This is an article written by my technical co-founder Joyqi on the occasion of ONES’ acquisition of the SegmentFault community; the original was published here. It also captures some of his small reflections on ten years of entrepreneurship, and is reproduced here in full.
Dear friends of the SegmentFault community — by now you’ve probably heard through various channels that SegmentFault is joining ONES. This year also happens to be the 10th anniversary of the SegmentFault community. Interestingly, the number “10” represents a carry into a new digit in both decimal and the binary world of computers — and I think it perfectly symbolizes what this acquisition, and this decade, mean for our community. This is an evolution!
The Ideal
Ten years ago I wrote the first line of code for SegmentFault. It started from a simple idea: let developers communicate better in Chinese. Of course, there’s no question about English’s status as the lingua franca of software development — it has also contributed the largest and finest body of knowledge in the computing world. But with the rise of software development and the internet in China, more and more Chinese-speaking developers were unable to discuss this cutting-edge knowledge in their native language, and we had no access to a first-class community environment. This created a de facto information asymmetry — and as a developer, I couldn’t turn a blind eye to a bug that big.
The SegmentFault community was built to eliminate knowledge inequality among developers. We want to bring developers’ wisdom together. We want to build a powerful community.
Fortunately, since the community was founded, the ideal has never left us — if anything, it has only become clearer. More and more users have been building this community with us in ways we never imagined. We met each other in the community, and we’ve used knowledge to change the world. Now ONES has joined us too. We don’t see this as merely a business transaction — it means our community philosophy has been recognized, and it means more strength is willing to join us in realizing our ideal.
Consensus
The core of a community is consensus.
In today’s world, division seems to be the theme — distrust and non-cooperation fill the internet. But looking back across human history, a mindset of division has always led to weakness. Accomplishing great things requires collaboration, and the foundation of collaboration is consensus.
As a Q&A community for Chinese-speaking developers, our goal is to harness developers’ collective wisdom. So we encourage sharing and embrace openness. We believe information asymmetry holds back productivity, and we will do everything we can to break down the walls around knowledge. We want knowledge to spread more efficiently, and we want professional, reliable knowledge to benefit everyone.
Back to Zero, Carrying Into One
As we step over the ten-year threshold, a broader sky opens before us. The crosswinds of the era may blow around us, but the flame in our hearts burns ever stronger. Everything from these ten years is now behind us — standing at this new starting line, the past has been reset to zero, while a new self stands ready to set off.
Now it’s time to keep moving toward our ideal, faster. We extend an invitation to every developer: let’s get knowledge flowing, and build a more open, inclusive, and progressive community together.
Ning Qi
Shenzhen, May 4, 2022