One of the great aspects of programming Haskell is the community. We should aim to have the strongest, friendliest, most productive community we can. We're doing a good job so far, can we do even better? Reading this: "How to Build a User Community" http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/how_to_build_a... has inspired me to make some suggestions of what *you* can do to help make Haskell the language and community people want to spend time on. * Always encourage newbies to ask questions + I rate us at 8/10 * Encourage newer users--especially those who've been active askers--to start trying to answer questions + we can do more here. If you know the solutoin to a problem, dive in and help out. Canonical, type correct answers preferred! + if you're at the 'intermediate' stage, you can help *now* by contributing to the wiki, solving new user problems, blogging your ideas and code and so on. * Give tips on how to answer questions + Ok. we can put up an article here. Some suggestions: - No questions are bad questions - Code should come with examples of how to run it - Solutions with unsafePerformIO should be discouraged (moreso ;) - Be polite! (we're good at this) * Adopt a near-zero-tolerance "Be Nice" policy when people answer questions + 8/10, we can do even better I think * Teach and encourage the more advanced users (including moderators) how to correct a wrong answer while maintaining the original answerer's dignity. + Pretty good. I encourage people to point out (privately) and encourage grumpy people to be nicer So dive in! Help out new users, collaborate, contribute to the wiki, release your code, and help make Haskell the language people want to use. -- Don