So... Do you think its possible to maintain the commune as it grows? I think about this a lot actually. Recently i pruned back the people I follow, like way back, to just the ones i felt i had really connected with in some way. Some others i removed for different reasons even though i had interacted with them. I'm testing what affect it has on my experience with the community here.
Good point. Is it possible to maintain the sense of community by keeping one's number of connections to a certain number. Quality vs. quantity. What is the general target number that seems to work? I'm at 36 followers and follow 32. Seems just right for me.
I wonder if the Dunbar number has been applied to online communities yet... On twitter you can follow thousands because there is no real discussion, its a stream of soundbites. On Facebook its people you know in real life and the number is inflated with old friends from school, distant family, acquaintances you rarely meet; the real number of people you connect with is likely much lower than your total friend number. On hubski it might be different (which is why i'm doing my little experiment) but then again maybe it isn't, only time will tell. I would say that there is a fairly central core of members here who post most of the topics and comments, they are familiar with each other and that leads to a real sense of community. I would guess that that core of members hold everything together but there is an upper bound on the number it can support before another core is needed to ensure the sense of community.