I'm going to pin this post to the top of my profile so there's a place for anyone to publicly ask me a question, and I'll do my best to reply when I can.
I'm happy to offer advice primarily on the intersection of software, entrepreneurship and career.
Happy coding!
How did you grow enough of a following to launch a social network? Any advice for someone who wants to do the same?
Yes, can you please give us advice about how to grow an audience as a dev?
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't stop working on the project for 10 years, even if traction took forever. Then I methodically worked on content creation and observing what stuck and could lead to further opportunities. It was years of growing on Twitter before even typing
rails newfor what became DEV.Giving myself the room to do a lot of observing while methodically building helped ensure some amount of success. But it's also an area that combines several different skillsets of mine.
FWIW it's going to be way easier for folks to build from scratch on Forem (the extraction from DEV we're working hard on).... We'll soon launch a Forem app which will act as a discovery mechanism for independent Forem social networks hosted in a distributed way, but discoverable through one app.... It's going to be really really cool.
You must have had exceptional belief in DEV community then
Thanks for answering!
I had belief in my own interest in seeing an improvement in online communities. My sense was that I wouldn't get bored of trying to help because I really cared. So with that in mind I also promised myself I wouldn't give up.
In prior ventures I'd either gotten bored or given up primarily because I either didn't truly care about the mission deep down, or got involved with people I didn't like or respect as founders and people. I made sure with this venture to solve for some of those fundamentals early on and let the success come with patience.
Sorry if I missed it, but how many years has it been (since the 10-year stop watch started, anathem-style)?
My snooping suggests ... 8-ish? Though this could be completely misguided.
Thanks for your public inbox. I'm searching for the way to communicated with people.
π
Do you now make enough money to support yourself with DEV?
DEV (Forem) was once a ramen story (not paying ourselves, running out of money etc)...
But now the company is pretty well funded and building a very sustainable business model around hosting Forems.
Special Announcement From the DEV Founders
Ben Halpern for The DEV Team γ» Nov 7 '19
Awesome π
Congratulations. I will do my best to read that other article.
Hi Ben, is there any way to get analytics on a post made to dev.to? The number of views figures are nice to see but would love to be able to track where the visitors came from.
Thanks for the great work on this site.
Hi Ben, I hope you don't mind I used your avatar to create a Loader meme: dev.to/afif/i-made-100-more-css-lo... ?
PS: You may have missed my ping so I am writing you here.
Cheers!
Sorry I saw it, but didn't react. I love it π .
Hello Ben
i hope you know me a little bit about
but still I am krishna kakade. Currently I am in my last year of computer science and engineering from India and mostly working in web development related technologies. and i am interested in joining the devto/forem frontend development team as fresher student because i love to write blogs for forem and also i would to like to join core development team of forem and i also have to learn ruby and rails but i will learn it i can join within next 15 days you can also check my personal website here:- krishnadevz.github.io
and resume here :
I am ready to work hard and consistently for the betterment of the company's products.
thank you
have a nice day
kind regards
krishna kakade
Would you be thinking of this as an internship/apprenticeship sort of opportunity?
Yes and also I am about too graduate in next two months thank you π
any updates ?
?
Hi Ben, I read the manifesto essay for Forem recently and was quite excited to see so many of the issues with the current state of the internet expressed so eloquently :)
I was wondering if you have any advice for building successful business models for open source software?
Thanks for starting this, I'm excited to see more community focused software in the future!
Pay a lot of attention to what is established and working (read up on open core), but merge that with an exploration of what hasnβt been tried in the space youβre in β what is the unique way youβll apply some good established ideas?
Thanks for the reply! I hadn't heard of open core I'll read up on that. I'm currently studying arts and social media at university, and its been very interesting to see how the design choices made by platforms are impacting their use (although also a bit maddening at times).
I think Forem's community-first approach is definitely the right track to be on. The values of open source seem to be pretty well aligned with the direction social media should be taking, though its surprising how rarely open source is considered as an option for that sort of every-day-person-facing software.
