The word “Community” gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? This week, we dig into what the CodePen community is, the value it creates for us and the people who use CodePen, how we shape the community, and more.

  • 1:08 Community is an essential part of CodePen.

  • 1:52 How do we define community? Pens are community. Comments are community. Live chat is community. Blog posts are community.

  • 3:50 The features are really what makes up the community:

    • Your profile, where people can go see a picture of you and learn more about you
    • The “Hire Me” feature where users can send each other messages about work
    • The blogging feature, where users can write and share knowledge with the world

    We also have this podcast, the Twitter account, Facebook, a Google Plus account, and all kinds of other stuff that we don’t control, but are definitely all part of the CodePen community.

  • 6:00 Connecting people is another huge part of the value that comes from having a strong community.

  • 7:05 Why we started using Respond.ly to manage our Twitter account

  • 7:50 Creating a connection with the people who use your product, talking to them and getting feedback is very motivational, and it enables you to improve your product.

  • 8:46 The vibe of the community comes from the founders. We have a direct influence in many situations.

  • 9:53 Are developers often more negative than designers?

  • 13:25 The difference between the Hacker News and CodePen Communities.

  • 13:57 As the owner of a thing on CodePen (a Pen, blog post, or chat), we give you the ability to delete it. This is beneficial because it gives people the tools to help shape the community and prevent it from devolving. The user can shape their own story on CodePen.

  • 16:00 We didn’t include any negative feedback options for users: we have a form for support, but no one has ever used it to be a jerk to us. Most of what users can do inside the community is based around providing positive feedback. This sends the message that CodePen is a positive place.

  • 18:08 The CodePen Code of Conduct is a document we wrote to clearly communicate the type of community we want to have, and what happens when misbehavior occurs.

  • 22:15 We try to make the act of using CodePen a positive, good experience for everyone. It is a great way to contribute to the open source community, to help others learn, and give back to the web community in general.

  • 23:30 What is a “good guy” on CodePen?

  • 27:25 Is it possible to make money from having a great community?

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