Two decades of threads, one community

Monthly volume across the whole archive. Drag the handles to zoom into an era — the shape of the curve is the story of the forum itself.

Pick terms to compare. Values are the share of that month's posts that mention the term at least once — quoted replies are excluded, so nobody gets counted twice.

The vocabulary of each era, sized by how often it was used.

The people who kept the lights on. Press play to watch cumulative post counts race month by month — newcomers slowly reeling in the veterans, one overtake at a time.

Every time someone quoted another member, that's an edge. Node size shows how central a member was; hover a node to see their connections. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, double-click to reset the view.

Each line is one joining class: everyone whose first post fell in that year, tracked over their following years. Earlier cohorts fading slower than later ones is the signature of a community losing its grip.

What died first? Posts per active member shows whether the people who stayed kept talking. Unanswered threads show whether askers outlived answerers. Time to first reply shows how long a question sat before anyone came.

One joining class at a time: drag the slider to a year to see who signed up then and is still posting in the forum's most recent years. Some classes left nobody behind at all.

Which corners of the forum carried the conversation each year. Click legend entries to toggle single sections.