🍕Community Health
Last updated
Last updated
Fragmentation is a way to measure where your community is lying on the continuum between “we are a single unit” (enmeshed; score of 0) to “we are a group of several small niche sub-communities” (too fragmented; score of 200).
Read the tips to learn how you can move the needle.
Your community has lots of specialists who have the space to do their thing with limited interference/input from others. Members can just do their work in their small sub-community without having to engage in lengthy explanations to those who lack the context to intuitively understand what needs to be done. These small sub-communities can thus move fast.
Your community has a lot of generalists and multi-taskers who tend to talk with each other about everything. Members remain connected with each other and stay aligned and involved in every topic. Things move slowly as everyone’s voice is included.
Generally, smaller communities will not be fragmented. With fewer people, there are less chances for niche discussions to split the community in subgroups. You see contributors talking about a wide range of topics and contributing to several activities (low specialisation).
External features like time zones or language can increase fragmentation These create natural barriers between people and make it very hard to impossible for members to communicate with each other.
How much effort does it take to keep everyone aligned? If the score is high , better repeat the community’s purpose often and through various means. Members might forget it while working in their own little groups. But first check how many channels you have. Conversations might just be spread too thin in your community.
Are you able to innovate? If the cohesion score is low, you do not give enough space to members to specialise or focus on a specific niche product. Members with similar interests might not be able to find each other and begin a sub-community. Or the infrastructure (discord structure, decision making process) does not support members creating their own space.
Feeling like Big Brother is watching you? Cohesion might be too low and people are policing each other's behaviour.
Decentralization is a way to measure to what degree conversations depend on one (or a few) key members. It ranges from "one person calls the shots" (too centralized; score of 0) to "too many cooks in the kitchen" (too decentralized; score of 200)
Read the tips to learn how you can move the needle.
Everyone regularly talks with everyone. It's a tight knit and cohesive community. Everyone’s voice is heard and included. Members are on the same page and share the same values. Also, everyone is aware of what other community members are doing. You can rest assured that when an initiative starts, everyone will contribute as the whole community has taken part in developing it.
A few core people engage with everyone, but other members don't talk to each other. Thanks to this decisions can be made relatively quickly. There is no confusion about what's going on and who is involved in what, as the small group of key influencers have it all sorted and organized..
The smaller your community, the more decentralized it is. It's just easier to talk with everyone if the community has less than 50 members.
External features like time zones or language can decrease decentralization. These create natural barriers between people and make it very hard to impossible for members to communicate with each other.
Can we act quickly? If your community is very decentralized and you do not have a clear process for emergencies, chances are you will not be able to act quickly in case of problems. Imagine your Discord server gets hacked or community members get scammed in another way, who will answer the questions in a way to reduce panik?
Is my community inclusive? If your community is centralized it could indicate a lack of inclusivity. This isn't a direct relationship where centralization implies no inclusion. It depends on what is causing centralization.
Does my community feel overpowering and loud to new members? When a new member joins they start with evaluating the community to decide if the shared content and conversation are relevant to them and aligned with their values. If the community is decentralized, it is extremely difficult to learn who are the key players in this space. Without this information, it is harder to decide what conversation is typical for the community. It's as if the lighthouse pointing out the save passage is missing.
