I think the "mute" feature should be removed. If someone has something to add to a conversation, they should at least be able to express themselves on that particular subject. I think the mute functionality is unnecessary as we already have hushing. If you don't want someone's input on your post, push them to the bottom of the comments with hushing so their input will not be visible to you. I think muting moderates for other hubskiers, which I really don't appreciate.
Perhaps we could have a "hide" feature that would hide a user's comments on the OP's post, but the hidden user's post would only be invisible to the OP. Everyone else would be able to see the hidden user's post, except for the OP who hid them. Hell, you could even continue to call it "mute." The name would still work. This would navigate around the issue of moderating for other users. I don't like others modifying my hubski experience.
No. If you don't like others modifying your hubski experience, stay on the good side of others. If you decide to get up in the grille of other users, those other users should absolutely have the option to prevent you from getting up in their grille on their own posts. I have 58 (count'em: 58) people muted on Hubski. There are some posts where it's nothing but a sea of strikethroughs. I'm not "modifying" their experience one iota. That is, until they decide to post on one of my links. Then they can't. That's what muting is. That's it. That's all.
This is my only problem with your reply. Let me set up a scenario. Person A thinks Person B is a total asshole. Person A mutes B. However, Person C doesn't have a problem with Person B, in fact, Person C thinks B is pretty damn cool. Person A makes a fantastic post that sparks a lot of interesting discussion. C would normally like to hear B's input, but can't on A's post. Since Person A muted B, Person C's Hubski experience has been moderated by Person A. This is an example of someone having the potential to modify/moderate my personal Hubski experience, and it's based around the fact that when you mute someone, others can't interact with them on your post. This is sound advice, though I'm sure you know it doesn't always work out like that.If you don't like others modifying your hubski experience, stay on the good side of others.
stay on the good side of others.
Your scenario is valid. It comes down to three opinions, which in your perspective (as Person C) break down as follows: 1) What person A wants: To share content with people whose opinion he respects 2) What person B wants: To comment on content he finds interesting 3) What person C wants: To read and contribute to commentary on content he finds interesting Let's look at it from Person B's perspective: 1) What Person A wants: sycophantic praise for tired, tedious content 2) What Person B wants: the right to call a spade a spade 3) What Person C wants: Person B's commentary on Person A's content Not so rosy any more, is it? Now let's look at it from Person A's perspective: 1) What Person A wants: To share content with people whose opinion he respects 2) What Person B wants: To watch the world burn 3) What Person C wants: To read and contribute to commentary on content he finds interesting It becomes clear that Person C's wants and dreams are fairly constant in this universe, while Person A and Person B's wants depend a lot on perspective. Considering all three perspectives are valid, and considering that commentary often matters as much as content, there's no obvious way to resolve the situation. BUT: Without Person A's instigating the discussion, there's no discussion at all. There's no content. There's no conflict. And if he can't share content without being free of Person B's hassling, he's not likely to contribute. This is, after all, a site founded on following individuals, not subjects. You can block people on Twitter, you can block people on Pinterest, you can block people on Tumblr, you can block people on Facebook. So in theory, Person A's interests should overrule Person C's. ______________________________________________
HOWEVER it doesn't work that way. _______________________________________________ Person C can shout out Person B. Person B can now comment on Person C's shout-out. And Person A can do fuckall about it. Problem solved. To the detriment of Person A, I might add. So I'm not sure what your objection is. mk, correct me if I'm wrong.
Thank you for sharing this feature with me; I wasn't aware it existed. Since I'm now aware of this functionality, I no longer have an objection to the current system. It's definitely a happy medium. Cheers.Person C can shout out Person B. Person B can now comment on Person C's shout-out. And Person A can do fuckall about it.
Yeah, we oughtta have a primer on mute/ignore/hush 'cuz nobody really understands it except the people who interact with it a lot. Which, on the one hand, gives the people who need it a leg up. But, on the other hand, it antagonizes the people who will likely never interact with it.
It's a back-door more than a feature - certainly didn't come about intentionally - but it's not a bad thing, I don't think. It also makes the confrontation less direct, which I think is good: even if B comments on C's shout-out, A won't receive a notification on it (unless B is an ass and calls A out).