Are you familiar with the concept of "invariants"? It is a query you write with SQL, or via ActiveRecord, that should have a specific
countresult, usually0.For example, the count of users with invalid data should be zero.
I have no idea how my Forem account broke, though I suspect it was related to when my Dev.to account was deleted/banned and accused of being a bot.
Even since then my Dev.to access has worked, but I can't login to Forem, and the reset password, just goes in circles, never showing an error, but also never actually resetting my password. I'm guessing it is because
user.saveis returning false.Might be worthwhile having an invariant that check for users with a particular type of data characteristic, like my Forem account currently has, to make sure they are able to use the product.
Account is peter dot boling at gmail dot com.
Cheers!
I am unable to sign up for an account on Forem. I am unable to login to Forem. I am unable to request a password reset on Forem. When you accidentally deleted my dev.to account, it must have banned me on Forem also. Is this something that can be resolved? I would ask support, but they lied to me (or you did, still unclear?) about the manner in which my account was deleted, so I am not comfortable messaging them again. You have a public face, so I'm inclined to believe your explanations over theirs.
Shortly after posting that last comment I got an email that my Forem account had been locked due to too many failed login attempts. I used the link to unlock my account. I used the "forgot password" link to request a reset password link, and the email did actually come through! But upon attempting to set a new password, I was dumped back into the same cycle. Submitting the form clears it, and displays no messages. Logging in, in the hope that the reset might have worked, does the same. No error message. Just reloads the login form. Please unlock my account (for real this time)!
In case you missed it in my first message, I suspect that my user record is unable to be saved, due to some invalid state.
Hi Ben! I scheduled my first post today and as I'm often traveling, I'm not sure which timezone is the sheduler using (for some context, even my computer is not on the right timezone right now π). Can you help? Thanks!
Hey @ben, not sure if you saw my message! Cheers
Iβm not sure off the top of my head but I believe itβs your local time based on the browser.
hi Ben. i'm a big fan of your meme Monday threads π€
check out what these guys are doing: twitter.com/johnrushx/status/16615...
they are building a social network. 20 strangers gathered together to build a web app.
perhaps you to join as a chief memologist π
Where's the discord link? I might be missing something, but I'm curious :)
it is discord.gg/78pkDrAW
then navigate to the "DevHunt" channel.
Hiπ
I have a doubt Ben.
I know you are he co-founder of Forem
Do you work in Forem only, or in another company?
Because Forem is completely free for users.
Then how do you make money?
So I asked, there is nothing wrong with what I asked.
Forgive me if I heard wrong
Have you started many projects that could become companies to you ? Which proportion of your ideas did you actually start writing code for ?
If so, what was your reciepe to know if a project is worth it ?
And how would you know when persistence on a project becomes obstination, and that it is time to abandon it ?
Hey @ben,
Thanks for the awesome platform. I have 2 queries for you
dev.to utilizes gamification elements to greatly engage community. Do you think this might work for open source project contributing? XP for merged PRs, closed issues, specific issues as Challenges, also Leaderboard etc...
I think it could, but has to be genuinely fun and rewarding. Can't just be grinding.
Hey Ben,
Thank you so much for creating this amazing dev community! I highly appreciate all your sweat and tears you've put into building it!
In your comment here you're saying that you're "building a very sustainable business model around hosting Forems".
May I ask what your business model is? So how do you make money (or what are your future plans to make money) with dev.to?
No questions at the moment, but just wanted to say thank you for the great platform!
Hi Ben,
I hope youβre doing well! Iβm reaching out about the Wix Studio Challenge completion badge. I noticed I didnβt receive it automatically, so after some time, I sent an email to support@dev.to. However, it has been about a month, and I havenβt received a response.
For reference, hereβs the link to my submission: dev.to/shafayeat/i-made-a-fully-fu... .
I truly appreciate all the effort your hardworking team puts into this platform. Iβd be grateful if you could help look into this matter.
Hi Ben
I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying interacting with the community you, Jess etc. have built.
