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I have been thinking about community growth and how the voat fracture has split several communities apart.

Compared to Reddit the userbase at voat was small. To grow a non political sub on voat took work and dedication. It really takes one to two very active and motivated mods to get a sub going and stay going. It’s extremely easy to get burnt out. Over the years the majority of communities on voat have disbanded and have tried to replicate their subs on several platforms. Non have really matched the spark that was voat in its prime (IMO).

I’m curious about how the future of poal and phuks relationship will work and how that relationship will effect community growth.

Phuks seems content on small growth with little to no advertising on other sites were Poal seems the opposite, very eager to gain users and growth. Voat got its growth from Reddit fucking up and Poal was created because Voat is fucking up. Seems fucking up is the growth strategy here.

There’s a lot of cross posts on all three sites. Does this hinder community growth?

Just running “whatever” thoughts I had this morning.

Happy Friday Phukers.

I have been thinking about community growth and how the voat fracture has split several communities apart. Compared to Reddit the userbase at voat was small. To grow a non political sub on voat took work and dedication. It really takes one to two very active and motivated mods to get a sub going and stay going. It’s extremely easy to get burnt out. Over the years the majority of communities on voat have disbanded and have tried to replicate their subs on several platforms. Non have really matched the spark that was voat in its prime (IMO). I’m curious about how the future of poal and phuks relationship will work and how that relationship will effect community growth. Phuks seems content on small growth with little to no advertising on other sites were Poal seems the opposite, very eager to gain users and growth. Voat got its growth from Reddit fucking up and Poal was created because Voat is fucking up. Seems fucking up is the growth strategy here. There’s a lot of cross posts on all three sites. Does this hinder community growth? Just running “whatever” thoughts I had this morning. Happy Friday Phukers.

52 comments

[–] ScorpioGlitch 2 points (+2|-0)

Not my thinking, just plain, simple marketing and business thinking.

Voat had site community cohesiveness but not sub cohesiveness. As a result, people contrary to the goals of the voat community were able to slip in between the cracks, take over subs, behave in a manner contrary to stated site intents. That destroys stickiness. If you want stickiness, you'll have to also moderate trouble-makers.

[–] Hitchens [OP] 3 points (+3|-0) Edited

Voat had site community cohesiveness but not sub cohesiveness

Have time to expand on this?

Are you speaking of general subs and systems subs?

I liked that non general subs could make up their own sub guidelines. One of the reasons I left voat was that little subs with clear rules were being trolled because they didn’t allow all free speech. I thought small subs like the craft subs should be able to inforce rules that keep the topics to crafting.

[–] ScorpioGlitch 1 points (+1|-0) Edited

By "site cohesiveness", I mean that the general population were keen on general free speech even to a point where it was every knee-jerk thing that couldn't be said elsewhere (which itself is a result of sociopolitical pressures both online and in real life).

By "sub cohesiveness," you have very few subs which call users together into a group or sub-community which would survive migration or site shutdown (or PC throught police or whatever else you can think of). Consider on reddit that many towns and states have their own subs where users actually meet up, help each other, trade and sell. Voat has no such thing except for a few rare subs which share in group activities such as playing music, watching movies, and general tomfoolery, and of course the traditional wives sub.

I honestly think that niche subs should be able to do what they want in terms of rules within reason. If you need a wiki to explain your rules, you're doing it wrong. Hence the number of rules a sub should implement should be limited to, say, 4 (just a random low number) which would force them to put only the most important rules of community behavior on the block for enforcement. For example: no trolls, no submissions from site X, all submissions must be on topic, submissions must include "X" in the title. That makes it easy to cause site-wide free speech while providing subs a modicum of control. It also makes it very easy for subs to group together and gain a cohesiveness because, just like cooks in the kitchen, too many rules spoils the sub.