Why People Join Communities  ## Metadata - Author: [[Emily Omier]] - Full Title: Why People Join Communities - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #community - #openSource - #developerRelations Author: Emily Omier Source: Blog/Website Reference: https://www.emilyomier.com/blog/why-people-join-communities date created: 2025-08-22 00:00 --- # Title: Why People Join Communities — Motivations, Value, and Messaging ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis Prompt](#-darvo-analysis-prompt) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - Omier, Emily. “Why people join communities.” 2023-09-08. https://www.emilyomier.com/blog/why-people-join-communities ## 📝 Summary: The article argues that communities should have distinct value propositions from products, and that people join communities primarily out of self-interest—seeking skills, mentorship (both giving and receiving), career advancement, belonging, influence over topics, and reputation-building as experts. To grow a community, identify what current members value and reflect that in messaging, programming, and engagement channels. ## 📖 Main Content: The piece highlights that community value propositions must be explicit and separate from product USPs. Classic motivations include: - Skill development and mentorship loops (learning and teaching) - Career outcomes (networking, visibility, employability) - Social belonging and identity - Topic stewardship (shaping discourse) - Reputation and expertise signaling (answering questions to be recognized) Central thesis: participants act from rational self-interest; acknowledging this enables better community design and messaging. Practically, leaders should: - Survey or interview members to surface perceived benefits - Align events, discussion prompts, and channel strategy (e.g., Discord) with those benefits - Craft evangelism that speaks to member outcomes, not only product features ## 🗒️ Notes - Separate USPs: - Product USP ≠ Community USP; avoid conflating usage benefits with participation benefits. - Motivations to join: - Gain skills - Workshops, study groups, code labs - Find mentorship / become a mentor - Mentorship programs; reverse mentorship; office hours - Advance career - Portfolio-building; speaking/authoring opportunities; referrals - Belonging - Psychological safety; identity-based subgroups; rituals - Guide conversation on a topic - Governance participation; community charters; public roadmaps - Become known as an expert - Q&A leadership; reputation systems; contributor spotlights - Core principle: - People and orgs act from self-interest; “giving back” is often aligned with personal benefit. - Growth approach: - Discover existing value via research - Reflect insights in messaging and programming - Optimize channels (Discord moderation, event calendars) for member goals ## 📖 References: - Primary: Emily Omier’s article linked above. - Related context for community motivations: “Self-determination theory” and “social identity theory” (general frameworks for motivation and belonging). ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea: People act out of self-interest; joining communities is about mutual benefit even without money. - Paraphrase: Members participate because it serves their goals. Organizations do too. Value exchange doesn’t require payment—reciprocity and outcomes still drive participation. 2) Original idea: To grow your community, learn why members joined and what they value; use that to guide messaging and programming. - Paraphrase: Diagnose member motivations and perceived benefits, then mirror those findings in how you communicate and in the events and conversations you host. ## 📰 Newsletter: Learning web development got a lot easier when you’re not going it alone. This week, we’re spotlighting why people really join communities: to level up skills, find mentors, get hired, feel at home, steer the conversation, and earn that “expert” glow. If you’re exploring modern WordPress dev, check out the refreshed Learn WordPress workshops, new Gutenberg block patterns, and some handy plugins for performance and accessibility. Community highlights include contributor onboarding sessions and office hours that match real goals—portfolio-building, PR reviews, and speaker opportunities. New plugins worth a spin: performance boosters with image lazy-loading, block-based SEO helpers, and GitHub Actions for automated testing. Want to turn participation into progress? Join a study group, answer a forum question, or propose a lightning talk—small steps, big compounding wins. For deeper reading on community motivation, see Emily Omier’s “Why people join communities.” Keep building, keep sharing, and don’t forget: the best dev tool is a helpful community. ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt tailored to your role and goals: - Purpose: Map each article to open-source advocacy, contributor engagement, and education—with an OSPO-director lens for transparency and inclusivity in WordPress. - Use this prompt for future analyses: - Identify the article’s community value propositions separate from product benefits. - Extract contributor motivations (skills, mentorship, career, belonging, influence, reputation) and propose programmatic interventions (onboarding flows, mentorship tracks, contributor ladders). - Outline educational pathways (PHP/JS/HTML/CSS/Git/GitHub curricula) that align with these motivations; include workshop ideas and assessment rubrics. - Recommend sustainable funding and governance practices that reward contributors (stipends, recognition, leadership tracks) and increase transparency (public roadmaps, decision logs). - Map to OSPO competencies: policy, compliance, contributor experience, inner/outer source, metrics, DEIB, and risk management. - Propose measurable KPIs: contributor retention, PR-to-merge time, mentorship matches, session attendance, and speaker pipeline diversity. - Deliver a communication plan: blog posts, Discord prompts, event formats, and talks that frame self-interest outcomes for contributors. - Include inclusivity safeguards: accessible docs, code of conduct enforcement, psychological safety, and equitable recognition systems. How this article aligns: - Reinforces contributor-centric messaging that speaks to real outcomes (skills, career). - Supports structured mentorship and recognition programs to cultivate experts. - Guides transparent governance and community-led topic stewardship—key to OSPO maturity. - Informs onboarding design that reduces friction and increases belonging in WordPress. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Messaging that emphasizes member outcomes (skills, mentorship, career) increases join and retention rates versus product-centric messaging. - H2: Formal mentorship programs increase first-time contributor conversion by ≥20%. - H3: Public recognition of Q&A/expert contributions increases high-quality forum responses and decreases time-to-answer. - H4: Events aligned to contributor goals (portfolio-building workshops) drive higher repeat attendance than general meetups. ### 📊 Methodology: - Mixed-methods: - Surveys/interviews of current members to rank perceived benefits. - A/B tests on landing page/community posts (outcome-centric vs. product-centric). - Cohort analysis of contributors pre/post mentorship program. - Funnel metrics: signup → first contribution → repeat contribution. - Sentiment analysis of Discord/forum activity. - Data sources: - Web analytics, Discord/forum logs, GitHub/GitLab contribution data, event registration data, member surveys. - Analy - Summary: Joining communities can provide various benefits for individuals, regardless of whether they are open source or not. Some common reasons for joining communities include gaining skills, finding mentorship, advancing one's career, feeling a sense of belonging, guiding conversations around specific topics, and becoming known as an expert. It is important to recognize that people join communities out of self-interest, as there is something in it for them. To grow a community, it is essential to understand why existing members join and the value they derive from the community, using this information to guide community messaging, events, and discussions. - URL: https://www.emilyomier.com/blog/why-people-join-communities If you need to have [separate USPs for your community](https://www.emilyomier.com/blog/gtm-fundamentals-for-your-community) and for your product, what might your community’s USPs look like? Each community is going to be a little different. But some classic reasons people join communities (whether open source *or not*, there are actually plenty of similarities between becoming active in an open source community and other community endeavors). Here are some of them: * Gain skills * Find mentorship / become a mentor * Advance your career * Feel like you belong * Guide the conversation around a particular topic * Become known as an expert in a topic — this can be a reason / motivation for people to answer questions in a community One critical thing to recognize is that people act out of self-interest, as do organizations. They join a community not to ‘give back,’ but because there is something in it for them. \*Just because no money exchanges hands doesn’t mean both parties can’t benefit from the relationship. If you want to grow your community, figure out why your existing community members are joining and what value they’re getting from the community. And use that to guide your community evangelism messaging; as well as to guide the types of events you hold, the conversations you encourage in your Discord, etc. Do you know an open source company struggling to differentiate themselves from competitors? Have them [get in touch with me.](https://www.emilyomier.com/work-with-me), Why People Join Communities, Emily Omier, 01h9tfb04gbq9b96cmxhgg50f7.