Theodor Coin

Posted on Jan 9

12 Best Communities and Forums for Developers to Join 🤝

#community #coding #programming #javascript

Connecting with other developers can supercharge your learning and career. Here are 12 top communities and forums where developers network, share knowledge, and find support:

1. Stack Overflow 💡

The go-to Q&A site for coding problems. If you’ve Googled an error message, you’ve probably landed here.

2. GitHub Discussions 🛠️

Collaborate on open-source projects and engage in meaningful technical discussions.

3. Reddit (r/Programming, r/LearnProgramming) 🔍

Subreddits like r/programming and r/webdev host discussions, news, and resources for developers.

4. Dev.to 🌐

A friendly blogging platform for developers where you can write posts, comment, and share your coding journey.

5. Hacker News 📰

A forum for tech enthusiasts where developers discuss the latest in programming, startups, and innovation.

6. Discord Servers

Popular servers like "CodeSupport" and "The Programmer’s Hangout" offer real-time conversations with other developers.

7. Hashnode ✍️

A blogging platform for developers with built-in networking features to connect with other tech writers.

8. GitLab Forum 🚀

A space for developers using GitLab to share best practices, workflows, and troubleshooting tips.

9. FreeCodeCamp Forum 📘

A supportive forum for beginners and advanced developers alike, discussing web development, algorithms, and more.

10. Women Who Code 🌟

A global community empowering women in tech, offering events, resources, and networking opportunities.

11. Indie Hackers 💼

Perfect for developers working on side projects, SaaS apps, or startups, with a focus on sharing progress and feedback.

12. CodeProject 🛠️

A resource-rich site with articles, discussions, and challenges for developers to learn and improve.

Reason Join These Communities?

Networking Opportunities: Meet like-minded professionals.
Learning: Discover new tools, trends, and solutions.
Support: Get help with tough coding challenges.
Sharing: Showcase your work and receive feedback.

Which developer community are you joining next? 🌟 Let us know your favorite!

Top comments (18)

Kavya Sahai • Jan 9

Another person copying an article from ChatGPT.

Kudzai Murimi • Jan 10

Hello!

I dont think it's reaally neccessary to mention that, everyone here knows about chatgpt, the author might have drafted his points and ask chatgpt to correct some of the points.

Otherwise the article is absolutely helpful.

Kavya Sahai • Jan 10

You can see other posts to confirm that this indeed is ChatGPT-generated content scaling. Dev.to is a platform where humans collaborate and share their experiences.

If the articles are created using ChatGPT, what’s the point of people even browsing dev.to? They could simply generate the content themselves using ChatGPT or other large language models (LLMs). This undermines the human aspect of dev.to. Moreover, the content generated by LLMs is often unreliable.

The fact that they included CodeProject as a forum makes me think they simply handed in a prompt, copied the response from an LLM, and added a few images in between.

AI is useful for proofreading and improving written content, but when it comes to straight-up generating articles, I don’t believe it’s necessary. If this trend continues, dev.to risks becoming a spam-filled site dominated by AI-generated content.

Theodor Coin • Jan 10

It seems to me that using artificial intelligence is not a ban in the modern world.
Don't you use AI?

Why do you think that I added these communities to the text not from my experience?
Yes, I used AI in order to better shape it so that it would be easy to read.. But that doesn't mean that you can blame me.

Thank you!

Kudzai Murimi • Jan 10

You're right but also remember some of the rules of this platform. BE KIND TO OTHERS, you better find a polite way to help the author and anyone else without making them feel bad, here we help eachother we don't judge like the way you dropped your comment:

dev.to/kavya-sahai-god/comment/2ko...

Help the author clearly so that next time he knows what to do exactly.

