In 2020, many of us woke up one day to realize that all our casual meetings with colleagues, collaborators and friends could no longer safely take place face-to-face.  While many projects have long had an online presence, ranging from digital forums, to WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, and Slack channels, these online communities were often augmenting real-world activities, or at least weren’t the primary means through which community members socially engaged with other people. With the COVID pandemic, however, online astronomy communities became a safety net for members who sometimes just needed to scream into the void and know they were being heard. 

 

At the time of this writing, there is some hope that COVID will be brought under control (although it isn’t a given), but even if vaccines in time allow this hurdle to be overcome, the environmental impacts of travel, and the possibility of future pandemics makes it necessary for us to build robust online communities that not only support our audiences in learning and doing astronomy, but that also address our audience members as humans who need and want to engage with others socially. 

 

In this talk, Pamela and Avivah will share their experiences growing communities of astronomy enthusiasts, learners, and citizen scientists. They will leverage their lessons learned to walk you through the questions you must ask in defining a new community, and the actions you can take to make your community safe and nurturing for new members. We will look specifically at how to handle non-neurotypical community members, strategies for addressing deeply held misconceptions, how to leave room for people to make mistakes while keeping the community safe, and tactics for making sure all feel welcome. Sometimes, the needed actions are as simple as addressing anyone who hasn’t stated their gender as “they.” Come learn from our mistakes, and let’s together build more places for people to come together around astronomy.

 

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