I once looked at the board game Civilization, it eventually lead me to researching medieval Britain and what optimized it for social success.
The papers I found largely attributed it to a combination of village population size and proximity.
I did the same for low-technology, un-contacted / minimally contacted tribes.
And found that the population size had a fairly uniform number (iirc average population of tribes was/is 159).
Of course it lead to considering the many geographic regions and time periods.
There's a general theory that a human being is 'designed' to function best within a fairly small, set sized social group.
That size might be around one hundred and fifty nine participants.
It is as though there is a maximum natural social carrying capacity for homo homo sapiens (aka, humans).
So this morning I did the math on this forum, with the above concept in mind 'human beings work best within a social group of 159, plus or minus.'
We currently have 7610 forum members.
vBulletin says that 76 are "active." I do not know what their criteria is (# of visits, posts, views, time on site, private message use, et cetera?).
I think the "active" users on this forum is 40. Based on frequency of reading and posting.
With 7610 total members, of which 76 are active members, that is an active participation rate of 1%
There's a 99% non-active rate.
With 7610 members, of which 40 are active members, that is an active participation rate of 0.55%.
That's a non-active rate of 99.45%
Both of the above are very realistic ratios of active versus nonactive members, based on my experience and knowledge of online platforms.
Based upon those numbers, the LHBA forum should have a social carrying capacity of 29,000 total members before encountering major social issues.
These are just concepts and statistics, reality may differ as can unique circumstances, but I'm optimistic the forum can grow that large and larger (hopefully without major problems).
I do know that without a lot of forethought and preparation, it's easy to end up with a crooked foundation.
Edited to add:
I found the 90/9/1
I'm most comfortable in the 90%, I have often been in the 9%, and rarely am I in the 1%. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/par...on-inequality/
There's no judgment in my toward any of those three categories, people have different goals, comfort level, ambitions, skills, lived experience, et cetera.
The average number of members in low-technology, un-contacted / minimally contacted tribes might be 139. My memory implies it's one or the other.
So all the numbers after that are +- by the difference between 139/159 much.
Last edited by Ellsworth; Today at 04:44 AM.
Reason: No warm up, 15 edits
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