Theodor Coin • Jan 10

Okay, thanks for your comment on that. I guess I'm being too direct in my statements

Kavya Sahai • Jan 10 • Edited

I was never against the use of AI. But the use of AI for spam purposes. In dev.to and StackOverflow, and other communities, people just use AI and generate a lot of posts without meaning or sense. Oftentimes, these lack the human touch, the touch of natural language.
While, AI can be used. Generating whole articles using Artificial Intelligence, just isn't the right step. Instead of using AI, LLMs to generate content to be more precise, you may start by writing content yourself or at least try to learn what you are saying.
While, I'm not 100% sure that this content is generated by LLMs, some factors which contribute to that idea in general are:

Factually Wrong Content: As seen here, the misclassification of CodeProject as a site with discussion, or simply classifying it as a forum.
Way too Systematic Language: LLMs use a systematic language which humans don't use, even academic papers, in their initial stages, have a human touch to them.
Repetitive Vocabulary: LLMs generally use a repetitive vocabulary, as seen in this post.
Formulaic Writing: The structure of the post itself is formulaic, i.e, predictable patterns in writing.

Apart from those general observations, the data in you post seems superficial. There's also a lack of personal experience or perspective.
And from your profile, some more observations made are systematic posting pattern, and the lack of human interaction in the posts. Also, the style and language-level of your responses is different from the OP, making it a bit more clear that you may have used an AI software.

To verify my claims, however, I prompted ChatGPT, and it gave a similar response, further solidifying my claims. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither were these accusations, they have been collectivized over time.

And, for the use terms of use of AI, they literally say:
"Generative artificial intelligence (a.k.a. GPT, LLM, generative AI, genAI) tools may not be used to generate content".

And, if the content were written by you and proofread by AI, then, I am shocked at the major "hallucinations" you had, like classifying CodeProject as a forum or discussion site. And your content is slightly against the content policy also, but one can argue 'tis not:
"Users must make a good-faith effort to share content that is on-topic, of high-quality, and is not designed primarily for the purposes of promotion or creating backlinks."
The content does seem like promotional, with the intent of creating backlinks towards to the site of the OP or other sites.

We Kese • Jan 10

And, even if it not AI Generated in the sense, that OP generated the whole article through AI, the article still violates the Content Policy:

Lack of Originality: Even if not fully AI-generated, the article may contain a large portion of text generated by an AI. This goes against the spirit of the content policy that favors original "high-quality" content written by the user.
Lack of Transparency: Theodor initially doesn't disclose that AI was used. While they later admit to using it, this admission came only after being called out by other commenters. This lack of transparency can be seen as misleading.
And finally Potential Promotional Intent

I ask you Kavya, as the Moderator, to mark this as Low-Quality Content, as it violates multiple sections of the Content Policy.

Kavya Sahai • Jan 10

I agree with some of your points, but, this article in itself does not classify as Low Quality Content, because of Ambiguity in the Content Policy itself.
The content policy states that AI "may not be used to generate content" it's still unclear if AI can be used to edit, reformat, or even add to what a user originally wrote. If the AI was used to reformat what they wrote to make it easier to read, one could argue that it wasn't used to 'generate' content, even if the AI made changes to the wording.

And I believe, we should let others learn, and improve on their mistakes. Instead of immediately marking it as low-quality, a warning could be issued, explaining the importance of transparency and originality. The original issue isn't towards the AI-generated aspect of the content itself but rather the transparency about it.

"Quality" can sometimes be subjective. While the content may have flaws in originality and transparency, one may argue that the information provided is still valuable to the readers. The post does deliver on what it promises, 12 sites for developers, and hence, cannot be solely marked as low quality.

And also I feel like immediately marking content as low-quality can create an environment of over-moderation that could discourage users from posting in the future. There is a need to balance rule enforcement and a welcoming environment.

Kudzai Murimi • Jan 11

Yes all you say makes sense but let's leave better comments with clear explaination as feedback to the writers thats my point.

Kudzai Murimi • Jan 11

Yes all you say makes sense but let's leave better comments with clear explaination as feedback to the writers thats my point.

Theodor Coin • Jan 10

Thank you! Yes, I am in these communities and actively use some of them, and the use of AI in my case is only for better presentation and readability of the text!