[marcosdumay]

Community starts with good people; creates good content; attracts more people; that new people tends to average; contents tends to average; new people tends even more to average; contents quality becomes average; community isn't good anymore.

The cycle certainly didn't start with groups over a computer network, but I think it's very unlikely that it started before written texts. So there's ~8k years window there. It's not literally timeless, but does feel like so.

[Wowfunhappy]

GP wasn't talking about the community, but of changes dictated by the corporation running the website for that community, which is an important distinction.