Hi everyone,
I’m currently doing a thesis about students and communities. I’ve noticed that communities and programming are tightly connected.
So, I wonder what motivates and drives people to help each other in this kind of community.
What motivates you?
Regards,
Nic
Hi @dymanic,
With me, I am NOT motivated, it’s kind of unreliable like a battery.
Programming(in my opinion) is like a book of wonder no one knows it all, what information I possess is different from another(camper), but when we come together and share what we know it feels good and when we share we tend to retain the information even longer.
It also feels good knowing that you have helped strangers you don’t know but have similar goals. And being helped by strangers you don’t know feels like a whole big family.
We all use the same road, the only difference we have is the goals.
Somebody said me learning programming without internet and communites and lovely people who contributes in the community would be like leaving in a village. It would take your whole life and still you wouldn’t have learn everything. And this is so true about learning anything in computer science you cannot learn everything.
By helping other people in the communites I am helping myself cause somebody like me will help me some time in future, today, now. Who knows when I will stuck somewhere and a quick googling will tell me what I was looking for.
I’ve been a part of this community for almost five years. I come here every day because I find it rewarding. I believe in this community I’ve seen it establish itself over the years and watched it change the way that people learn online. Many of the people in our community would historically have hit barriers that they wouldn’t know how to surmount and end their coding journey early on, but here on the forum they are shown that what they’ve hit is a speed bump, rather than a wall.
I was a tutor for years. I worked with a lot of people who had disabilities, were trying to catch up from underfunded and overburdened schools, and people who had been given up on when they didn’t “get it” fast enough. It was incredibly rewarding to see how much these students could accomplish when you gave them individual attention, listened to what they were saying, and worked together to find an explanation that made sense to them. That’s what people are doing here. We have patient and compassionate community members who will spend an entire day talking through a “basic” principle, because they understand that it isn’t basic when it’s new.
I’m motivated to help because sometimes I can be the person who didn’t give up on you.
First of all, this is one of the most interesting questions anyone has asked in these forums, so kudos for that!
My primary reason is pretty selfish, unlike the great people who come here to help others, I come to help myself. One of my motto’s is “learn by failing”, the quicker you are able to find problems, and overcome those problems is the key to being able to learn something and gain experience. Part of this is first being able to find and identify issues in the first place. So finding people with problems and trying to help them will expand the types of problems you even know about. Anytime you find a solution to any problem, you gain a little knowledge. Thus helping people automatically expands one’s knowledge base.
Experience is experience, which is why I think more people can help even if they don’t know much. A second pair of eyes is always useful for all problems.
So yea I participate so I can learn more by helping others learn. (interesting concept no? 
)
Let me begin by saying “wow!”
Thank you guys for elaborating your thoughts. Technology development sites have as long as I can remember always been very helpful. I think this kind of community has qualities that clearly could benefit any other areas and disciplines too.
Again, great to see such quick and detailed answers.
Keep on developing & evolve everyone, you rock.
Peace out.
I simply like helping people.