Community Activities
Within the SD-AI community you can create and join groups of interest, participate in forums, post on the community board, make friends, send private messages, i.e. activities you are already familiar with from other social media platforms; more importantly, we also hold Zoom meetings and Zoom webinars. In no way though are we trying to replace or compete with your other social media platforms. As opposed to these large general purpose platforms, ours is focussed on our common mission, and that common mission permeates all our interactions. Therefore, the accent is on the quality of interactions between a smaller number of people, not on the quantity of interactions between a larger number of people.
Member Profiles
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 6, 2022Each registered member of the community has a community profile, even those with a subscriber role. This profile is short, basically the full name, a true photo and a short bio. Contributors have full profile pages, under their control and on which they can add as much as they please.
It's good to always keep this distinction in mind: the community member profile versus the full contributor page. The member profiles show in all the interactions, namely news feed, groups , messages, Zoom meetings and Zoom webinars.
Friendships and Notifications
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 6, 2022You can form friendships. These friendships are bidirectional, the other party must accept your request. There is no unidirectional "follow" feature in our community.
When you are logged in, you see a notification bell next to your profile menu. Acceptances of your friendship requests show up there as notifications. These notifications can have a variety of other sources, not just friendships, click on the bell to see what they are.
Groups and Group Administrators
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 6, 2022You can create groups of interest or participate in groups already created. Groups can be public or private.
Each group has a set of administrators. You can request membership into a public group, and the group administrators will be notified. They will accept or reject your request and you will receive the decision as a notification. Administrators may also issue invitations to join the group and the invitation will also show up as a notification.
Forums and Zoom meetings
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 8, 2022In SD-AI almost all forums are tied to groups, and they can only be reached through their group. A group may or may not have a forum. There are two notable exceptions, two forums which are global, not tied to any groups, and are publicly visible. One is the Technical Support forum, and the other is the Publishing Support forum.
We hold most of our meetings on Zoom. Check out the Discussions section to see the upcoming meetings. Similar to groups, the meeting admins must let you into the meeting. Usually Zoom meetings are also tied to a group of interest or to a particular project. Most Zoom meetings are recorded and you can view them at a later time.
News Feed
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 8, 2022This is the usual 'wall' you see on all social platforms, the place where people post their thoughts and also the place where other activities, like members joining groups, show up. The news feed is less formal than posts (articles, research, applications), it can contain anything a member wishes to share, provided it is bound by our community guidelines.
Commenting and Private Messaging
By Adrian Zidaritz/ December 8, 2022Comments are very important in our community. Commenting increases the quality of our work, lifts up engagement, and strengthens our sense of belonging, making our mission easier to accomplish. Please let us know what you think, in abundance. And always criticize the issues in a posting, not the person behind the posting.
You can comment on almost anything that is posted, including projects and previous Zoom meetings. Your comments may be removed by administrators or you may be asked to edit them if they violate our community guidelines. For touchier subjects, consider sending a private message.
It would help us as a community to build a culture supporting of our mission. You may already be familiar with the principles of an effective such culture outlined in Kim Scott's book Radical Candor. That will be our approach and we will reference it in our activities. You can find a lot of additional material online about that approach, see which one speaks to you the most. From the author: "Radical Candor — Caring Personally while Challenging Directly — is guidance that’s both kind and clear, specific and sincere."
