Splitting a Community
> **Healthy communities know when to divide.**
Splitting a Community
Healthy communities know when to divide.
Communities thrive at the scale of trust. As membership grows past the Dunbar number (~150), relationships become diluted, mutual aid becomes transactional, and the sense of shared purpose fades. When a community is ready to split, Karmyq provides a four-stage governed process to do it well.
Why Communities Split
A community split isn't a failure — it's a sign of success. When a community has grown large enough to develop distinct subgroups with strong internal trust, a split can:
- Restore intimacy: Smaller communities have deeper member relationships
- Clarify purpose: Each child community can specialize its mission
- Preserve trust: The trust graph guides the split — members who trust each other most stay together
- Maintain history: The parent community is preserved with all historical records intact
Stage 1: The Size Alert
When your community approaches its optimal size, Karmyq surfaces an alert at the top of the community page:
| Members | Alert |
|---|---|
| 120+ | "Community growing — consider watching this space" |
| 130+ | "Approaching optimal size. A split may help maintain trust." |
| 140+ | "⚠️ Consider splitting to maintain cohesion." |
Admins see a Propose Split → link in the alert. All members see the alert (but only admins can propose).
Stage 2: Proposing a Split (Admin Only)
- Open the Split tab from the community navigation.
- Click Create Split Proposal.
- Fill in:
- Name for Group A — the name for the first child community
- Name for Group B — the name for the second child community
- Rationale — why now? What natural division exists?
- Submit.
What happens next: The system runs a trust-graph clustering algorithm to suggest which members belong in each group. Members who trust each other more end up in the same group. You don't have to figure out the groupings from scratch.
Stage 3: Reviewing Assignments (Admin)
After the proposal is created, the Split tab shows the member assignment table:
- Each member is listed with the algorithm's suggestion and their current assignment
- Rows highlighted in amber are where your assignment differs from the algorithm's suggestion
- Use the Move to button to toggle any member between Group A and Group B
- The summary row shows the count in each group
Opening the vote: Once every member is assigned (no "Unassigned" members remain), click Open Voting. This transitions the proposal from discussion to the voting phase.
Stage 4: Voting (All Members)
Once voting opens, all active members can see the Split tab and vote:
- Yes — Split: In favor of the split as proposed
- No — Stay Together: Against the split
- Abstain: Neutral
Vote weight is prestige-weighted — members with deeper trust relationships in this community carry more weight in the vote. This prevents newcomers from having disproportionate influence over a community's structure.
Thresholds: By default, the proposal passes if:
- At least 60% of members vote (quorum)
- At least 60% of weighted votes are Yes (approval)
If both thresholds are met, the proposal automatically moves to Approved.
Stage 5: Executing the Split (Admin)
Once the proposal is approved, the admin sees an Execute Split button.
Executing the split is atomic — all of the following happen in a single transaction:
- Two new communities are created (Group A and Group B)
- Each member is added to their assigned child community
- A
split_originlink is created between the two siblings — their trust carry-over factor is set to 0.40 (members who land in different communities retain 40% of their cross-group trust) - The parent community is marked
status = 'split'— it is not deleted - The proposal is marked
executed
After the Split
- Both child communities are immediately active. Members can post and fulfill requests right away.
- The parent community remains. All historical karma records, help requests, and trust history reference the parent ID. You can visit it to see the full history of the community before the split.
- Cross-group trust persists at 40%. Members who ended up in different communities still have trust connections — just slightly weaker. These may strengthen again through inter-community collaboration.
- A second split is currently a one-per-community feature. After execution, the constraint prevents a second formal split proposal. This is a demo-scope limitation.
FAQ
Can I change my vote? Yes — casting a new vote overwrites your previous one.
What if voting expires without reaching quorum?
The proposal remains in voting status. A future version will auto-reject after the deadline.
Can a member refuse to be assigned? Not in the current version. Assignment is determined by the admin (informed by the algorithm). Members can make their preferences known to the admin before the vote.
Can the parent community be used after the split?
The parent is marked split and no longer receives new requests. It's an archive of the community's history.