Can we talk about how this cycle follows all communities?
The beginning: Mostly pioneers who are fine with chance of failure, fine with putting in work to build community, fine with change / adaptation, high ratio of people who will contribute something without many expectations. High ratio of people who chafe at too many rules.
The middle: Things are popular now. Some pioneers have moved on, being unable to deal with the needed structure to manage large communities, but the mix of people is good and structure is needed anyhow. There are some low effort people around but there are still many contributors. People are starting to have more expectations of something so large and influential, though.
The end: Things are stagnant now. All the pioneers have fled. Those left behind are either 1) low energy people who fear change, fear risk, dislike putting much effort into anything without certainty of reward and thus don’t contribute much or 2) increasingly tired and burnt out community managers who have stayed behind out of a sense of duty to manage the hoards of people in #1.
![[Shitpost] Took a look at Reddit, this is pretty much how it is right now](https://media.kbin.social/15/14/15143627079183cd5bd9606367fdc35969ee7841655e075c315f927971dfe673.png){kind=link}
Can we talk about how this cycle follows all communities?
The beginning: Mostly pioneers who are fine with chance of failure, fine with putting in work to build community, fine with change / adaptation, high ratio of people who will contribute something without many expectations. High ratio of people who chafe at too many rules.
The middle: Things are popular now. Some pioneers have moved on, being unable to deal with the needed structure to manage large communities, but the mix of people is good and structure is needed anyhow. There are some low effort people around but there are still many contributors. People are starting to have more expectations of something so large and influential, though.
The end: Things are stagnant now. All the pioneers have fled. Those left behind are either 1) low energy people who fear change, fear risk, dislike putting much effort into anything without certainty of reward and thus don’t contribute much or 2) increasingly tired and burnt out community managers who have stayed behind out of a sense of duty to manage the hoards of people in #1.
Or maybe I am being too much of a cynic.