Have you ever noticed that sometimes site size is inversely proportional to site quality?

Some are complaining that this has happened to Internet darling Twitter, which even Oprah is using. There is a term for this phenomenon dating back to the early ages of modern man, in 1994, and it is called Eternal Semptember.

This term was coined to describe:
The belief that an endless influx of new users (newbies) since that date (Sept 1993) has continuously degraded standards of discourse and behavior on Usenet and the wider Internet.

Now, it’s crazy to look at this with a narrow mind and say the Internet is worse off now than it was in 1993, but has the sense of community improved? Haven’t tools like Facebook and Flickr brought us closer? I say yes, but don’t think Eternal September is working against innovation.

As I say in almost every post I make. The Internet community is the same as a real community. Your site (depending on your traffic) could be a small town or a huge metropolis. All sites with a community of users need a government: police, social services, and health care, etc.

I think of WhyDoWork.com as a small town. :)

The “Eternal September” that many websites face is growing faster than their government can scale. Think about a real town. What if you grew from Timmins Canada to Los Angeles overnight? Could the current police force or social services groups handle the growth: no way!

The most important step a community site (like Twitter) can take is to grow their government to an adequate size that can serve members. If not, crime, low quality discussions, and freeloaders (spammers) will take over.

Think about your site, and make sure you don’t get caught in an Eternal September!

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