5 Lessons From Founding Tech Groups + Memoir

Empirical Study To Measure Influence

I even conducted a public, empirical study to measure the influence of selected members(n = 5) of Fanclub. My hypothesis were: I will have the most influence. The more the influence, the more the words will be repeated, through both replies and adoption.

I exported chat logs(n = 8,000) as plain text. With consensus of all participants created sets of signature, unique, words, phrases. Below is an excerpt from the set:

    {"my_words": ["nice bait", "meds", "grp_nck_unity", "grp_nck_freedom", "not debating that", "for fun"],
    "a_words": ["gulag",  "grp_nck_communism"],
    "t_words": ["omg", "seethe", "purr"]}

A designed a simple shell script using Jq, grep. I implemented bash arrays instead of looping JSON with Jq. I also wished to write it in C++ with B, as I was in my C++ phase then and it would be fun, but I didn't citing that it would take lot of time. I then counted how many times these words were used.

The results fulfilled both hypothesis. After me, A had most influence. T results were not as impressive because she didn't talk much with other members than me, and was not there for long when the data was collected. Other 2 members didn't seem to show much influence. Notably, B use of common words and using Windows might have contributed to it.

Other than showing objective metrics of influence, this study paved the way for other members to conduct more study. Which even made me create a sperate room which served as a "journal" for studies. The requirements to get published there was just to use the Markdown template provided, and add some metadata.

Problems In Moderation And Leave

As group started growing even more, it started getting harder to moderate it. It regularly got raided by spammers who spammed NSFW media, malware and more. Since Matrix did not have much public bots, unlike Telegram, this became even more challenging. While there was an API, but to get most of it you had to host a home server yourself. I did create some scripts using client API, some of them are available on my Github too.

So I appointed a moderator. But unfortunately, he did not do any good job. Literally every thing had to be deleted by me. So I came up with idea of marking group private before going offline and making it public back when I came. I also reported these incidents to home server admins, who helped me by deleting their accounts, messages.

Another method I came up with to replace the previous method was as follows: set the default power value 0; set the minimum power value to send message as 3 to react as 0. Set the value of all trusted members to 5. Non trusted members to 4. I used client server API for this as I didn't have home server. Changing the value of individual members was required because without that, the members value would be whatever the defualt value variable is. After it was done, all new members were able to react(send m.reaction event), but they couldn't send message, until they were assigned power value of higher than 3.

My another reason for leaving was that an ex classmate, to whom I introduced matrix platform, somehow discovered X group, but not mine. He recognized me there and started behaving like he was familiar with me. Members there immediately started being suspicious of us. I was worried that he might dox me, which he has history of, or if his OPSEC gets comprised, it will compromise mine too. So just around hour later, I secretly got him banned from D group from the hands of my moderator friend.

Around a month later, he met another moderator of X group in an anime chatroom who not only unbanned him but also spilled the beans. Hearing that, he also doxed my personal information to him. I’m not sure till what extent he did in DMs, but as I saw chat logs of anime group, he surely did enough. I had created an alt afterwards but still some users, including the members of my group, were aware of it, but not the reason of such.

So after 3 months of that dox event, I started sharing my thoughts of leaving the group and appointed two more moderators. They were really sad and some of them left immediately after I left, one of my close friend deleted his account too.

A day later, I came back from an alt account. I replied to one of the mod, T, and she was shocked that I have not blocked her. I replied with one of a my signature phrase “nice bait”. I then told mods that to prepare a list. T replied that all members left after my announcement, but I encouraged them that I will stay here for just for them and they got bit happy, see screenshot below.

Later when I did not return after 7 days, the group died, some more members left and told mods to invite them when I come back.

That’s it for this group. Though there are plenty of more things that I can cover, because it was the longest running group after all, but it’s already going very long.

Previous College Group, WhatsApp, 18, 11

I was invited to an unofficial group before the start of college. I noticed that people there were way older and they weren't interested in studies, but were openly doing drugs(alcohol, cannabis, hookah), insulting female members, making gangs, planning fights etc. There was also a language barrier with them speaking regional dialect while discouraging my usage of English, the common language.

