You generate fake traffic until you get real traffic. That's how Reddit did it, at least.
Ask HN: How are online communities established?
91–93 of 93 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are online communities established?
#92I think the best way is to pick a niche interest and start there. When I first joined Reddit, it was mostly just LISP programmers and there were no subreddits. They served that niche well, then grew from there. Facebook started out serving Harvard students, then all college students, then everyone. I started a YouTube channel ( https://youtube.com/parttimelarry ) last year and was wondering if anyone would find me. I…
Not sure why, but that's the third time I've heard about Tool communities and their organisation this month.
Re: Ask HN: How are online communities established?
#93Question is: what's an online community ? I don't think HN is one. At the very least I don't have a sense of being a member of an HN community.
you've got 6000+ karma. whether you feel like you're a member or not, you obviously participate on a continual basis. i think a reasonable definition for online community is a group of people who regularly and continually participate in the same online platform.
Somewhere on this site there's a comment from me stating that HN is pseudonymous and has a faux small niche appearance due to its UX and its lack of emphasis on interpersonal connections or any expected features of social networks. To me, everyone is more or less the same person (or really there are a billion of different people but since I can't keep tracks of what they said before they all just exist in a vacuum). I just know about dang, percival and another one I forget but recognize when I see it (alathorn ?).
That doesn't feel like a community to me. Every new submissions/feed is filled with new people with new advices, there is no continuity on HN.
Not saying it's bad or a good thing though. That's just how I feel.