The software exists to improve your life, not the other way round

I wish this project well and as a geek it sounds like the kind of thing that could interest me. But from a non-geek perspective it seems navel-gazing. As a non-techie using a completely vanilla program like a word processor, why would I want to see other users of the same application? So we can form an incestuous online community, congratulating ourselves on our choice of software? There is already more than enough of that.

If you're a programmer then you can easily stay in touch with an app's developers by following the mailing list or tracking them on one of the emerging 'social coding' sites such as Github. There is a middle ground of technically competent users who would be willing to help reproduce bugs, contribute translations and offer help to others. I suppose anything that helps these people to help each other is a good thing. Just keep the everyday user interface simple and polished, and don't frighten off new or conservative users by giving the impression that to use Linux or KDE you have to join some kind of cult.