In the conversation below, after first day, I ask them a question that if the place in video video they uploaded is our college, but they tell dismiss my question by telling me to smoke and sleep, even though I never talked about any drug there. See Translation in alt.

So I started my own group with same principles as of my previous groups. Advertised it as a safe space for serious studies and chit chat. I got joined by 11 members. The female members were expressing gratitude to me for creating a group where they wouldn't be insulted due to their skin color or accent.

The admins of the unofficial group were happy that I took serious students out of their group, so they could continue their activities more freely.

This group stayed there for few days until I went to my first day of college, technically the second day, and noticed the bad environment there.

The students were as I expected. Classroom were extremely dirty, crammed with around 90 students in ours. Teachers spoke local dialect and weren't very knowledgeable. One could not even pronounce "environment" correctly. There were no restrooms on our floor. Library was out of stock on almost everything. A group of unknown boys gathered near my seat. First they wondered that where I came from. I replied that I am Punjabi with a random village name, which doesn't even exist. They asked me how I'm so pale, if I hear Punjabi songs, which I replied no. I didn't tell them I was the one who created the unofficial group. One of them invited me to his bench, I denied it at first but later went.

When classes started, they couldn't even answer basic questions like full form of PCB, difference between direct and alternating current. I anonymously answered "Printed Circiut Board" and they, including teachers, got so shocked that who answered it. A person from group who earlier talked to me shouted, in a overexcited voice, That black shirt Punjabi while pointing towards me. I then raised my hand, stood up, while giggling for a second, which turned contiguous. Teacher asked me about my background and he was also shocked when I said I came from non science background. I didn't reveal my programming background either. Then that held a 5 seconds clapping session for me. After the college ended and some people still congratulated me, joked, with 2 members from my group who found me and didn't even ask for confirmation. One offered to drop me, but I refused.

After that, I planned to leave the college itself. I saw that few people of my group were wondering if that was me, but I didn't respond. Earlier I had told them that I will come this day and they will recognize me upon seeing. I went back to my home the next day early morning, without eating anything or telling to landlady that I'm going forever, because I did not want to stress her. After reaching home, I called her husband and told him that I have left the college and will vacate his room on Sunday. The rent was already paid in advance so there were no issues. Another interesting thing I noticed, in a random video uploaded in group, that at least 5 other males, who were sitting nearby me, 2 females copied my black shirt, one did my metallic silver wrist watch. And few others were sending Punjabi songs in their original unofficial group. Despite teacher explicly announcing, on day 1 and repeating on day 2, that only white or navy shirt be wore, with white shoes until uniform is issued. And black is often considered taboo to be worn on beginning of important events. I was flattered that how I got so influential, even in such random decision, but still it didn't convince me to stay.

There were many other positive experiences such as a bus driver stopped midway just for me, when I was leaving and waiting for tuk tuk, and the conductor chatted me the whole journey, despite me not understanding his language. A middle aged, overweight, woman who got influenced by my unsweetened peanut butter choice. She asked me if it helps in weight loss, how to consume it and if it is tasty. I said that I only eat it because I want to gain weight. It can be connsumed with bread, roti, or milk, but I eat it raw, even though it's not "tasty". Though she still bought 1Kg of it, same quantity as me. Another old man who strangely came directly to me, from a queue, to get his keypad phone fixed, which automatically got fixed when I reinserted the battery and turned of Bluetooth. But that weren't reasons to stay.

My decision to leave was more complex than that. There were many other issues: staring; in place of living; language barrier; Hookah culture; education quality.

After few days of it, I revealed to them that it was me, who answered the questions, as they were wondering, and I left the group without leaving any successor behind.

I still got direct messages from some members who said they want to learn from me. As below conversation shows, one female member requesting my help, but soon I blocked her to focus on finding a good college, excluding the 120+ list of colleges I had made.

Few days later, on Sunday, I came back, with my father, collected all my belongings, got my documents from college and left forever.

Hopefully there was still time left and I was able to enroll myself into an open university and create another group, Freedomphiles, on first day of college, which is described below.

Freedomphiles, WhatsApp, 18, 80,

I was the first one to realize the importance of having an unofficial chat group and to create such. I created this group on very first day of my college.

Following me, many other created groups, but the reason they did not succeed much because they were not as tech savvy as me, all of them created specialization specific groups, and lack of freedom.