That's right. The Vampire Invite is a bug that is a feature which is only so clever because it was completely unintended. I can't imagine myself devising it, but we won't be getting rid of it so long as it doesn't get out of hand. But, I imagine abuse of the VI would quickly lead to the one doing the inviting getting themselves muted, which pushes things to whack-a-mole account creation, which is where everything else currently devolves to in a worst-case-scenario anyway.
"forbid vampire invites" would solve the problem immediately. That said, I'm not a fan of rolling out functionality that isn't currently necessary. It's much easier to develop site functionality for a site full of friends. A site full of enemies requires harsher restrictions. Problem being, you design a friend sight for enemies and it starts being more attractive to enemies.
What I don't really understand is why everyone is allowed to say "this isn't reddit", but not say "this isn't Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, or Facebook" (all equally as bad as reddit IMHO). Comparing this site to reddit is taboo, but comparing it to any other site is fine. Another point is, Person C has no idea that Person B is muted to begin with, so how would Person C know that Person B needs a shout-out?You can block people on Twitter, you can block people on Pinterest, you can block people on Tumblr, you can block people on Facebook.
...because the functionality everyone wants is on Reddit but the functionality everyone decries is everywhere else. You don't provide an example in the negative to prove a positive point: "Why can't I have flan at this Chinese restaurant?" "Because it's not a Mexican restaurant, it's a Chinese restaurant. That's why there are chopsticks at your plate." "But we're at PF Chang's, not Pick Up Sticks! Chopsticks anger me! Where's my flan?" If Person C wants Person B's opinion on something, he should probably shout Person B out, rather than waiting for the stars to align.
And that's the problem. Everyone here is constantly making this an us vs. them, a mute vs unmute. There are multiple opinions here it's not two sided. I hate reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Hubski is the closest I have found to something tolerable, and it's not that far away from it which is why I'm trying to defend some basic ideas. This is completely asinine. This is a user submitted social link posting and discussion site, so is reddit, so is Facebook. Twitter is not, it's completely different due to text restrictions and such. Yes this site has a lot in common with it due to tags and user following, but I would say del.icio.us is even closer, just add commenting to it. If we were comparing say Slashdot to Hubski, that would be a good instance of you saying we are comparing apples to oranges, but people aren't....because the functionality everyone wants is on Reddit
"Why can't I have flan at this Chinese restaurant?"
Agreed. I quite like the idea of being able to ignore/hush users for yourself. But being able to censor other people is taking things too far, personally. It's too open to abuse. For example: posting a scathing reply to someone and then immediately muting them. And it doesn't even work at its intended purpose - indeed it cannot work for its intended purpose. Because someone can always create a throwaway account and post the response.
Ok. But I am curious about what you think we should do about comment spam? That is: Buy GOLD HERE GOLD HERE <LINK>!!! <LINK> Or what if in each of your posts, a user (or several users) constantly used slurs against you and people that commented in your posts?
In my opinion, the same self-moderation policy that hubski has always had applies here. Also, I think we should apply the philosophy that problems which do not exist shouldn't be fixed. If comment spam becomes a problem, we could discuss it as a community when it's necessary. I've not seen any comment spam on this site, and I've never seen users publicy slander anyone besides kleinbl00.
Holy shit I almost spit my coffee all over my keyboard. I remember all of the back-and-forths we had about some sort of personal moderation before ignore and mute were implemented. We all agree that you were correct on the issue way back then. The thing is, anyone can say that kleinbl00 is an edge case or whatever, but none of these people remembers Christmas 2012, the actual impetus for us finally seeing it your way. For the uninformed, that was a time when a group of jagoffs decided to try to make an active play to ruin Hubski, mainly because they thought syncretic was running this place, and they had some kind of personal distaste for him (from what I gather; I'm not that well educated about it and greatly prefer to stay that way). Just wait till that shit happens again; people will be begging for even more drastic measures than we currently have.
Comment spam has been popping up more and more, actually. Particularly in the #bitcoin tag. I've had to mute some there. I expect that without muting, we would have more. That's one problem that I don't think we could let be much longer if we didn't have the current functionality.