I think part of this is that when signing up, you're asked to follow some people, but with no real context of the person. I simply followed everyone suggested because, well, I'm new! It would be nice if you could get a bit more context when signing up.
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.