I've been on 496 days and reading a while before I bothered to create a login. I think you can detect waves of: cheerleading -> group think -> counterexample

I've been on 496 days and reading a while before I bothered to create a login. I think you can detect waves of: cheerleading -> group think -> counterexamples -> lots of couterexamples -> not so much group think The cheerleading topic tends to change with what is hot. Data Points, Django, Cloud, Bootstrapping, I Failed ... have all had their cycle. These cycles seems to play out over 4 months IMO. Regular events like YC admission events create repeated waves. Wild downvoting can occur if you try to give counter-examples in a cheerleading or group-think phase (yes I'm bitter ;))