I promoted the fact that we all will be following same syllabus till first year and managed to unite several other unofficial groups under my community.

Spies In The Official Group

Just the next day I realized that there were few members among us who were connected to authorities of the college.

I deduced it by seeing their profile picture, where they looked older than average first year students, their behavior, attempts to help students, maintain discipline. The next day, they were promoted to admins which confirmed by suspicion even more. Also one such spy admitted being 23.

I added a note in description of my groups that whoever who is connected to college authorities will be banned on the spot. A week later, I banned two of them from my group, after failed questioning with them and an announcement, see screenshot below.

As you can see in screenshot below, I questioned him politely, after fulfilling his request of a code review. I also trapped him an accusation “If you are not connected with authorities then why are you admin? And why is your surname same as of the ex-admin”.

Later I also discovered few other ways including asking for screenshot of their Learning Management System(LMS) and tallying it with students list which was hidden in LMS. Below is the screenshot of a female spy who messaged me first but next day, I managed to make her send me her LMS screenshot which proved to me that she was in last year, so I had to ban and block her…

Translation of chat: “Her: Proud of you. Let me free you of one chore, so you can do rest. I will clear your doubt, is it right? <shares LMS screenshot>. Now breathe if I’m your favorite. Thank you. Me: Hmm Thanks lol”

Kickout From The “Official” Group

Around 1.5 month later from the above event, I was kicked out from the official group for pointing out errors in study material along with screenshots and code example to support my claim. Seeing this, four members from my group raised their voice against it and they were kicked out too., see transcription and context in alt.

Me: Welcome welcome to the club. B: I am gone too 🤣 C: Gone for good 😹 Me: Haha, we are not going to stop at this. They can kick us but this has already sparked the flame. E: Should I say something too? Me: No you are our last hope for information. Don’t say anything yet. Also don’t damage your image of studios student lol. E: I will stay in group B: Knowledge is power 🤓

E then provided us detailed screenshots of chats, post our ban. Thanks to him. The second member to get kicked, C, was also able to get information from another source. Though even if they both got banned, I had plenty of other sources.

After analyzing post kick screenshots, I saw that many members were surprised who was kicked. But they didn’t say it directly. They said, “The one who pointed out errors”, “The one who was talking about getting a job offer at Microsoft”. There were no mentions of other martyrs which made me upset and I told E to share that other 4 male members, along with their names, of Freedomphiles were kicked too.

Surprisingly, one female member thought there were two people who pointed out errors: one male and other female, who was described as “behaves like she knows everything”, which is to be honest more the description of me. One member of my group tried correcting her that there was only one male, but she still insisted. She added that the member should try talking to her. What’s even more surprising that she was the one who firstly messaged me, two months before kick, used affectionate language, like she would with a male, and shared me notes, without me asking. I didn’t correct her, because I was not talking to her as I was busy.

Just few days later I observed that the group members who were kicked out seemed very nonchalant and they refused to email higher authorities regarding this. They were nonchalant on other issues and the ones that will happen in future too.

Around two weeks later, I discovered that the group was somehow unofficial. There was only an official community with teachers who we were familiar with. The university also repeatedly warned against unofficial groups saying they only had this community group, nothing else.

Though I refuse to believe that it was unofficial all the way as we got link of it through email. Maybe they took it’s authority later on.

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Leaving And Passing Ownership

I left this group because it felt like an unnecessary responsibility and talking to a wall. I could not express myself freely. I had to “dumb down” ideas because I was the only tech savvy person or active person here, others were not even willing to learn. I was the only one raising voice against the university, finding errors in study material. Like in many more cases which I have not mentioned here.

I passed the ownership to one of the member who later left himself and passed to another one.

Though still, I continued to speak against wrong things. Below is an example of me raising voice against rescheduling of classes in official group and gaining lot of support along the way.

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Lessons Learned

The Importance Of Promoting Activity

“The members of the group don’t talk to each other. The conversations are almost always like DMS to me . They just come here to talk to me. The group is basically dead when I am offline.”

This is what I learned the hard way and wrote it in my personal notes during my tenure in Telegram group.

