Recurse Center's Social Rules
13 comments
·February 22, 2025Zezima
As a Recurse Center participant and alum, these rules form an important and largely silent backbone of the community's culture.
Often reading rules causes strong reactions. Seeing how those same rules are implemented makes all the difference.
Rather than discussing the rules, I'll share experiential evidence: the community is welcoming to beginners, gentle, curious, kind, playful, and above all else: supportive.
The rules are a helpful "buck" to stop at should mistakes or conflict - small or large - arise (which rarely occurs). The key is commentary and forgiveness.
The experience of attending a batch at recurse is largely regarded as their best for many of my fellow Recursers - it certainly is one of mine.
If you're curious please reach out to them. I'm also happy to chat or answer any questions (and give a glowing review).
alabhyajindal
I love the rule on backseat driving. I didn't know it was called that before I read this.
bityard
I would like to see a 5th rule: Don't assume a question is an X/Y Problem just because you lack context.
Because this happens basically every single time a ask a question online without including a doctoral thesis on my project's history, constraints and goals.
satisfice
These rules are abusive.
They are problemizing behaviors that are ordinary, authentic, and helpful.
roxolotl
One of the cool things about groups openly publishing their rules of engagement is that others can decide if they want to engage with them. You find these abusive. Others find them helpful. By publicly stating these rules it helps people to decide if they want to join.
mtlynch
Can you elaborate? I have a hard time understanding how that describes any of the rules here.
For example:
>No feigning surprise
>Dan: What’s the command line?
>Carol: Wait, you’ve never used the command line?
I'll grant that someone may actually be surprised, so maybe it's "ordinary" and "authentic", but how is Carol's response helpful?
readthenotes1
Because Dan may not have meant the words precisely as uttered, Carol's exclamation of surprise may cause Dan to focus in on better comms.
"Of course I've used the command line, I meant this <insert favorite replacement for Bash>"
mtlynch
Right, but based on his statement in that environment, the odds are strongly that Dan doesn't know what the command line is.
It's true that there's an outside chance that Carol's comment would be helpful given unlikely circumstances, but it's more likely that Carol's feigned surprise will make Dan feel stupid for not knowing.
People don't need to say the first thing that pops into their mind just because it's their genuine reaction. When I hear people say things that sound stupid, I don't say, "Wow, I think you're stupid," even though there's an outside chance that the person I'm speaking to takes odd pleasure in people thinking they're stupid.[0]
If my first thought is insulting or rude, I can think for a few more milliseconds and think of a response that achieves my goal while reducing the risk of insulting the person I'm speaking to.
adolph
That may be the case. My cursory read leads me to believe what the page calls rules might just as well be thought of as goals. There are many habits that can foster or hinder effective communication. Do you think this reframing is off base?
Letting someone know that they impacted you by breaking a social rule and accepting that feedback gracefully when you’re the one who messed up are important ways to learn generously.
One thing that often surprises people about the social rules is that we expect people to break them from time to time.
frontalier
as shown by the examples these behaviours are not helpful and rarely authentic
locopati
it's about the how...there's ways to do the same thing that are less intrusive or insulting... a little kindness goes a long way in a learning space
gvedem
"abusive", really? you can debate their merits without hyperbole. it's not clear to me that you bothered to read past any of the headlines.
1. is explicitly given the caveat "when not immediately helpful". 2. is rude, regardless of whether it is helpful. if you want to help, join in and actually help. 3. is difficult to imagine ever being helpful, and when feigned is obviously not ordinary, but an obnoxious affectation. 4. has nothing whatsoever to do with being helpful.
I'll leave determining what is ordinary or authentic to others, but suffice to say I don't think either of those things is consistent case to case.
I think Recurse Center did a great job on these.
A lot of documents like this leave a lot to interpretation, and some of that is unavoidable, but I think this document does about as good a job as you can of making bad behaviors easy to recognize and avoid.
I also attended a Recurse talk, and they prefaced the Q&A with a rule I found helpful:
>Before you ask your question, think about whether it's a real question or just something you want to say in front of the speaker. If it's just something you want to say, approach the speaker afterwards and tell them privately, and reserve the questions for things other people might want to ask as well.