This was going to be "700 followers WTF" but in the amount of time it took me to discuss Quickbooks with my wife for 10 minutes after mixing terrible reality all day it had become 707.
So WTF? Huh? Any particular reason? 'cuz I mostly post obtuse esoterica related to the militarization of space.
708 followers in two pathetic non-paragraphs. Huh?
I completely agree. One of the things we talk about often is how to improve this. Any suggestions are most welcome. As you can imagine, it can be hard to see these things with new eyes, so your feedback is very valuable. Thanks, and welcome to Hubski. Let me know if you have other concerns or suggestions.
I don't disagree with that. At all. EDIT: I would clarify that I think following tags is a great way to start using the site, while eventually adding in people you follow. What has been the most valuable aspect of Hubski (from my perspective) has been the relationships and in some instances friendships I've established with other Hubskiers.
I think one thing that I would have liked to see is a random sampling of comments or links that they've shared. I found that I was just sitting there thinking "Well that's nice that they have some similar interests, but maybe they have views that I would rather not follow" A random sampling would have made me feel more confident about who I was following. Just my 2 cents I think this site is great and I feel very welcome here.
But maybe it's better not to follow only people that have the same views of your interests.
I certainly agree prosthetic4head! Maybe I should be clear, personally I respect many view points that are not my own. However there are some view points for which I do not think deserve either my time or respect. One extreme example of this would be the Westboro Baptist Church. A less extreme example of this would be people who constantly contend that Einstein was wrong. These view points usually add nothing to a conversation and often divulge into name calling. A view point opposing mine regarding future manned space flight missions, would be most welcome though. I would also be happy to discuss the intricacies of various security techniques or the advantages or disadvantages of various technologies. Maybe which Star Trek episodes were weaker than others. Maybe some people like the idea of arguing with Einstein's dissenters but I have read many of the arguments ( and one can read these very often on sci.physics ) and they do not hold water.
It is, in my opinion, better to not waste my energy on such topics if it can be avoided. I hope this cleared things up a bit (maybe I made it even murkier, if that's the case, I apologize).
What I think mknod is saying is that more information on who this person you are being suggested to cater this new experience around would be a good thing. When you're new to the site, it can seem like a pretty big decision and the only info we give about these users are topics they've expressed interests in. I've always thought that perhaps the way to go is to have a new user choose up to 10 tags to follow and then Hubski automatically gives you 5 users based on those tags to initially follow. It's important to note that "unfollowing" people is really easy and is not considered "mean" in any way. I will often unfollow users as I add in new users to change my experience from time to time.
I think part of it is that you are an "old guard" redditor. People coming from Reddit that have spent time there are going to recognize your username and follow you because of that. They may not necessarily have ever interacted with you on Reddit, but it's possible they've just read your name on, say, lists of former Reddit super/powerusers that aren't as active on Reddit any more (r/theoryofreddit and such have these sorts of "end of Reddit" posts quite commonly, I'm sure you're aware) and so they see you, maybe see your name suggested as someone to follow, and go for it. And remember, kleinbl00, it's not just what you post, it's also what you share.
That's all old-school shit, though. I doubt anybody remembers. Place has the memory of a cocker spaniel with ADHD.
To put it in perspective, I've been a casual redditor for a couple of years and when I saw your name I thought "isn't that guy from reddit?" and I've never had any type of specific experience with you.
It's good to follow people too, because it makes it convenient to check out their recent comments, even if you're not that interested in the stuff they post. Although I agree we need a better way. I have a lot more followers than some users who post way more frequently and more interesting material than I do. I'm not against your tag theory, but if people want to follow people, we should have a better way to find the ones that might interest them. We've tried tweaking the signup process, but clearly it's not working.
Agreed. BTW, twitter has the same problem, and provides a completely terrible solution by emailing me recommendations of people to follow, which I ignore with extreme prejudice. Though this may have to change as the site grows, I personally feel at this stage that the best path to quality recommendations for new users involves leveraging the 'badges' page.
The fact that you can count your followers will have the same effect on this site as the karma system is having on reddit.
But I can see that at this time you're followed by 774 people: This might as well be the karma count.
One can even get a list of the people following you, Klein.
Reddit round 2 invasion. :) http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1nj1kd/what_will_.../
At a work conference in Boca Raton and all of sudden checked my email and saw 20 notifications for new Hubski followers. Fits and starts. The truth is that only a few of those twenty will likely become active members of the community, but whoever you few are... I'm glad you found us. Welcome.
Well I hope that the majority of redditors coming over are trying Hubski because they're sick of the pun threads, worn out jokes, and generally unintelligent conversations that happen there. I'd like to think that means we're getting the best of the best reddit has to offer. (Shhh! I may be a new reddit refugee.)
No need to worry. Because you can ignore tags AND people (and mute them, even!) the last wave of Redditors vanished from my purview in about 20 minutes. This is why this site will likely survive - it needs no back-room manipulation to keep things clean for everyone.
I started following you when I first joined about a month ago because I wasn't sure how this site worked yet and someone suggested to just start following some users and some tags and edit as you go. I liked you comments and thought you offered some insight so I started following you. I wouldn't be surprised is many of the most frequent contributors are going to collect a large amount of followers in this current spike in traffic.