bookbusbird is a user on mastodon.sandwich.net. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
If you don't, you can sign up here.
Reading about how the characteristics of the first settlers in a new territory set the tone for the way that territory then develops. See e.g. anti-authoritarian Scots and Irish in midland USA. Something similar true of social networks?
@amcewen aye. I shall see if i can lure over some nice people.
@kirsten Oh, absolutely. Look up danah boyd's recent set of articles (Jan, 2017 and on) at Medium especially on MySpace, FB, 4chan, /b/, etc.
Founder cohort dynamics are /fascinating/.
@kirsten "norming" process for social groups seems a related concept
@kirsten Sounds like a good theory. Think about how MetaFilter got its start.
@kirsten I think there's a decent amount of that goes on. I do think we'll need an "invite the sort of people we'd like in the community" drive of some sort soon to improve the diversity and help nudge the culture in good directions