# The life cycle of Internet forums



## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

http://corte.si/posts/socialmedia/trouble-with-social-news.html

My final beef with social news is a problem that it shares with pretty much all online communities, especially technical ones. We're all familiar with the life-cycle of technical forums. They start with a small community of insiders who create value, which then attracts more people to participate, which then dilutes the quality of the contributions (and often introduces a few pathological bad actors), which then causes the good contributors to move on, which causes the magic well to dry up. Everyone then take their toys and move to the next community, and the cycle repeats. We saw this with Usenet and the original C2 wiki, and we are seeing it now with Hacker News and many technical subreddits all at various points in this life-cycle.

http://archive.foolz.us/q/thread/425551/#428010

This really happens to every small subculture over time. At first, creative people gather and have interesting discussions and generate good content. Other people who are not as creative, but appreciate the content arrive to lurk. Over time, the original posters get bored and leave. This can be due to any reason at all, even just growing older and acquiring new interests. The lurkers remain and begin posting, but the posts are of a lesser quality. New "good" posters do not arrive because the culture is already entrenched and there's less room for creativity. It may also be perceived as being in decline, which is really off-putting.

Thoughts? Has anyone experienced Community Collapse Disorder? I have.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I have. It's called the USA.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

^ did "all the good posters" take their toys and move to Europe?


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Yeah I didn't do too well in sociology, I'll sit this one out


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Those unfortunate insiders! I suppose it can be ascribed to "the curse of genius."


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Sounds like the Roman Empire to me.........

So who is Caligula here lol


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## Rola (May 27, 2013)

brianwalker said:


> Has anyone experienced Community Collapse Disorder? I have.


After _only_ 10 years spent on Internet forums, I think I know what you mean.

What's worse - assuming we're talking strictly about _forums_ here - all those trendy social networks are taking over. So many people leaving with "I moved to Facebook now".
For me Facebook can't be a substitute to a forum, because it has the structure of a blog. The only good thing about it is that new users don't have to register (all that hassle with logins and passwords), but simply join in.


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