I’ll explain our current onboarding process at EA Barcelona, as it took several iterations to get to where we’re at now.
Firstly, we’ve made our main onboarding document publicly available on our website. This includes a link to our WhatsApp community guidelines document, which explains its purpose, how to use it, the different sub-groups, etc.
At the end of the document, there’s a link to join the WhatsApp community directly. We don’t share this link anywhere else, so the idea is that only people who’ve read (or at least skimmed) the guidelines first can join. We also try to ensure that a community builder reaches out to new people who join to encourage them to make a small intro to the community soon after.
In addition to that, we also invite people individually—usually people we’ve met at events, those who’ve reached out directly expressing interest, or friends and colleagues of current members—to join our Whatsapp community.
I think this system has helped us maintain a fairly steady rate of growth while preserving the quality of discussion and avoiding a constant influx of people who are entirely new to EA ideas. If anyone is curious to read our onboarding guide (and subsequent Whatsapp community guidelines doc), it’s linked here on our website: https://​​www.eabarcelona.org/​​contact. Hope that helps and curious to know more about how other EA groups approach this (kinda tricky) part of community building!
I’ll explain our current onboarding process at EA Barcelona, as it took several iterations to get to where we’re at now.
Firstly, we’ve made our main onboarding document publicly available on our website. This includes a link to our WhatsApp community guidelines document, which explains its purpose, how to use it, the different sub-groups, etc.
At the end of the document, there’s a link to join the WhatsApp community directly. We don’t share this link anywhere else, so the idea is that only people who’ve read (or at least skimmed) the guidelines first can join. We also try to ensure that a community builder reaches out to new people who join to encourage them to make a small intro to the community soon after.
In addition to that, we also invite people individually—usually people we’ve met at events, those who’ve reached out directly expressing interest, or friends and colleagues of current members—to join our Whatsapp community.
I think this system has helped us maintain a fairly steady rate of growth while preserving the quality of discussion and avoiding a constant influx of people who are entirely new to EA ideas. If anyone is curious to read our onboarding guide (and subsequent Whatsapp community guidelines doc), it’s linked here on our website: https://​​www.eabarcelona.org/​​contact. Hope that helps and curious to know more about how other EA groups approach this (kinda tricky) part of community building!