2018/03/20 by Yaniv Dover, Jacob Goldenberg, Dover, Yaniv +3
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social Media and Politics #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1803.07387
openalex publication_date 2018/03/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Online communities exist in many forms and sizes, and are a source of\nconsiderable influence for individuals and organizations. Yet, there is limited\ninsight into why some online communities are sustainable, while others cease to\nexist. We find that communities that fail to maintain a typical hierarchical\nsocial structure which balances cohesiveness across size scales do not survive,\nand can be distinguished from communities that exhibit such balance and prevail\nin the long term. Moreover, in an analysis of 10,122 real-life online\ncommunities with a total of 134,747 members over a period of more than a\ndecade, we find that mapping the community social circle structure in the first\n30 days of its lifetime is sufficient to forecast the survival of the community\nup to ten years in the future. By varying calibration time frames, the aspects\nof the social structure that allows for predictive power emerge and fixate\nwithin the first couple of months in a community's lifetime.\n