> Some pieces of social software, like IRC channels and mailing lists,are self-moderating with scale, because as the signal-to-noise ratio gets worse, people start to drop off, until it gets better, so people join, and so it gets worse. You get these sorts of oscillating patterns, but the overall system is self-correcting
Equilibrium.
An old essay "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy" explains this idea in an enlightening way: https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit...
> Some pieces of social software, like IRC channels and mailing lists,are self-moderating with scale, because as the signal-to-noise ratio gets worse, people start to drop off, until it gets better, so people join, and so it gets worse. You get these sorts of oscillating patterns, but the overall system is self-correcting