Hi everyone,

Time to fire up your collective hive-geek mind.

I'm doing some research into what happens when platforms remove individuals, pieces of content or entire websites - specifically, the effects on the online communities around them and whether they're ultimately strengthened or weakened. What Web Sherrif and Prince's lawyers did to to Housequake.com, TRH and other similar online spaces is obviously a strong, early example of this, and one I was aware of inasmuch as I was a regular poster on HQ and a member of TRH. But I was just that - a member; I don't actually know what happened behind the scenes and there's precious little information about it in any of the many books I own about the man himself.

This is where you guys come in.

If anyone has any information on any of the following I would be hugely grateful:

1. The effect of (things like) the HQ ban on harder-to-find newsgroups such as TRH. For example, did TRH exist before HQ was banned and if so, what was the effect of the HQ ban on membership numbers of TRH?
2. The membership numbers of TRH versus the volume of data being shared. My memory is ~80 members sharing ~1 terabyte of data in around 2005, but this could be nonsense.
3. For any of you, did the removal of a given website tip the balance such that you gave up searching for and sharing bootlegs because it was no longer worth the effort?

Feel free to PM me if it's easier.

Thanks a million!

[Edited 10/29/19 16:50pm]