I’m sure you’ve likely heard in the news that Reddit is undergoing changes that have caused people to look elsewhere for chatting, especially about their favorite hobby Home Assistant. I suspect many of us have been lurking and posting on these forums recently but I’ve also heard it said that many Reddit posters are shy/afraid to post here given the extremely high skill set of a large number of posters by comparison.
I mostly just wanted to ask that we welcome new posters with open arms and perhaps show a little patience.
At the end of the day, we all have the same thing is common: Home Assistant.
I’ve been around the forums (but not the subreddit) a while now and never found the tone or culture to be off-putting. Makes me want to check out the subreddit at some point to understand how discussion culture differs over there.
What I have heard from people that prefer Reddit is that they do not like the hierarchical structure of forums. Sometimes people feel their post doesn’t fit well in any of the categories, so they are reluctant to post.
Other than that, I think this is a great place for beginners that are looking to learn.
I too have always had a good experience here but there was a thread last week on the HA subreddit talking about posting here during the “black out”, and a post about “being intimidating” to post here got a good share of upvotes.
Personally though, this place has always been helpful for me and a great way to interact with fellow HA hobbyists and developers.
Nothing wrong with Z2M or NR tbh. I’ve used both. I just have a personal preference to use the native stuff, if I can. I’ve stuck with ZHA since the beginning on my production box and it’s really grown over the years to be quite good imo.
Also the Skyconnect is still listed as experimental with Z2M, so I tend to not recommend Z2M for it, but I’ve seen many posts with people getting it working.
I think the reluctance may be due to a feeling of formality and/or minimum requirements. Forums (to me at least, and I think others will be the same) feel like a more formal and permanent discussion area. Yes, there is no real difference between a forum and reddit, apart from interface, but that interface could be what leans people towards that feeling. Some of it may also come from prior experience with forums where posts may get rejected/removed or users may get temp/perma-banned for their content not meeting specific rules/requirements (not dissimilar from some subreddits).
I know I’ve got very specific questions I’d like answers to, but haven’t due to a number of factors:
Self-help - the information should already be out there somewhere, I need to help myself by learning rather than just giving a situation and asking for the answer
Effort - the effort required to properly convey enough information for someone to reasonably be able to help me
(potentially) too-specific - my questions are very specific to my situation and may not help others, so formalising in a forum post expecting answers feels “greedy” (probably not the right word, but I find myself struggling more these days to pick the right word/s for some reason… side note: I only use English, so it’s not a translation issue)
Places like Reddit and Discord do (for better or worse) feel like more appropriate places for low-effort content like random half-baked questions.
I understand this view (having used both this forum and reddit).
I guess the minimum requirement is a clearly written question so that others know how to help.
Maybe try with one of your ‘easier’ questions? I find most people here are helpful even if the solution doesn’t help them personally - it’s about sharing the knowledge. I certainly try to help others (if I am capable of helping) as that promotes the right behaviour of someone else perhaps helping me when I’m stuck.
Edit: I shouldn’t have shown an example as my goal wasn’t to change anyone’s behaviors but rather point out that it’s a common statement on reddit that they don’t feel comfortable posting here.
