I helped building producthunt.com and overclockers.at (and other less successful ones)
Here a few learnings:
1. the community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it
2. make it clear what the community is about [positioning/marketing]
3. make sure the communication/content is interesting [quality]
4. make sure there is enough engagement [perceived critical mass] (encourage people to post, post yourself a lot, fake accounts if needed, only create subforums once the main ones are noisy)
5. have a rhythm - some communities need daily good posts, some live of the weekly newsletter
Does it really though? The individuals with a common interest exist already of course, but if they don't meet in some common physical or virtual space, how is there a community?
Depends on how you look at the word "community". One definition of the word, "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals," can dictate that a community can exist among those who have not yet met, but are of the same community through a shared interests / goals.
I think this is interesting. Since the original comment was from a producthunt perspective, I was thinking that in that case there was a community. Maybe a strategy is that there is a community that communicates already but this communication is spread across various mediums and not efficient?
I religiously follow producthunt now because of the Devo extension ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/devo/elkhalpmbmbae... ), but have noticed that the forum portion tends to be mostly pats on the back. With other endeavors have you been able to create a space where people are more critical?
In your time, how much has producthunt's platform evolved and iterated? I mean, has it been worthwhile and/or necessary to add new features – anything from new functionality to design tweaks to social/API integrations – to keep the platform healthy and audience engaged?
How do you "make sure the communication/content is interesting"? Are you talking about moderation or talking about making sure there is good content posted?
I've read the Reddit origin story of founders submitting content under several usernames to give the appearance of a forming community, while also dictating the initial content and therefore the audience and culture.
Agree on all of these points. One thing is you need to preserve the engagement. If you are the founder of the community platform make sure you keep content being contributed and be personally accessible.
Here a few learnings:
1. the community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it
2. make it clear what the community is about [positioning/marketing]
3. make sure the communication/content is interesting [quality]
4. make sure there is enough engagement [perceived critical mass] (encourage people to post, post yourself a lot, fake accounts if needed, only create subforums once the main ones are noisy)
5. have a rhythm - some communities need daily good posts, some live of the weekly newsletter