I have 2 questions:-
Is there anything on the roadmap to make the editor better. Things like selecting text to add bold etc. or better yet a list of the liquid tags that you can click to insert a template for them as I am constantly having to look them up as a new member!
Once again thanks for a great platform!
p.s. edit seems to be broken for me the last couple of days so obviously those should be numbered 1 and 2 π€£π€£
Ugg can't believe I'm a noob once again in a new field asking noob questions.
Here goes...
Hey Ben, I consider myself an intermediate html/css coder (learned the basics back in 1999 and had some front end jobs 1999-2005 before getting into marketing).
I've hired a few devs to help me make some projects but I want to learn to code up my own CRUD apps. I'm real good marketing them but not so much yet building them.
I'm kinda turned on by the JS/React/Node vibe. Started taking a course at freecodecamp.
Besides reading articles from dev.to what else should I be using to learn my way into the semi-literate javascript world?
Thx!
I'd consider signing up for a structured course of some kind, maybe video, or something.
I transitioned from learning the basics of HTML back in the day to full-fledged software development in this way.
Even if it isn't going to be your specialty, you may want to consider also adding a course on the basics of programming in a generalist language like Python or Ruby just to make sure you're thinking about programming and not just hacking your way through webdev where it's easier to "cheat" because you're sort of technical enough. At least for me, I needed to get a bit further from my comfort zone to really have the fundamentals stick.
Does that make sense?
How's the fam?
I haven't been able to see most of my family in over a year (Canadian), but generally doing pretty well. I'm very grateful for the Canadian government assistance through the pandemic for the folks in my family who have needed it.
Hey Ben! Thank you for this AMA.
Is there an ETA for the first stable/public release of Forem?
We've been hesitant to give a date on some of this because there's been a lot of discovery needed on both stability of the hosting options while at the same time ironing out all the edge cases where historically with DEV we've been able to dip into a coding environment and for this to run effectively it shouldn't need that. With that being said, things are getting a little clearer:
The first stamped down supported self-hosted option. I don't know exactly when the release will be, but we're pretty close here... Expect an ETA soon. I don't want to make any promises but we're finally seeing the finish line.
For our hosted version, Forem Cloud, while it's stable for us, the thing we need to work out is orchestration so we can effectively automate the management of n number of Forems. This will come in the second half of this year.
Thanks for your patience! Our end goals are incredibly ambitious and Forem is going to change the Internet!
Thank you, Ben! Looking forward to the release.
I am a mechanical engineer, I tried a lot to find a good job but i think I choose wrong path, now trying to change my path i was always interested about computers i learned programming along with my college course i know python, HTML, css, javascript, Typescript, angular and now started learning React i want to become a front-end developer is there any chance of my success because i don't have degree in computer science or Information technology and if there is a chance then can i get a job as intern because I think i know stuff but in real world things are different and maybe I need little bit of experience of industry..... Thank you.
My parants said, "don't do comment often, Try to listen people".
Now seniors are saying,
Bro, I'm confused. Having a lot of conflicts! What's your openion?
Hi Ben. Hope you are doing well.
I am enthusiastic about becoming a member of CodeNewbie. What is the process for joining the team?
If possible, how can I join a certain organization on the dev.to?
Thanks in advance.
Codenerd
Hi! I don't know if you still check this public inbox, but I'll throw my question! π
How something like Dev.to / Forem sustains itself without any ads or required payments? I've seen a lot of projects like this one and always wondered how they do it.
Keep up the good work! I've discovered dev.to a few weeks ago and I'm loving it!
I would like to create a dashboard with statistics for dev.to and some recommendation based on AI.
Of course, I need to get the information for all posts on dev.to.
I didn't find an endpoint on the API, do you know how I can retrieve all contents?
Hi Ben,
Hope you're doing great. Thank you for opening this line inbox.
Your personal website is unique and special. I'm love it and keep it in mind as a inspo for when I will create mine (future date not specified).
I sometimes show it to people when we talk about personal websites, but lately I noticed that it's down.
