[Haskell-cafe] #haskell IRC channel reaches 600 users

[Brent Yorgey]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 12:01:06AM +0000, Jamie Brandon wrote:
> The haskell community has a well deserved reputation for being one of
> the friendliest online communities. Perhaps this would be a good point
> to figure out what we're doing right? I'm convinced that part of it is
> that offtopic conversation is encouraged through on haskell-cafe,
> planet haskell and irc. It makes people seem more human and hence
> harder to flame.
> 
> Jamie

I have no hard data to back this up, but I suspect that another large
part of the answer is simply the fact that culture tends to be
self-reinforcing.  So, as I understand it, we mostly have Shae to
thank for very intentionally creating a friendly culture in the first
place.  Many online communities simply arise without anyone giving
much thought to the sort of culture they want to create;  empirically,
emergent online culture is not so friendly.

-Brent