It feels like it's dying. Just anecdotally it seems like there have been less threads lately, less quality threads, and less discussion overall. More anecdotally I feel like the last couple of federation / defederation slap fights ended with many users leaving as well. I can think of a few who left because we were federating, some who left because we then subsequently defederated from lots of the fediverse, and then even a few who said they would leave if we didn't defederate and then left anyway when we did.
I feel like mostly overall I have seen very few new posters, and have seen less and less of some certain power posters.
Is this just a illusion or is this really what's happening. What is to be done?
This is making me think of that "the fandom is dying!!" disc-horse I was constantly exposed to in my brony days... By all means that still hasn't happened, even though I and all the people I know are far less preoccupied with cartoon horses than we used to be; and by all means Hexbear is not dying either.
It would appear that online communities are only truly dead when people stop asking or debating if they're dead/dying. As long as people are still asking or arguing about that, then that signals that there are people who want the community to live, and as long as there's even two people who want that, then the community is not dead. And when people stop arguing, then, well, so what? Nobody wanted the community to keep on living, anyways. All those people who were previously worrying about the death of the community have stopped worrying by that point, and it's exactly that which allowed them to leave.
It's like getting a Twilight Zone oracle's vision of your own deathbed, and seeing that you will die feeling fulfilled, like you have achieved more or less everything you ever wanted to do, made peace with everything you couldn't do, and have no unfinished business remaining. You see that you will die painlessly on a day when you're ready to die, and you see that people are going to miss you but that life will go on nonetheless. The oracle tells you that all of this is going to happen no matter what you do, and that it might be a year from now or half a century, that's for you to figure out...
...And then you spend the rest of your life worrying about the day you stop worrying.
It may be natural, but it's also a bit silly, isn't it? Like, you aren't really fearing death at that point.
"disc-horse" [groooooooooooooooooooooooooan]
Back when I was a brony, there was neigh-verending disc-horse about whether the herd was on the verge of being put out to pasture, as it were, but all equus-perience hath shewn that this has not yet hay-ppened, and likewise for Hexbear. Online communities in fact remain in stable condition so long as ponies whinny about how "the end is neigh": the community can never be in its tail-end as long as even just two ponies worry, for worry shows a desire for the community to keep trotting. Therefore, any online community will end only when it behooves all its members.
It's like a Twilight Sparkle Zone oracle of one's deathbed, showing that one lived a foal life fulfilling mare or less all one's de-sires, leaving one ready for a painless canter to the Pearly Gaits. Though one made a cutie mark on the world, and one will be missed, life gallops on. The oracle neighs that all of this will happen regardless of one's own actions, but whether it's in a year-ling or half a century is for oneself to find out.
...And then one spends the rest of one's life mule-ing about the day one stops mule-ing.
Natural, perhaps, but also a bit foal-ish, neigh?
THANK YOU!
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why would you do that, if you know you're going to die fulfilled?
That's literally my point: why would you do that? — And yet that's exactly what's going on when people ask "Is Hexbear dying?".
Hexbear will only die when Hexbears want it to, because as long as people want to use Hexbear, people will use Hexbear. Therefore, Hexbear will only die when everyone collectively feels fulfilled, and so it's ultimately irrational to worry about the site dying.