I also realized that mere transformational/charismatic leadership. I would have to introduce them force. It could be either benevolent or coercive. After all, if we look at some notable leaders in history, they all used some sort of force. Be is silencing dissent, isolation, or even "harmless* approaches like micro managing, manipulation.

Learning from my observations, I started encouraging participation through daily programming, doubt solving , memes and chit-chat threads, weekly non-fiction literature reading threads. Encouraged posting news, science articles.

I could also take a coercive approach and ban inactive people, ban links to other groups, force members of Freedomphiles to speak against my kick out, errors in study material from official group else get banned or guilt trip them, but I didn't.

However, it's not to say that influence is totally useless. Because if we look at my fanclub example again, I was able to gather lot of members just with a phrase You should Join My fanclub for fun

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Importance Of Freedom

From start, I have allowed plenty of freedom to members both in main group and by creating an off topic group.

My groups also had a rule which prohibited “restricting freedom of speech of others”, which was strictly enforced.

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Maintaining A Clear Set of Rules, Punishments, Awards

As I mentioned above, my groups were very free. However some things were restricted. I had create set of rules what was prohibited and how do I define that.

The restricted things included: pornography, gore, restricting freedom of speech of other, promoting commercial products or services.

There was a clear hierarchy of “punishments” and awards. Which ranged from 1 minute mute, mass social rejection(in form of blocks by members), to permanent ban. Though they were not necessarily punishments. As some people voluntarily requested mutes if the group was too addictive or distracting for them.

There was a system of appeals. Offenders could debate it in Janny Chat, and appeal by writing an essay acknowledging why were they banned, what rule they broke, and how would they act in future

Awards included badges, on platforms which support those, exclusive access to certain groups, leaderboard and more. Some members though “flexed” their status of having a high message count, and being an older member to newcomers but it was all playful banter.

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Using Bots And Automation To Ease Up Management

Bots proved to be really useful and they are what made Telegram group so successful. I really missed them on WhatsApp and Matrix. But more on Matrix as it had a bigger spam problem and it was ironic that an open source social media standard did not any bot community.

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Importance of Being A Sole Leader

Being a moderator is not an easy task. An ideal mod would have knowledge of local languages, tech savvy, respect for freedom, would not get triggered by insults, explict or shock content.

An ideal mod would also not block users. Because by blocking users, the mod is basically giving the chance to blocked users to break rules and go unnoticed. This is why I never blocked anyone. I admit that I did ignore many, but didn't block anyone.

Since all of the members were random internet strangers, giving them power to irreversibly destroy a group did not look like a fair deal to me.

Even if I had given power to some member, which I did at time of leaving by appointing successors, it would be unfair to others one. Because it would be all my subjective opinion and I might get accused of favoritism.

Thirdly, as you might have noticed above, they were in the group because of me. They did not connect with anyone else. They left when I left. So appointing a leader to which members did not connect would be wrong too.

Fourthly, The empirical study conducted in Fanclub proved that I had highest influence. The fact that none of the groups flourished after I left, even though I had appointed leaders, is an another empirical evidence for my claim.

However, that does not mean there was complete "fascism" in my groups. In fact, I encouraged the members to participate in legal matters of groups by holding regular polls, and having a seperate chatroom named "Janny Chat" for anyone who wants to talk to me and mods.

Importance Of Creating Own Group

A person asked me why did I create my own groups instead of participating in other's group. Well there are lot of reasons for that, such as lack of freedom, unfamiliarity, but the biggest reason is moderators.

In almost all groups I have been banned from, I was banned because the moderators saw me as a threat to their influence. After all, the true leader is one who has influence. And who likes getting their power getting snatched.

They didn't like how an outsider is leading conversations, influencing members to vote against his ban in polls etc. In some cases, even mods themselves have disputes on whether to ban me or not. As one of the mod unbanned me and invited me again, but I refused citing that I have created my own group.

However mods do not know that these bans do not do anything, other than temporarily reliving their insecurity. Because majority of groups do not have any USP, and bans are easy to evade. In many cases, like T in my fanclub, people who supported me have willingly left the group to join mine, and some of the groups I have created were result of ban.

If we look at above example, you can see that my influence was growing, students were reporting errors in study material, challenging authority. So the moderators bannned me along with 4 others who supported me.

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