by grant » Wed Aug 24, 2016 1:00 pm
I did a little collating of threads for clarity's sake.
I do think we're walking uphill here against a technological/social pressure that Facebook is exerting on all online forums. Or fora, if you prefer. Someday, Facebook will devolve into something else, I think - but it hasn't happened yet.
A thriving community really needs at least five different conversations with entirely different participants (so at least 10 active members, if not more) to really seem healthy to me. Nearly all the healthy communities I see nowadays are all people trying to fix things and appealing to expert problem-solvers for advice (Linux installations, DAW settings, broken appliances). Every "fan" community I know of seems to have moved primarily to some kind of social media... or else transformed into comment threads under, like, regularly posted reviews or podcasts or something (in other words, a small group making a thing every couple of weeks and their readers/listeners talking about the newest thing for a couple of days). That's the phase we're in.
Likely to change eventually.
I did a little collating of threads for clarity's sake.
I do think we're walking uphill here against a technological/social pressure that Facebook is exerting on all online forums. Or fora, if you prefer. Someday, Facebook will devolve into something else, I think - but it hasn't happened yet.
A thriving community really needs at least five different conversations with entirely different participants (so at least 10 active members, if not more) to really seem healthy to me. Nearly all the healthy communities I see nowadays are all people trying to fix things and appealing to expert problem-solvers for advice (Linux installations, DAW settings, broken appliances). Every "fan" community I know of seems to have moved primarily to some kind of social media... or else transformed into comment threads under, like, regularly posted reviews or podcasts or something (in other words, a small group making a [i]thing[/i] every couple of weeks and their readers/listeners talking about the newest [i]thing[/i] for a couple of days). That's the phase we're in.
Likely to change eventually.