The First Hundred Members Decide Everything

Everything a community becomes is set by its first hundred members. Not by its features, not by its rules, and certainly not by its landing page. Those hundred people teach everyone who follows what normal looks like here.

Culture Is Taught by Example, Not by Document

New members do not read the guidelines. They read the last twenty posts and copy them. If those twenty posts are generous, detailed and willing to admit uncertainty, that is what gets copied. If they are point-scoring, that gets copied too.

Seed the Behaviour You Want to Keep

For the first year, the founding members answered every single question, however basic, within a day. It was unsustainable and it was the right call. It established that asking here gets you an answer, which is the only promise a community really makes.

Grow Slower Than You Can

We turned down two offers to be posted to large aggregator sites in the first year. A hundred people arriving at once do not learn the culture, they replace it. Growth that outpaces the moderator team is not growth, it is dilution.

The Metric We Actually Watch

Not signups. Not daily actives. The percentage of questions that receive a substantive reply within twenty-four hours. When that number falls, everything else follows within a month, and it is the only leading indicator we have found that is worth acting on.