Yeah, I don't think so. We keep saying "this will work only this far" but it keeps working. I think the architecture scales, and I think it's in all of our best interests to keep the architecture scaling. It's not like "this will work until suddenly we need moderators" as we've had these little bimbo eruptions before.
The community survives.
I wonder what would happen if a large group with distasteful beliefs all joined Hubski at the same time? Would we see a splintering of sorts where multiple groups coexisted but didn't interact much with each other, or would we see a lot of vicious fighting like in other internet communities? Or something else? Do you think Hubski could survive something like that without moderation?
It's happened several times. We had the CircleJERKERS (the guys who brought you the chimpire), we had Lorelai, we had Team SRS.
What happens is they form their own little circlejerky cadres, recognize that nobody else is interacting with them, and leave.