I am aware of.
// JRO from Cambria Labs
The Python minihackathon[0] group model was particularly great. You show up, write a line or two of what you're thinking of working on onto a whiteboard, and towards the end people go up and present what they worked on for a couple minutes.
It's usually "learning how to use this library" or something, but it's a great way to schedule some OSS work.
This is a bit different from a computer club, but if you have a space you can lock into and can get even 10 or so people together once every couple of weeks (or once a month), then it's a great way to be sure you _at least_ work on something 12 times a year.
[0]: https://pyhack.connpass.com/
> No well-actually’s
> No feigned surprise
> No backseat driving
> No subtle -isms
referred to by the post link, i like it. The link is also cc0, which is the only license i'll put on something, really. This sounds like it would be challenging and rewarding and fun; but the only places a "group" can get together and have space is churches around here, so i'd have to travel like an hour to get someplace more amenable to "several computers running" even if laptops that are wall powered.
I have enough spare computing hardware that realistically i can provide equipment for quite a few people. lugging it around would be a pain.
Two other things i've been seriously contemplating is a hyper-local podcast http://adam.curry.com/html/HowtoStartAHyperLoca-16wQvxtGFbH0... and stand up either a static blog server or something "like a wiki" but just for managing information. I saw that johnny.decimal post earlier and maybe i can put something together that is like a "notes and data" blog but organized with johnny.decimal or one of the other alternatives for organization mentioned in that thread.
I should really get started.
probably crickets, but you never know. I even have a space we could use for meetings, my own pizza place.