Wendy M. Grossman@1br0wn The question we're about to see answered is whether Mastodon is calmer because of its design and culture, or because it's been *small* up until now. Always in the history of hte INternet, large numbers have tended to bring bad behavior.
Chris Kendall@wendyg @1br0wn @glynmoody There’s an established lifecycle to online communities. It will be the same here. Niche -> friendly -> growth -> factionalism -> disenchantment -> disintegration. If you’ve been on the internet since the 90s you’ve already lived through three or four of these cycles.
Helen Ross@ottocrat @wendyg @1br0wn @glynmoody
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
Natural life cycle of mailing lists (1990's)
1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
@ottocrat @wendyg @1br0wn @glynmoody
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
@ottocrat @wendyg @1br0wn @glynmoody
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person /
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person /
@ottocrat
/1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
/1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
@ottocrat 6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).
OR
@ottocrat 6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after).
@ottocrat
Horribly long but genuine 1990's perceeptions.
Horribly long but genuine 1990's perceeptions.
@Tighnacoille Indeed. There’s a 6c: billionaire with an agenda buys platform and wrecks it. But the fediverse has in principle innoculated itself against that.
@ottocrat
would have posted the link to that piece but it is marked insecure. That's entropy for you!
would have posted the link to that piece but it is marked insecure. That's entropy for you!