Communities of Practice
You don't learn a craft from a manual. You learn it by hanging around people who already do it.
Grounded in the research on Community of practice (Wikipedia)
What it actually is
A community of practice is a group of people who share a craft and get better at it by interacting regularly. Coined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Their whole claim: learning isn't a thing in your head, it's social participation. You become good at something by joining the people who already are.
The 3 parts (all required)
Wenger says a real CoP needs three things or it's just a club. Domain: a shared area you actually care about. Community: people who interact, help each other, build trust. Practice: a shared toolkit of stories, tricks, and ways of doing the thing. Miss one and it collapses. A group chat with no shared craft is community without practice. A subreddit of lurkers is domain without community.