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Douglas_Knight comments on Against Open Threads - Less Wrong Discussion
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This is something like the third time I've joined a community that seemed to think it was in decline. I have a theory: they were, and it is, and this is something I should expect.
Reasoning: A high-quality community will probably grow over time as new users discover it. As it grows, the quality of its user base will inevitably regress to the mean (i.e. decline). More people will experience the community during and after growth than before growth. Therefore, assuming I am a random community member, I should expect the community to be in decline during my tenure.
One could probably do some amusing math by taking growth rate at time T as a function of quality and population at T-1, and quality at time T as a function of quality at T-1 and population change between T and T-1. There is probably a word for that sort of setup but I don't know it.
This is the Doomsday argument.
... aside from the big difference between 'in decline' and 'about to be utterly destroyed'.
I've been places that have been in decline and then resurged to beyond where they were. Not that I see this occurring here any time soon barring something big happening.