What is happening? Did it create a black hole and swallow its host? Did it consume all the mobile data in the world?
And most important, will it be back?
Cheers,
Darius
P.S. the website in question: benhalpern.com/
Yeah, I messed up something with DNS and haven't gotten around to fixing it yet π©
Hey Ben!
i would love to discuss with you about creating dev-community foundations and maybe interest you to take a look on our OS project on Github :)
github.com/Memphis-OS
please contact me if you can - saar.c@memphis.dev
Hello friend.
Can I privately chat you?
Sure, email me?
Yes.
Here is my email below
folasayosamuelolayemi@gmail.com
Big chief, I will appreciate it if you can also help in sharing and liking this article:
dev.to/nluxai/unlock-the-future-yo...
Just wondering how many notifications per day you get on DEV?
Thanks for bringing us dev.to!
How do you like your coffee? Pour-over, french press, keurig? Milk or sugar? Light, medium or dark roast?
I think I prefer medium roast, but as I don't have a strong preference, I like to mix things up. My favorite coffee treat is a good artisan latte on a cool fall day (like, I don't know what exactly I mean by "artisan", but I used to live in Brooklyn, which is full of great takes on coffee) but too many lattes are not great on the ole waistline, so I usually take my coffee black.
My wife and I got this Jura machine as a wedding gift and it is really amazing. Probably not something we'd have ordinarily budgeted for.
What advice do you have for an American moving to Canada?
Hi @ben, could you please give some feedback on this project? Thanks! ^_^
You should create a chat option @ben
Please notice the thing what I said about jsfiddle embedding here :-
CSS Art: Favorite Snack
Sh Raj γ» Mar 21
how many active (or not) users has dev.to at the moment?
What's your favorite food ?
Hi guy, site link in your profile is broken.
How are you doing?
Hey @ben
You are amazing with this, I know and well aware of dev.to's journey.
I know your success; Want to have a quick chat with you regarding dev.to
Hi Ben, wondering why did you remove the unicorn and just keeping the heart for reactions?
Did you or someone else wrote an article about that?
We are moving to more customizable reactions, and temporarily removed the unicorn as part of the process.
Our Dear Unicorn Friend is Going on Vacation
Ben Halpern for The DEV Team γ» Sep 26 γ» 2 min read
It will be back soon. We have are currently working on the step to bring it back, and it will be live as soon as we ship.
Hello Ben, I don't have a question, I just wanted to say thank you.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hey man.Hope you are doing great.I sent you an email from tawhidbinomar@gmail.com .
Care to check it out?
How do u create this beautiful social media website like what do u use for Front_End , Back_End and Data_Base?
This website inspires me a lot to build my website like this.π
Inspirational ππ
I'm really curious can you name me one product that is some how popular in the Crypto space and that has absolutely nothing to do with gambling and is based on web3? And what is your opinion on web3?
What would be the topic you want to discuss after 5th+ beer with fellow dev guys :))
Love this idea Ben!
Thank you :)
Yo, I can't message you, it just says this:
However it worked on August 22 (my last message).
Hi Ben,
Github markdown supports Base 64 image, could dev.to also ?
Thansk.
Probably could, if there isnβt an existing issue about this, how about making one?
The Lanuch date of dev.to site .. As I searched in google but did not found any information
I just found out about your website. Pretty freakin' dope. Absolutely love it. β₯οΈ
Are there recommendations/guidelines for building an audience on DEV?
If not, could you draft some?
Hi Ben!
Is it possible to use the dev.to API to pull account-specific information (page views, reactions, etc) without dealing with CORS?
Do you think companies would ever choose a Forem instance over their own blog attached to their wordpress site?
What's the roadmap for moderation? There's some things I'd like to see!
We will have a more well-described general roadmap soon. If you want to see something implemented please advocate for it on an issue on GitHub or start a discussion on forem.dev
Hi Ben.
I am very happy to meet you.
I want to work with excellent developer such as you.
Thanks