We aren’t really a big instance. We don’t even make the top-20. Where we really hit above our weight though is our comment count.
We are medium in size, but we are super engaged.
It’s tricky - I want it to grow, but I don’t want to lose the culture we have here. Having run forums 20+ years ago, I know that keeping that balance of culture and growth is super difficult.
Every time, you hit a critical point and suddenly it’s a site of random strangers with no community feeling. Reddit hit that point over a decade ago. I don’t want to repeat that here if we can avoid it.
On the one hand, yes.
On the other hand, you need enough content being created to provoke discussion.
I don’t feel we have enough content at the minute. I reckon the active population needs to double. Maybe we need to give away stubbie coolers.
Everyone here is a stranger to me, but i never look at the names of people i engage with.
This is where the avatars come in. I don’t pay much attention to the usernames, either. But those little avatars stick in your mind and you start to remember people.
Yes, everyone is still a stranger, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t community.
Voyager (and Connect by the sounds) don’t display avatars or custom usernames so you lose that bit of customisation in at least some of the apps.
I think I prefer it. Avatars are usually bad anime anyway. I think mines a ghost face lady.