Hubski reminds me of the reddit of six years ago. Hubski seems to be a bit more liberal than libertarian like the reddit of yore, but I suppose that's okay. The challenge in front of all of us who appreciate thoughtful discussion over quippy commentary will be maintaining the Hubski culture in the face of growth. I never thought reddit would be the cesspit it is now, but with each wave of growth, the site degraded a bit more. The same think can happen to Hubski if the community starts rewarding thoughtless commentary, belligerent fight-picking, vapid partisanship and entrenched perspectives. We have to stay vigilant, respectful and open-minded if we're going to cultivate a community worth keeping six years from now.
In all honesty, part of what contributes to less-thoughtful discussion is another aspect that makes this site great and I wouldn't want to change: the interpersonal relationships between users. As users grow to know each other I think we become more comfortable having casual conversations (just as you would in an in-person relationship). However, that leads itself to quips, one-off jokes, and so on. Since the established users have a pre-existing relationship with each other I don't think it's something that is easily noticed. But I do think there's a potential for less thoughtful discussion as a result of feeling like you know all the users - not an echo chamber effect but more an increased comfort with casual contribution. I used to not let myself post one-sentence comments. Sometimes I'd post one sentence but I'd see it, see how short and not really conversation-starting it was, and go back and edit. I'd expound on why I felt a certain way or what my thought process is. While I think we have to have a happy medium - we have to be casual and friendly and joke-y with each other, as much as we have our long theoretical conversations about art and site usability - it's a trend I'm keeping my eye on. All I can do is try to contribute quality content and comments if I feel like I'm slipping. I think without even consciously realizing it others will see that and respond in kind. So, I agree. We have to stay vigilant. But maybe new users can keep older users on their toes: by challenging viewpoints, by upsetting the status quo. As long as those new users are actually promoting the purpose of the site as it is now, "thoughtful discussion."
There's letting things grow organically, and there's cultivating a garden. Reddit has succumbed to the weeds, and, as I enjoy hubski so far, I don't want to see the same thing happen. If you think hubski is full of pretentious folks, why are you here?
I have been waiting for an opportunity to use that gif for so long.
I really hope it doesn't happen, but as I understand it reddit wasn't geared towards discussion in the first place and I think hubski has an advantage with building the t´site for communication from the very beginning. But yes, we have to work towards keeping the quality high.
Long, long ago, way back in the dark ages, reddit actually was a place where decent conversations occurred. I started going to the site to get "the news behind the news"; it seemed like for every article I read, there was someone on reddit who could offer an expert's analysis and flesh out the truth behind the sensationalism. Insightful posts were upvoted and reddiquette was observed. You still get hints of this in AskScience and TrueReddit (though TrueReddit is also sliding downhill...) but for the most part, reddit's current structure rewards low insight, low quality posts that appeal to the masses. RES sped up the site's de-evolution to shitposting because with RES, people didn't even need to leave the site to consume their cat gifs and whatnot. The Great Digg Migration also brought in a huge influx of new users who didn't know (and didn't care) about the site's cultural history. Then reddit started getting power users like shittywatercolour derailing the conversation with pictures that were at best mildly interesting and at worst, noise that blocked out actual discussion. Add in some targeted campaigns of disruption from 4chan and SomethingAwful, and reddit transformed from a mostly intelligent forum for news, science and politics to the meme-belching fart of a website it currently is. Anyway. You'd never know it by its current state, but way back when, reddit was a pretty good forum for discussion. I certainly learned a lot when I first found the site. I think hubski has some structural elements in place that will help stave off the de-evolution to shitposting (for example, no downvotes, the hide/ignore/mute option, hashtags instead of subreddits, and no power mods) but if it can happen to reddit, it can happen to hubski.
But didn't reddit start out without a comment section? I might be remembering completely wrong though.
No, I think you're right! I guess I'm just speaking to my experience. I didn't jump on the reddit train until 2008-ish, so I missed out on the first three years. I'll amend my previous statement to say that while it starting out as a link-swapping site, it pretty quickly evolved to include commentary and discussion. In fact, the comments were what initially drew me to the site. That's why I feel so let down (and slightly bitter) to see what it's become. Game's back on so that's all for now!
I joined reddit in 2012 so I completely missed the glory days, I'm just going of what I heard about the beginning of the site.