Add the LinkedIn Group: Python Developers Community as a resource

[KeithTheEE]

Adds the LinkedIn Group: Python Developers Community (moderated) to the resource page.

The group is moderated and requires users in their space to follow the PSF Code of conduct, which aligns with our own.

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[jchristgit]

is this actually valuable to anyone? It just looks like the average linkedin SEO blogspam. doing a quick look:

• first post is a guy advertising his youtube channel
• second post is someone advertising their ... I don't even know what that does, but it brings "order, safety, and predictability to Python module integration", yeah I still don't know what it does
• third post is a guy advertising his medium post on how he used kafka, an LLM via pytorch and slack (he calls it "GenAI") to look for ..... negative keywords
• fourth post is a guy advertising his blog post which advertises his django library (apparently translations in models are not "clean" and "scalable" without it)
• fifth post suggests using dict.get(key, value) instead of dict[key] if key in dict else value. first post that actually bears a resemblance of usefulness

i genuinely don't see how anyone except for a search engine would benefit from this.

[KeithTheEE]

Resources can be helpful to some and not so to others. The same is true of every community we link to in our resources.

The space maintains a PSF code of conduct, and it's presence in resources helps us direct users who are keen on that kind of space, letting pydis focus more on learning than career growth, without leaving the user left on their own if they're interested in moving from a learning role into a career focused stage of their growth.

[lemonsaurus]

These kinds of spaces are often less about the content and more about connecting its members, it shouldn't be judged on its content alone. Of course I agree that this content sounds terrible, but it's LinkedIn, that's par for the course. From the pov of someone trying to become more immersed in the Python ecosystem, it may offer an opportunity to reach out to or connect with people who could be valuable in their career path.

Overall, I'm in favor of adding this, even though I'm not super interested in it myself.

[lemonsaurus]

I also want to note that I think communities should be reviewed with a very different lens than other types of resources. A reasonably big group of Python developers who have a healthy Code of Conduct on an active social media platform already meets most of my criteria.

[jchristgit]

These kinds of spaces are often less about the content and more about connecting its members, it shouldn't be judged on its content alone.

This is correct, but I would argue that any other platform is much better suited for connecting than talking to people than LinkedIn. I personally cannot remember a single moment where I've taken any value out of LinkedIn for learning Python (or any other programming language). Even for job hunting it's rare for me to find value, and I have years of experience - our target audience is here is people who want to learn Python, I don't think they are going to have a lot of people reaching out and offering them a job.

[Keith]: Resources can be helpful to some and not so to others. The same is true of every community we link to in our resources. [Lemon]: Of course I agree that this content sounds terrible, but it's LinkedIn, that's par for the course.

If the website itself is terrible, why should we add it in the first place?

Looking at the current communities on the resources page, we have:

• A collection of Discord communities (adafruit, awesome-programming-discord, kivy, Microsoft Python (twice?), Pallets, Panda3D, People/Postgres/Data, Pyglet and sentdex. This is the large majority.
• The r/Python subreddit
• The Real Python YouTube channel, but note this also has a website.

Discord is very, very different because you're thrown in a chat context where you can directly ask questions. The model works very well as evidenced by our server growth and size. I believe it's much, much easier to directly talk to and connect to people on Discord, because the barrier to being read by people is very, very low, and because the focus of the platform is on chat.

Reddit still works out somewhat. YouTube's focus is on the post itself (the video), too. I don't think I would consider YouTube a good place to connect to people.

From the pov of someone trying to become more immersed in the Python ecosystem, it may offer an opportunity to reach out to or connect with people who could be valuable in their career path.

How do you envision actually talking to new people on LinkedIn in a group of almost 2.5 million members? Would you begin to comment under people's posts that might be remotely relevant to you, or add them directly?

Today 3 out of the 5 first posts are memes. Do you see career opportunities coming out of this? My personal feed, which is very much curated to not be riddled with advertising, still contains a ton of blogspam.

Back to some of the more original points:

it's presence in resources helps us direct users who are keen on that kind of space, letting pydis focus more on learning than career growth, without leaving the user left on their own if they're interested in moving from a learning role into a career focused stage of their growth.

