Thanks for this Michael.

What I’ve found is that every group, community, and “platform” has a distinct culture—and that the culture emerges from founders and early users.

It’s up to us to establish the culture here, and we are off to a good start here with Notes, both by way of writing ethos and as supported by some of the different mechanics under the hood.

Culture can also emerge from a specific mission — and I appreciate how you’ve articulated several parts of that.

The most successful and interesting groups that I’ve been part of have made your #3 ‘Lift up others…’ their primary mission.

If we reframe that as a “mission” for Notes, it might be something like:

To support each other as writers.

(as an adjunct to the mission of Substack itself as a platform for our own writing.)

…all of the other things you’ve listed, yes, and, when I think about focusing effort here through the lens of supporting each other, that feels as if it could be really transformative.

🙏🏻