You know a group chat has gone off the rails when someone asks for credentials. "Well, what's your background in this?" Or worse — "that came across as pretty condescending."

The moment that happens, something's already broken. A good group chat runs on collegiality — people sharing what they've learned, building on each other's thinking, assuming good intent. Nobody's pulling rank because nobody needs to. The ideas speak for themselves.

But get the dynamics wrong, and you end up in a place where people are defending their right to have an opinion instead of actually exchanging them. The magic is gone, and it's very hard to get back.

I've been in a lot of group chats — mostly on WhatsApp — and the gap between the great ones and the terrible ones is enormous. It comes down to three things: who's in the room, who set the tone, and whether people are advancing the conversation or just occupying space in it.

A group chat is like casting a movie. Every person you add changes the dynamic.

The best groups I've been in share a specific context. Not "people who are generally interesting" — people working on the same thing right now.

Take the Claude Code groups I'm in. The ones that work aren't "AI enthusiasts." They're people actively building with the same tool, hitting the same walls, at roughly the same skill level. Someone posts a problem, three people recognize it because they hit it last Tuesday.

The ones that don't work split between people who joined "to learn" and deep practitioners. Neither group gets what they need.

This doesn't mean small is always better. A 200-person group can work — but the shared context has to be sharper to compensate for the size.

If you created the group, you're the culture setter. The first week is wet concrete.

Model what you want. If you want high-signal posts, your first ten messages better be high-signal. People don't read rules. They read the room.

Be opinionated early. The instinct is to be welcoming — "share whatever!" — but that's how you get noise. This group is for X. We talk about Y. When you share something, include Z. People don't resent opinionated norms. They're relieved by them. Walking into a group with clear expectations is easier than guessing what's appropriate.

Onboard into the culture, not just the group. When someone new joins a group that's been running for months, they see a wall of messages and have to guess. A quick DM — "here's what this group is about, here's how we use it" — takes 30 seconds and prevents weeks of drift.

Prune. Sometimes the dynamic shifts because of one or two people who don't match the culture. Your job is to address it — privately, directly, kindly. Most people won't, which is why most large groups eventually degrade.

Small groups are forgiving. In a 100+ person chat, one tangent buries an important thread under 60 messages in twenty minutes.

Lurkers being the majority is fine — it's the model. A large group is part conversation, part ambient knowledge feed. But one loud voice has outsized impact. In a 6-person chat, someone who responds to everything is annoying. In a 150-person chat, they set the culture.

And the death spiral is specific: quality drops → best contributors go quiet → casual members mute → the only people left talking are the ones who drove everyone else out. By the time you notice, it's too late.

WhatsApp makes this harder — no threads. Every tangent plays out in the main chat. Two people going back and forth about something niche can bury a question the whole group would've benefited from answering.

Think of a group chat like a soccer match. The best players receive the ball, advance it, and pass. They don't dribble in circles at midfield.

Advancing the ball: adding information nobody had. Asking a question that sharpens the discussion. "I tried that — here's what happened."

Occupying the airspace: restating what someone said, slightly rephrased. Reacting to every message. Writing paragraphs when a sentence would do.

The worst behavior is the person who responds to everything but advances nothing. The chat feels active but is actually useless. Thirty new messages, and you close it knowing exactly as much as before. In a small group, that's annoying. In a large group, it's fatal — because the people who do advance the ball feel drowned out, so they stop. Then all you have left is noise.

The best contributors are often the quietest. They lurk for 20 messages, then drop one that changes the direction of the conversation.

A good group chat culture gives people permission to not respond. An emoji reaction is almost always better than a message that says "great point."

The test of a good group isn't how many messages it generates. It's whether people open it on purpose — not to clear a notification, but because they want to see what's there.

You know a group chat has gone off the rails when someone asks for credentials. "Well, what's your background in this?" Or worse — "that came across as pretty condescending."

The moment that happens, something's already broken. A good group chat runs on collegiality — people sharing what they've learned, building on each other's thinking, assuming good intent. Nobody's pulling rank because nobody needs to. The ideas speak for themselves.

But get the dynamics wrong, and you end up in a place where people are defending their right to have an opinion instead of actually exchanging them. The magic is gone, and it's very hard to get back.

I've been in a lot of group chats — mostly on WhatsApp — and the gap between the great ones and the terrible ones is enormous. It comes down to three things: who's in the room, who set the tone, and whether people are advancing the conversation or just occupying space in it.

A group chat is like casting a movie. Every person you add changes the dynamic.

The best groups I've been in share a specific context. Not "people who are generally interesting" — people working on the same thing right now.

Take the Claude Code groups I'm in. The ones that work aren't "AI enthusiasts." They're people actively building with the same tool, hitting the same walls, at roughly the same skill level. Someone posts a problem, three people recognize it because they hit it last Tuesday.

The ones that don't work split between people who joined "to learn" and deep practitioners. Neither group gets what they need.

This doesn't mean small is always better. A 200-person group can work — but the shared context has to be sharper to compensate for the size.

If you created the group, you're the culture setter. The first week is wet concrete.

Model what you want. If you want high-signal posts, your first ten messages better be high-signal. People don't read rules. They read the room.

Be opinionated early. The instinct is to be welcoming — "share whatever!" — but that's how you get noise. This group is for X. We talk about Y. When you share something, include Z. People don't resent opinionated norms. They're relieved by them. Walking into a group with clear expectations is easier than guessing what's appropriate.

Onboard into the culture, not just the group. When someone new joins a group that's been running for months, they see a wall of messages and have to guess. A quick DM — "here's what this group is about, here's how we use it" — takes 30 seconds and prevents weeks of drift.

Prune. Sometimes the dynamic shifts because of one or two people who don't match the culture. Your job is to address it — privately, directly, kindly. Most people won't, which is why most large groups eventually degrade.

Small groups are forgiving. In a 100+ person chat, one tangent buries an important thread under 60 messages in twenty minutes.

Lurkers being the majority is fine — it's the model. A large group is part conversation, part ambient knowledge feed. But one loud voice has outsized impact. In a 6-person chat, someone who responds to everything is annoying. In a 150-person chat, they set the culture.

And the death spiral is specific: quality drops → best contributors go quiet → casual members mute → the only people left talking are the ones who drove everyone else out. By the time you notice, it's too late.

WhatsApp makes this harder — no threads. Every tangent plays out in the main chat. Two people going back and forth about something niche can bury a question the whole group would've benefited from answering.

Think of a group chat like a soccer match. The best players receive the ball, advance it, and pass. They don't dribble in circles at midfield.

Advancing the ball: adding information nobody had. Asking a question that sharpens the discussion. "I tried that — here's what happened."

Occupying the airspace: restating what someone said, slightly rephrased. Reacting to every message. Writing paragraphs when a sentence would do.

The worst behavior is the person who responds to everything but advances nothing. The chat feels active but is actually useless. Thirty new messages, and you close it knowing exactly as much as before. In a small group, that's annoying. In a large group, it's fatal — because the people who do advance the ball feel drowned out, so they stop. Then all you have left is noise.

The best contributors are often the quietest. They lurk for 20 messages, then drop one that changes the direction of the conversation.

A good group chat culture gives people permission to not respond. An emoji reaction is almost always better than a message that says "great point."

The test of a good group isn't how many messages it generates. It's whether people open it on purpose — not to clear a notification, but because they want to see what's there.