All happy online communities are alike . . .
February 26, 2021 11:22 AM Subscribe
A Life-Cycle Perspective on Online Community Success. In 2009, Iriberri and Leroy surveyed 27 peer reviewed, empirical articles about online communities and identified four stages of online community development:
1. Inception
2. Establishment
3. Maturity
4. Mitosis (or death)
The original article [PDF] makes for fascinating reading, and has been cited 456 times.
Fortunately, various blog entries summarize the contents for us.
The authors also sought to identify common success metrics:
The most common metrics used in the empirical research we reviewed were volume of members’ contribution and quality of relationships among members. Researchers who focus on measuring success agree that, the larger the volume of messages posted and the closer members feel to each other, the more successful the online community becomes.
Also of interest: What the Well's Rise and Fall Tells Us About Online Communities [linked previously on Mefi]
The WELL has never been an entirely mellow place. It's possible to get thrown out for being obnoxious, but only after weeks of "thrash," as WELLbeings call long, drawn-out, repetitive, and often nasty meta-conversations about how to go about deciding how to make decisions. As a consequence of a lack of marketing budget , of the proliferation of so many other places to socialize online, and (in my opinion) as a consequence of this tolerance for free speech at the price of civility (which I would never want the WELL to excise; it's part of what makes the WELL the WELL), the growth of the WELL population topped out at around 5000 at its height in the mid-1990s. It's been declining ever since.
The authors also sought to identify common success metrics:
The most common metrics used in the empirical research we reviewed were volume of members’ contribution and quality of relationships among members. Researchers who focus on measuring success agree that, the larger the volume of messages posted and the closer members feel to each other, the more successful the online community becomes.
Also of interest: What the Well's Rise and Fall Tells Us About Online Communities [linked previously on Mefi]
The WELL has never been an entirely mellow place. It's possible to get thrown out for being obnoxious, but only after weeks of "thrash," as WELLbeings call long, drawn-out, repetitive, and often nasty meta-conversations about how to go about deciding how to make decisions. As a consequence of a lack of marketing budget , of the proliferation of so many other places to socialize online, and (in my opinion) as a consequence of this tolerance for free speech at the price of civility (which I would never want the WELL to excise; it's part of what makes the WELL the WELL), the growth of the WELL population topped out at around 5000 at its height in the mid-1990s. It's been declining ever since.
“tolerance for free speech at the price of civility” sounds like just the sort of place I'd nope the hell away from.
posted by scruss at 12:18 PM on February 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by scruss at 12:18 PM on February 26, 2021 [10 favorites]
Yeah....2009.
posted by Miko at 12:31 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Miko at 12:31 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
this tolerance for free speech at the price of civility
Nope. We’ve learned the hard way that communities that collectively believe those are in opposition, that you trade one off against the other, are already dying.
posted by mhoye at 2:48 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Nope. We’ve learned the hard way that communities that collectively believe those are in opposition, that you trade one off against the other, are already dying.
posted by mhoye at 2:48 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
There are happy online communities?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:30 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:30 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
The original article is really interesting. Though it is very 2009, it's less dated than I would have thought, and it seems like it might still have some relevant stuff to offer to some of the discussions I've seen around here of late. As Miko said, the original article has two possible end-stages for online communities: Maturity or Death.
According to the article, some of the factors leading to successful community Maturity include...
- Recognition of contributions & loyalty - this is the biggest one, and includes lots of subfactors like recognition of members by operators, recognition of volunteers, recognition of participation with positive feedback, recognizing uniqueness of contribution, and other factors.
- "Permeated management and control," which includes things like integration of members into the administration of the community, support for volunteerism, and facilitators to monitor and control behavior
- Subgroup establishment & management
- Regular online events
- Member satisfaction management
And according to the article, some of the factors leading to community Death include...
- Undersupply of content
- Poor participation
- Unorganized contributions
- Transient membership
- Members with weak ties
- Lack of anonymity
- Concerns about privacy and safety
- Shyness about public posting
I recognize some of Metafilter in both of those lists. It's worth checking out the article itself -- those lists are just a summary of the sections beginning on page 11:22 of the original article.
