However, that can happen whether it grows quickly or slowly.
Yes, but one of the things that effects wether someone is a good user or bad user is how well they acculturate. From what I understand, sites with a high old timer to newb ratio usually have an easier time acculturating the newbs.
That’s not what I meant… Imagine a curve that gets more and more steep as it progresses. In the first quarter of a year, say a website gets 1000 new users. In the second quarter of the year, it gets 1500 new users. In the third quarter of the year, 2250 new users.
In the second quarter, 2⁄3 of the members are old members, 1⁄3 of the members are new. In the third quarter, the ratio changes because there are so many new members—nearly half the members are new. In the fourth quarter, an even larger number of new members joins, and suddenly there are more new members than old ones. If this keeps up for any length of time, the culture will be totally destroyed.
Whether you start with 20 members and increase it by an increment of 1 and 1⁄4 the amount of users every quarter, or start with 1000 and increase it by an increment if 1 and 1⁄2 the number of users every quarter, if the number of users keeps increasing this way, eventually it will get to a point where the ratio flips and there are more new users than old ones.
It doesn’t matter whether that type of growth happens quickly or slowly. If the growth is exponential there’s a good risk of that eventually happening. Slow growth might mean it happens next year, fast growth might mean it happens next month. Either way, it’s important to protect the community from that problem.
I think you’re missing my point. Does your model have any allowance for the idea that new members can eventually become old members, and that this process is speed up by new members interacting with old members? Because the main point that I was trying to make is that a large portion (though nowhere near all) of a user’s desirability is how well they absorb the culture, and that culture can survive (more or less) intact through multiple “generations” if at any given point in time a large enough proportion of people have already acculturated. Consider a toy model were users can be discreetly divided into “old-hands” and “newbs”. In this toy model newbs turn into old-hands in x weeks iff at least 50% of the other users are old-hands (who can set a proper example), otherwise the culture collapses. In this case the culture can survive indefinitely iff the doubling time is longer than x.
Yes, but one of the things that effects wether someone is a good user or bad user is how well they acculturate. From what I understand, sites with a high old timer to newb ratio usually have an easier time acculturating the newbs.
That’s not what I meant… Imagine a curve that gets more and more steep as it progresses. In the first quarter of a year, say a website gets 1000 new users. In the second quarter of the year, it gets 1500 new users. In the third quarter of the year, 2250 new users.
In the second quarter, 2⁄3 of the members are old members, 1⁄3 of the members are new. In the third quarter, the ratio changes because there are so many new members—nearly half the members are new. In the fourth quarter, an even larger number of new members joins, and suddenly there are more new members than old ones. If this keeps up for any length of time, the culture will be totally destroyed.
Whether you start with 20 members and increase it by an increment of 1 and 1⁄4 the amount of users every quarter, or start with 1000 and increase it by an increment if 1 and 1⁄2 the number of users every quarter, if the number of users keeps increasing this way, eventually it will get to a point where the ratio flips and there are more new users than old ones.
It doesn’t matter whether that type of growth happens quickly or slowly. If the growth is exponential there’s a good risk of that eventually happening. Slow growth might mean it happens next year, fast growth might mean it happens next month. Either way, it’s important to protect the community from that problem.
I think you’re missing my point. Does your model have any allowance for the idea that new members can eventually become old members, and that this process is speed up by new members interacting with old members? Because the main point that I was trying to make is that a large portion (though nowhere near all) of a user’s desirability is how well they absorb the culture, and that culture can survive (more or less) intact through multiple “generations” if at any given point in time a large enough proportion of people have already acculturated. Consider a toy model were users can be discreetly divided into “old-hands” and “newbs”. In this toy model newbs turn into old-hands in x weeks iff at least 50% of the other users are old-hands (who can set a proper example), otherwise the culture collapses. In this case the culture can survive indefinitely iff the doubling time is longer than x.