I've been wanting to setup something like a 3rd place that tries only to break even. I'm unfortunately not a very social person.
Because these 3rd spaces are open to anyone and probably bringing people in from internet commmunties. What do you do when someone comes along and they're not breaking any rules but its clear that no one likes them? I've seen it drive entire groups away but because the person has done nothing wrong I cant/dont want to just say "fuck off kid no likes your weird ass"
It isn't a single conversation or room. It isn't a single relationship cluster.
And someone is paying the insurance bill. Ultimately that person gets final say. A successful 3rd place can have tension, but not fools (in the economic sense, a person whose decision making and choices actively destroy the groups financial opportunities and stability. Theoretically a very clumsy person might be banned.)
There's a lot to unpack, I mean social dynamics, group polity, these really start with understanding what you really want to see brought into the world and why.
These things take fluidity, nuance and effort to get off the ground. Sometimes they just get lucky too. It's hard to tell ahead of time, proximity is important, population density is important, parties are important.
Getting initial traction is the hardest part, most groups die before they get a chance to have problems, that's why tying the groups space to a stable economic engine like an anchor company or a mission agency is so critical for repeatable success. Same with a small friend group as initial anchor, they just can't all be clique people.
The one thing that's very important is to always frame the space as a place for creating and experimenting, celebrate the amateur and the pursuit of mastery, getting started with a group of taste makers instead of doers will 100% kill your group.
Getting started with hypernetworkers who don't do things will kill your group. They'll show up and they are important later on.
All of these people have a place eventually but they can't form the dynamic core. The whole goal is to eventually have a place for every type of person so they can contribute to the whole and find the space where they can be celebrated, but a group has to be larger before certain types of people can bring their core skills to bear.
Hypothetical that I’d be happy to deal with when the time comes. We always imagine the worst case I get that. But once something like this takes off I imagine the whole point is to have created a community. And a community has lots of people that can do things together. I don’t know, I just don’t think this is something worrying about.
Because these 3rd spaces are open to anyone and probably bringing people in from internet commmunties. What do you do when someone comes along and they're not breaking any rules but its clear that no one likes them? I've seen it drive entire groups away but because the person has done nothing wrong I cant/dont want to just say "fuck off kid no likes your weird ass"