We aSome projects will never really be successful until the project has reached a critical mass. This can be seen in the world of software development. When I go looking online for an open-source project to use, if I find one that is still in the planning stages or only has a little code produced I will probably ignore it. How do I know this project will be successful? How do I know the project lead has a clue about what needs to be done? How do I know the project, even if it is successful, will go in the direction I need for my work? Unless the project lead already has clout from other work, there is good reason not to get involved in the project. There are many open source projects that have been started but never really evolved into much of anything. Some turn out to be announcements only.
This same principle can be applied to projects related to biblical studies. If a website declares they are going to do a project revolving around redactional studies of the gospel narratives, how many people will immediately jump in to help? Perhaps a few. Probably not many, at least at first. But when the project has been around for a while and a great deal of data has been made available, that is a different matter. At that point you have more assurance that the project is more than just some person’s dream. At that point it becomes a real project, and more people are likely to get involved at that point. Because of this the beginning stage of a project will sometimes be the most difficult.
Also, without the attainments of a critical mass it is much harder to tell where the project is going. Once again the software industry is a good example. If an announcement is made that a project is being started to build rabbit farm management software in C++, a potential contributor still cannot really do any work. An architecture needs to be set forth. Some coding standards need to be established. Somebody needs to start writing the code before someone else can join in and help. This will be true for some biblical studies projects as well.