Building Communities, Part 6: Desire Paths & When to Pave a New Chat

Part 6 of the Building Communities series — lessons learned running IrregularChat.

Can desire paths guide community growth?

Community structure should follow member-driven "desire paths" — forking chat rooms when subtopic engagement reaches critical mass, ensuring relevance, focus, and sustainable growth. This mirrors UX practice: let emergent user behavior guide formal design rather than imposing top-down structure.

This is prompted by several recent conversations about our process for guiding the community. For the broader context, see the rest of Building Communities.

Key takeaways for community builders

Observe organic topic drift as an indicator for when to create new channels.
Wait for ~20 percent core engagement (≈10–15 active members) before forking — that's the critical mass needed to sustain a new room.
Spell out clear room purposes and let membership criteria emerge through invitation and interest.
Leverage user behavior to minimize moderation effort and maximize relevance.
Accommodate new conversational "shortcuts" rather than forcing members back to ill-fitting threads.
Apply the Pareto principle to monitor engagement and room viability.

Evolution of IrregularChat

We began with a single Signal chat — the general IrregularChat group, focused on broad technology discussions aligned with the Innovation and Evolution Council initiative, which provided a direct feedback channel to leadership.

When we launched the Operational Skills Detachment (OSD) for specialized training discussions, the limitations of a single threaded platform became clear, prompting the community to collectively decide on dedicated rooms. From that first fork emerged Influence & Tech, then DragonOS for electronic warfare and SDR topics, and so on — until by 2025 we operated about 24 Signal chats, plus purpose-built groups on SimpleX, Matrix, and Discord.

The growth was never planned top-down. Every chat was paved over an existing dirt trail.

Desire paths: from dirt trails to conversational shortcuts

Origins

A desire path is an unplanned trail created by the erosion of soil and vegetation from repeated foot traffic — it marks the shortest or easiest route between two points. Early examples: Broadway in New York City follows a centuries-old Indigenous trail. Many university campuses wait for snow to fall before observing footprints and paving accordingly. Field studies show that as few as fifteen passages can establish a distinct, self-reinforcing trail that attracts further use.

Designers often pave these emergent routes — aligning infrastructure with actual behavior instead of fighting it.

Lessons for community design

In UX and urban planning, designers pave the trails rather than block them. The community analogue: track where members naturally congregate — off-topic threads, repeated side discussions, persistent hashtags. These are conversational desire paths and they deserve dedicated channels.

Why fork?

It is a common occurrence to have people ask for or demand that a certain channel or group should exists, most of the time it makes absolutely total logical sense ... yet most of the time there is not yet enough traction to sustain this breakout and it will likely not gain critical mass and will become a dead chat.

Focus & discoverability. Narrowed topics improve relevance and lower the barrier to entry for newcomers.
Critical mass. A subtopic must demonstrate sufficient engagement — typically a small core (≈20 percent) driving most discussion — to sustain its own room.
Voluntary engagement. Members self-select into forks that match their interests, reinforcing organic growth and reducing moderation friction.

When to fork: criteria and the 80/20 rule

Topic drift

A chat room merits a fork when recurring side discussions or repeated offshoot threads consistently divert attention from its core purpose.

Critical mass & Pareto

Per the Pareto principle — where ~80 percent of effects stem from ~20 percent of causes — successful forks emerge when that vital few coalesce around a subtopic. If only one or two people are pushing the side conversation, it's not a desire path yet; it's a deviation.

Benefits of aligning forks with desire paths

Enhanced engagement. Participants find clear, relevant spaces, boosting sustained interaction.
Reduced moderation overhead. Topic-aligned rooms minimize off-topic posts and moderator intervention.
Community trust & ownership. Letting members shape the structure fosters buy-in and responsibility.
Scalable growth. Forks create modular subcommunities that can grow independently without overwhelming a single chat.

Repeating what we said

By treating community conversations like a landscape of desire paths, we empower members to carve their own routes — forking chat rooms only when natural conversational currents demand it. This user-driven approach has kept IrregularChat focused, resilient, and scalable. Guiding rather than dictating structure unlocks the community's full potential.

References

Kohlstedt, K. (2016, January 30). Least Resistance: How Desire Paths Can Lead to Better Design. 99% Invisible.
Mad Scientist Laboratory. (2021, June 21). Keeping the Razor's Edge: 4th PSYOP Group's Innovation and Evolution Council. U.S. Army Mad Scientist.
Marion, J. L., & Reid, S. E. (2001). Development of the U.S. Leave No Trace Program: An Historical Perspective. Leave No Trace: Center for Outdoor Ethics.
Nichols, L. (2014). Social desire paths: A new theoretical concept to increase the usability of social science research in society. Theory and Society, 43(6), 647–665.
Pareto principle. (2025). In Wikipedia.
Tomes, H. (2022, July 9). The twists and turns of "desire paths." The Spectator.
Throgmorton, J., & Eckstein, B. (2015). Desire Lines: The Chicago Area Transportation Study and the Paradox of Self in Post-War America. The 3Cities Project.
Desire path. (2025, March 29). In Wikipedia.
IrregularChat Field Notes. (2024). Secure Comms: Signal Reality & Building for the Way It Works.