It's also interesting to note how closely our peak size seems to match up to The WELL's. I appreciate the note of hope in Rheingold's article: "Once they achieve a critical mass, and once they survive for twenty-five odd years, virtual communities can be harder to kill than you'd think."
posted by ourobouros at 3:41 PM on February 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
According to the article, some of the factors leading to successful community Maturity include...
- Recognition of contributions & loyalty - this is the biggest one, and includes lots of subfactors like recognition of members by operators, recognition of volunteers, recognition of participation with positive feedback, recognizing uniqueness of contribution, and other factors.
- "Permeated management and control," which includes things like integration of members into the administration of the community, support for volunteerism, and facilitators to monitor and control behavior
- Subgroup establishment & management
- Regular online events
- Member satisfaction management
And according to the article, some of the factors leading to community Death include...
- Undersupply of content
- Poor participation
- Unorganized contributions
- Transient membership
- Members with weak ties
- Lack of anonymity
- Concerns about privacy and safety
- Shyness about public posting
I recognize some of Metafilter in both of those lists. It's worth checking out the article itself -- those lists are just a summary of the sections beginning on page 11:22 of the original article.
It's also interesting to note how closely our peak size seems to match up to The WELL's. I appreciate the note of hope in Rheingold's article: "Once they achieve a critical mass, and once they survive for twenty-five odd years, virtual communities can be harder to kill than you'd think."
posted by ourobouros at 3:41 PM on February 26, 2021 [8 favorites]
I missed that "active users per month" chart.
https://imgur.com/3PWuOFq
This makes me sad.
posted by mecran01 at 9:03 AM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
https://imgur.com/3PWuOFq
This makes me sad.
posted by mecran01 at 9:03 AM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
fwiw, when I was working in online community, which is sort of a while ago now, my experience was that the factors delineated above can make all the difference. Setting, and holding, a positive and appreciative (and engaged) tone for the community ripples out, and that becomes the norm, which then is the mode that is reinforced by the community members. If you do it right, essentially the community becomes self-policing, for the most part, which clear standards of acceptable behavior and status. And a good community is worth its weight, so to speak.
posted by emmet at 11:58 AM on February 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by emmet at 11:58 AM on February 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much of it is still applicable to platform-based communities such as ones on Facebook or Reddit, where people are members of the platform first, and then members of many communities, some of them the size of countries (Iriberri and Leroy briefly mention MySpace and Facebook, but they did not include them in their study). Platform-based communities seem much more fluid due to their minimal building cost, with creation and mitosis (and drama...) being just a click away, so there are temporary communities (meant to die once their purpose has been fulfilled), small communities (such as pre-Facebook ones like MetaFilter, whose life cycle is described in the article) and then tentpoles communities that can only die once the platform dies.
I missed that "active users per month" chart.
Here's an update for 2021 (projected site death: 2029). Still not looking good (the number of active commenters was down to less than 2100 in December 2020) but there were nice upticks in November and January, probably due to the US election.
posted by elgilito at 3:53 PM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I missed that "active users per month" chart.
Here's an update for 2021 (projected site death: 2029). Still not looking good (the number of active commenters was down to less than 2100 in December 2020) but there were nice upticks in November and January, probably due to the US election.
posted by elgilito at 3:53 PM on February 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
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The "mitosis" articles come from some other people adapting the Iriberri and Leroy model to their own ends, mainly commercial/analytics consultant ends, AFAICT. I was interested in this question because, from a life cycle perspective, MeFi has already undergone mitosis many times, even early in its life cycle: MonkeyFilter, MetaChat, SportsFilter, etc. Mitosis doesn't seem like a stage so much as a constant.
Anyway, the "death" factors are interesting, as is the notion that death is preventable by working more on the maturity/growth factors.
posted by Miko at 12:18 PM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]