Why would the community average dropping mean we go bust? I’d think our success is more related to the community total. Yes, there are some costs to having more people around who don’t know as much, but it’s further claim that these would outweigh the benefits.
Yup, existing EA’s do not disappear if we go bust in this way. But I’m pretty convinced that it would still be very bad. Roughly, the community dies, even if the people making it up don’t vanish. Trust/discussion/reputation dry up, the cluster of people who consider themselves “EA” are now very different from the current thing, and that cluster kinda starts doing different stuff on its own. Further community-building efforts just grow the new thing, not “real” EA.
I think in this scenario the best thing to do is for the core of old-fashioned EA’s to basically disassociate with this new thing, come up with a different name/brand, and start the community-building project over again.
Why would the community average dropping mean we go bust? I’d think our success is more related to the community total. Yes, there are some costs to having more people around who don’t know as much, but it’s further claim that these would outweigh the benefits.
Yup, existing EA’s do not disappear if we go bust in this way. But I’m pretty convinced that it would still be very bad. Roughly, the community dies, even if the people making it up don’t vanish. Trust/discussion/reputation dry up, the cluster of people who consider themselves “EA” are now very different from the current thing, and that cluster kinda starts doing different stuff on its own. Further community-building efforts just grow the new thing, not “real” EA.
I think in this scenario the best thing to do is for the core of old-fashioned EA’s to basically disassociate with this new thing, come up with a different name/brand, and start the community-building project over again.