I think it's been at step 3 for longer than most sites have last. I know I'm part of group 2, but I've seen a somewhat consistent culture since I arrived over five years ago.

Looks like you joined about 5 1/2 years ago. I'm surprised you think you're part of Group #2.

Before what date do you think people can be group #1? Or are you ascribing the group number to contributions rather than date of joining?

When a friend first recommended hackernews to me it didn't show up in google searches. So I gave up. I think techcrunch finally led me to finding it. By the time I actually created an account(just 10 days before nathan^), people were already complaining about the deterioration of the community, so I assumed I was in group 2.

I am most definitely Group #2. I wish I was Group #1, but I was too loyal to /. (and a few other sites), and after /. got DICEd along with the 'f*ck beta' stuff I jumped ship to Soylentnews.org which had an okay community but a rather fascist set of admins (despite what their manifesto says).

So after a few months of lurking, I registered here, and now it's my daily[1] go-to site.

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[1] Hourly. :)

That's exactly how I felt.

I, along with a lot of people, joined HN in 2008 after Techcrunch wrote about it. That's pretty close to "Group 2 joins" and yet 9 years later HN persists!

I get the feeling a lot of group #1 left in between 2010 and 2012. There are still tons of folks here who made accounts on day one, but a lot of the more conservative or libertarian leaning folks seem to have migrated to other communities around that time.

>other communities

lobste.rs ?

I think there's more keeping things in check here than at ./ when group #2 joined.

I'm definitely in group 2. Possibly in group 3 if that's a thing.

I think I am 'Group 3'. My account is 4 1/2 years old and I was a 'read only' site visitor for a while before that.

So there were the people who got here first, then the people who discovered the site in 2008, which was a long time ago, and have fair claim to being 'group 2'.

So I think 'Group 3' is me. A defining characteristic of 'Group 3' is that goes back to pre-Snowden times, before the truth was known. Kids today must be 'Group 4'.

This reminds me of A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man:

https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...