diff --git a/blog/postdrome-2022-02-26.markdown b/blog/postdrome-2022-02-26.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1549c4e --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/postdrome-2022-02-26.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +--- +title: Postdrome +date: 2022-02-26 +series: freenode +--- + +The darkness flailed around, the millions it expected did not follow. The +numbers the darkness was fostering had faltered more and more. The replacement +to the halls the darkness destroyed continued on like the old halls never +existed. + +The darkness felt true loneliness for the first time in its life. Everyone was +leaving. Attempts to grow its influence failed. Association with the darkness +became an indelible stain like the mark of Cain. Every attempt to scrub it ended +up staining the mark deeper and deeper until the stain defined the darkness even +more than its namesake. + +Ideas spring forth. Public works blossomed for brief moments. Ideas on how to +leverage new discoveries were put into place, only to rot into decay and +eventually succumb to their inherent irrelevance. + +--- + +In the early phase, communities often fail. For every success you see in the +wild, hundreds and thousands more have failed. + +Everything has to go right. If any of a hundred thousand things go wrong, your +community fails. If you mess up, you fail. If one of your moderators +misinterprets a vaguely defined rule due to fundamental differences in worldview +and ends up creating a scene as a result, you fail. + +If you build it, they will come. If you don't know what you are building or the +people that want to use it, you will never be able to predict the kind of people +that show up. + +Those people that do show up may not be the people you want to show up at all. +Even if they can be good in the moment it doesn't mean they'll be good +persistently. Every rose has its thorns, some are more ignorable than others. +Some are more palateable than others. Some are more viable to pivot from than +others. + +--- + +Not to mention the meddling effects of the urinators stirring up fake activity +to later defecate all over the community in a thick slather of oil that scared +away new people even more. + +The good name of the halls had been shattered and there was nothing the darkness +could do about it. It was irreparable. The darkness had destroyed his reputation +in turn with those halls. Bardic inspiration failed too. + +--- + +If the wrong people come, you run the risk of [accidentally creating a Nazi +bar](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/hsiisw/kicking_a_nazi_out_as_soon_as_they_walk_in/). +If they fester, your community suffers a fate worse than death. Your community +becomes a stain on your name. + +You become associated with that community if you don't kick them out, yet at the +same time if you try to kick them out you'll kill your community instantly. At +that point your monthly active users will all be the people you don't want and +it becomes easier to kill the community outright than it is to try to trim the +wheat from the chaff. + +If there is any wheat left. + +--- + +High charisma and low wisdom created a fuel to blast the darkness into +irrelevance, and into that irrelevance it faded. The relevance of the darkness +has since vanished like a grain of sait in an ocean. + +A lesson for the ages: do not destroy communities and expect to have good will +from the people in those communities. + +--- + +Sometimes communities need to die and it is hard to pull the plug on them. It +always hurts. You will be tempted to leave it on life support, even just to not +feel the emotions. It gets worse if you wait longer. It becomes more agonizing. + +It is better to rip off the bandaid and clean the wound than it is to let the +infection grow. Each idle question by someone that means well about how that +community is going rips into you like serrated knives coated in salt. People +desperately try to make the community cling to life but one by one they give up +after realizing the futility of it all. + +That doesn't change how much it hurts to even _conceive_ giving up on that +community in the moment. It's understandable why someone wouldn't want to throw +in the towel and would instead opt to let things fade naturally.