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There doesn't seem to be much activity in this group. Not sure what is happening in the background or whether moderators or interested people have left or something. Just wondering.

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    I still check here regularly and I think the mods do too, but without more new questions there's not a lot to do.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 19:29
  • Nice to see that this post got votes recently. 4 upvotes in the last 2 days.
    – Rubén
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 14:55

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What Monica said. Mods are active, in fact, every mod has been active on the site within the last 2 hours as I write this. Question activity is just low. When questions are asked, there's an active group of people to answer them and support it, it's just a low throughput site, but has a healthy community. Just not a ton of activity.

I also have pretty little concern about the site every really becoming completely dead. All of the mods are multi-site moderators and work this in to their normal routine. (Fun fact, of the four sites I moderate, this one actually has the MOST active moderators.) There's also a good handful of core users who are active on multiple sites and similarly just work this one in to their routine. I don't see any particular reason that would change.

I'd be much more concerned if people came here with questions and didn't get answers, but as it is, questions get voted on and typically multiple answers are given, it's just there is a very low question volume, which honestly makes sense given the topic area.

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  • Should the topic be further broadened? I know that this group was called Moderator group and now Community Building. Maybe Community SE? It can discuss the issues around communities rather than just the community building aspect?
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 2:33
  • One of the problems is that Community Building is not really a concept and does not align with naturally forming social groups nor Facebook groups. Maybe Community and Groups SE? That would broaden it and allow the discussion of group and community dynamics better?
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 2:35
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    @Poidah - I don't really know that that would be a broadening of scope so much as a name that better reflects the scope. The intended context was that community building has to do not only with creating, but also running the community. Even in a naturally forming social community, there are leaders who people gravitate towards and their decisions cause the group to either do well and grow stronger or do poorly and eventually break up. Community Building might not be the best name, but I don't think anything you mentioned is directly off topic, though fitting Q/A sometimes is hard.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 2:38
  • Thanks @AJHenderson. Community and groups issues do not fall well under Community Building for example. Issues around social change, social justice, intergroup tensions are quite opposite community building but highly relevant under Community & Groups banner. It also allows for discussions about to dissolve and move on from groups too. Which is a common issue but definitely not relevant under the current "Community Building" banner
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 3:06
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    @Poidah I'd disagree. You can't grow a community without dealing with social change, justice and tensions. Sometimes the best way to grow a group is to merge it with another. Breaking up a group because it can no longer serve it's purpose is perhaps arguably not a match to the title, but I still think it would fit here by scope if not directly by name.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 3:09
  • The title and the philosophy of the group would be quite hostile to group dissolution discussion even though it would be accepted. It would be quite off-topic. Most social justice issues are not interested in growing community, but rather dealing with validity and engagement with difficult issues.
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 3:16
  • Totally dead. I think SE groups that are inactive for a groups week should be shut down. Or at least moderators be re-elected
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 12:40
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    Question count and site activity doesn't decide if a community is dead. If you have an active community waiting for questions the site is still alive and well. Stack Exchange actually used to be more rapid about closing low activity sites before they realized that it's active answerers and mods, not active asker's that make a site alive vs dead. If nobody is asking questions the site is very low cost. If questions don't get answered, then the site is worthless.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 12:56
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    Its also worth highlighting that activity has been steadily increasing for the last year. Weekly new visits has been trending upward and is around double what it was last November. There have also been 5 new registered users created in the last week alone, 27 in the last month.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 13:00
  • If getting questions is the issue, then broadening the title and the topic area so questions can be asked is an important step forward. For example, now I have an issue about a university social group. It is not really community building but more about the formation stage of the group. I don't see it as a community. Yes, I can still post in the group but I feel very uncomfortable. If the title changed to Community/Groups, then yes, not a problem. Not sure why just the "building" stage.
    – Poidah
    Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 21:34
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    @poidah I suggest you read communitybuilding.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic again then. Building a community is more than just the initial phase. It is a constant thing in any healthy community. The topic already includes what you suggest. The title might not be the best, but it's highly unlikely we could get a second rename either way as Stack Exchange historically is extremely hesitant to do renames. When community building was decided on, it was thought that it had the best overall coverage when understood that communities require constant building.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2019 at 23:51
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    @Poidah think of it in the context of something like "relationship building". That isn't something you finish, it's a continual process. Communities are relationships shared with multiple people.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2019 at 3:49
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As of the first week of May 2023, this site is still getting new users every week.

There are six new questions, and six new answers posted this year on the main site, 2023. So far, only one of the new questions has an answer.

Meta has two new questions. One is the Moderation Statistics post. There are no new answers. One of these posts is mine.

I wonder if this site should be promoted more and how it could be a good way to promote site-crossover questions (see Build and strengthen the Stack Exchange community with "crossover questions" between sites) across Stack Exchange per-site-meta and Meta Stack Exchange.

Related

Addendum

Site Activity and Vote Graph last 60 weeks

Site Activity and Vote Graph last 60 weeks

Source: SEDE query created by rolf, ran on May 8, 2023 10:30 UTC

Users > Participation
Community Building

2023 participation, as of May 10

https://communitybuilding.stackexchange.com/users?tab=Participation&filter=year shows 182 pages. Not helpful as it includes received upvotes/downvotes as participation. Some people call this "passive reputation". I read that this was "turned off" by devs in Meta Stack Exchange. (found! Animuson's answer to Does the unlinked 'show users by participation' page still work?)

Community Building Meta

2023 participation, as of May 10 2023 participation, as of May 10

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