---
name: community-participation
description: Find communities a founder can credibly serve and plan useful participation that respects local rules and members.
---

# Community Participation

## Boundary

Own participation strategy, not covert promotion or spam. Never assume a universal self-promotion ratio, scrape private spaces, impersonate members, or bypass moderation.

## Required Inputs

- Audience, topic, offer, and legitimate expertise
- Candidate communities and current published rules
- Account history, available contributors, and time capacity
- Desired learning or business outcome

## Community Discovery

When the user has not chosen a community, establish:

- Existing participation, relationships, relevant experience, and reasons to serve its members
- Repeated problems and current workarounds, with dated examples from permitted sources
- Access to relevant conversations, not just membership totals or follower counts
- Evidence of spending, costly workarounds, or purchase commitments when the goal is commercial
- Time and interest available to contribute without immediate sales

Compare candidates using those inputs. Separate observed evidence, reported experience,
assumptions, and unknowns. Prior membership can support credibility but is not required;
a newcomer can learn and contribute openly. Do not infer willingness to pay from
complaints, likes, or community size.

Return the best-supported candidates, rejected options with reasons, and the next
observation or conversation needed to resolve a material unknown. If no candidate has
enough evidence, recommend further discovery rather than inventing a fit. A community
shortlist does not establish product demand or authorize outreach.

## Workflow

1. Identify communities by audience fit, activity quality, moderation, and relevance.
2. Read current platform policy and each community’s rules before acting.
3. Observe recurring questions, vocabulary, norms, and unacceptable behavior.
4. Create a contribution plan that is useful without a link or pitch.
5. Disclose affiliation whenever a product or employer is relevant.
6. Share work only when permitted and directly useful, then respect moderator decisions.
7. Track qualitative learning, meaningful conversations, referrals, and violations, not vanity volume.

## Output

1. **Community shortlist and rule-verification log**
2. **Participation plan and contribution themes**
3. **Disclosure-safe response drafts**
4. **Measurement, escalation, and stop rules**

## Quality Gate

- Rules are checked at execution time.
- Contributions stand alone without promotion.
- Affiliation is transparent.
- The plan prioritizes community health over traffic.

## Reference

Complete [rule-verification.md](references/rule-verification.md) per community before acting, not once per program.