Is the goal here to drive career discussion away from Python Discord and redirect people elsewhere? If so, why can I not find recommendations of this group on Python Discord? I searched for:

• the link itself,
• the group ID, and
• "linkedin" itself, which rightfully mentioned that every job posting has hundreds of applicants (something I've also noticed and realized that most of these applications are just never looked at, and we should not recommend this to people)
• "linkedin python" which is mostly people talking about the LinkedIn Python assessment.

If this is the goal then I don't think this is the right way. Maybe we should instead discuss this on a python-discord/meta issue.

Overall I am 100% against adding this, or any other resource on LinkedIn on that matter, to our resources. This would share its space with wonderful resources like "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" which people have put a ton of effort and time in, I do not see this as deserving to share that space. Of course Automate the Boring Stuff is a very high bar, and we have other communities etc. on the list as well, but we should not lower the bar for something like this.

[KeithTheEE]

Is the goal here to drive career discussion away from Python Discord and redirect people elsewhere?

The goal here is to have a diverse and complex network of roads others can use and navigate their path and communities at their own choice. We are not creating a roadmap, but acknowledging that community connections are not zero sum games nor are they a case of, "everyone should do x".

While we can't be a hub for every community, I think it's important to acknowledge LinkedIn is a space where Python discussions do take place, and this can act as a gateway for some keen on that world. That's why the adherence to the PSF Code of Conduct is important to me.

I understand it shares space with Automate the Boring Stuff, but it also shares space with /r/Python and our own Discord. Like us they are large, multifaceted spaces with many people, far from being a uniform body of work like a book has a chance to be. That's why this is a 'community' resource. Not every part of the subreddit nor discord are worth reading either. the community sections are more about flexibility of connections and ability to flesh out a portion of growth in some fashion.

This is a worthwhile resource to include as it acts as a gateway to many LinkedIn discussions, if not in the group then by following people and orgs that intersect the group itself. Our Discord, and the Python Subreddit act as similar hubs.

[lemonsaurus]

@jchristgit

This is correct, but I would argue that any other platform is much better suited for connecting than talking to people than LinkedIn. I personally cannot remember a single moment where I've taken any value out of LinkedIn for learning Python (or any other programming language).

Meanwhile, my entire career has been made possible exclusively by LinkedIn. Without LinkedIn I'd probably be in a dead-end tech support job today.

How do you envision actually talking to new people on LinkedIn in a group of almost 2.5 million members? Would you begin to comment under people's posts that might be remotely relevant to you, or add them directly?

Yes, you'd comment on people's post, add people who said interesting things as connections and try to chat with them, and post your own blog posts or whatever to try to give yourself exposure so that people will contact you. It's a meat market. I know that doesn't appeal to you but people who are willing to play that bullshit hustle can end up with interesting job opportunities. I know because I did.

Is the goal here to drive career discussion away from Python Discord and redirect people elsewhere?

No, it's just a large group that some of our members may find value in, just like the subreddit. Which is also pretty full of memes and shitposting, right? That's what happens when you put millions of people together.

[jchristgit]

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying here!

Yes, you'd comment on people's post, add people who said interesting things are connections and try to chat with them, and post your own blog posts or whatever to try to give yourself exposure so that people will contact you. It's a meat market. I know that doesn't appeal to you but people who are willing to play that bullshit hustle can end up with interesting job opportunities. I know because I did.

No, it's just a large group that some of our members may find value in, just like the subreddit. Which is also pretty full of memes and shitposting, right? That's what happens when you put millions of people together.

Very valid points. I agree with you.

I still genuinely don't think it fits on the site, as I think it is a resource of severely lower quality than the other resources we have. It lowers the bar significantly.

But: I really see where you're coming from. I don't like it, but again I don't run this shop on my own, and since you've put a lot of work into replying to what's half a book, the very least I can give you is a thank you for taking your time to convince me otherwise and an approval :-)

Have a great start to the week!

[jb3]

Approved and merged in f8cb1b7a00d6a45af75d431725e0ac5b5a541c48.