Is there a real danger, or is the influx of new members only a temporary phenomenon?
IMHO a large temporary influx of new members like LW has had over the last 6 months is a real danger to the quality of the conversation on LW because once enough of the “pillars of the community” become discouraged and leave, nothing short of the establishment of a new web site or some kind of “hard reset” of LW would have a significant probability of bringing the quality back again.
We seem to be holding for now, but my impression is that we could easily go off course in a mere matter of months if we don’t tread carefully.
We need to analyze what the top contributors think and feel about the community and what motivates them to participate. We also need to figure out what the masses of registered posters are like, when did they arrive and for what periods they where active.
IMHO a large temporary influx of new members like LW has had over the last 6 months is a real danger to the quality of the conversation on LW because once enough of the “pillars of the community” become discouraged and leave, nothing short of the establishment of a new web site or some kind of “hard reset” of LW would have a significant probability of bringing the quality back again.
We seem to be holding for now, but my impression is that we could easily go off course in a mere matter of months if we don’t tread carefully.
We need to analyze what the top contributors think and feel about the community and what motivates them to participate. We also need to figure out what the masses of registered posters are like, when did they arrive and for what periods they where active.