Re:Ask HN: Is it true that any community that grows big enou...
by btbuildem on Friday May 13, 2022 @02:58PM
(#31371303)
What about thinking about this in terms of phase transition and emergence?
Just like water remains liquid above 0 degrees and below 100, but turns into steam at 100 or above -- let's imagine there's some threshold of (say) community size where the old structure fails and a new structure emerges.
The only example I can think of right now is Reddit with the various subreddits. The ones that are more topic-focused, below a certain number of users -- these tend to be informative, interesting and civilized. The ones with millions of users, or ones that are quite generic -- they seem to be reliable cesspools of poor manners and mundane content.
So perhaps some properties of communities are emergent, and their manifestation depends on the scale of a community?
Just like water remains liquid above 0 degrees and below 100, but turns into steam at 100 or above -- let's imagine there's some threshold of (say) community size where the old structure fails and a new structure emerges.
The only example I can think of right now is Reddit with the various subreddits. The ones that are more topic-focused, below a certain number of users -- these tend to be informative, interesting and civilized. The ones with millions of users, or ones that are quite generic -- they seem to be reliable cesspools of poor manners and mundane content.
So perhaps some properties of communities are emergent, and their manifestation depends on the scale of a community?