This is a rep-host of an article originally written here on Medium.

I thought it'd be a nice idea to start 2020 with a quick post on the ZATech Slack group's analytics and turns out it's been almost exactly 5 years since the first messages were sent.

As it stands there's just over 8'000 people registered with 1'200 weekly active and 680 public channels. Seems as though not everyone's back at their desks after the December holidays, November's high was 1'500 active.

It's been an interesting journey being an accidental community manager. Especially in ways that are a lot more emotionally difficult and complicated than I ever saw coming. My hope is that all the hard things result in a net positive for the community at large.

Since the start the project's scope has been quite purposefully constrained to just being the Slack group and in an as much as possible a "hands off" way. As 2020 evolves it feels like a good time for me to make some decisions about the future of the group and my involvement therein.

There's a balance to be found where with the group growing it requires more hands on work, more massaging, guiding etc. It's growth also brings opportunity to do more organised things like a podcast, newsletter, knowledge base, sponsorship, events and be a platform for those in the community doing awesome things.

Whether that's the right direction to head, and whether it's the right thing for me personally awaits to be seen, so here's to figuring things out in 2020!

@n1c