It's a hard time to come to hubski. Usually it's a pretty easy place to dip your toe in a few times, see that a lot of good conversation is going on, make an account, and start building some relations and having conversations. A small group of recent users has decided that because they have been blocked from commenting on less that 5% of posts they should make a spectacle of themselves and disrupt the general discourse and pleasant enjoyment of the site. It's hard to get to know people at a party when the house is on fire. If hubski seems like a place that has potential to any new user they should see what things look like in a week or two when thing have settled down. Every time hubski explodes in self examination (like the twice a year "the redditors are coming" panic) things settle down.
Then again, it seems like lighting the house on fire is a good way to force a few lurkers out of the shadows. I've been watching what gets posted and discussed on a handful of topics that interest me, but I'm still learning how to navigate the site, and figure out who's who. Reddit sort of trains you to talk to the subreddit, whereas here, the only person you're really talking to is the person you're replying to, and whoever else may be reading.
Oh, the lurkers lurk because they want to (or it seemed that way in a thread I can't find at the moment). Anyway, I wish there were something in the "create account" process that reminds users: Please, don't reddit on hubski. Also, no one knows how to navigate the site because it's always changing.
god damn it dude, I've been trying to tell everybody this and its still not clicking. I'm the second highest commenter on this site cause I get bored as fuck at work and there are things here that make me want to say words at them. I promise you, 99% of everything I comment has absolutely no value, and its the reason i was pro-muting in the mute arguments cause I would put it past nobody to mute me. When I joined Hubski I got super interested and into it, then I got waaay intimidated and ended up "quitting." Then an awesome Hubsquad member pm'd me asking what's up, what happened and to come back. Then I did and realized that I'm taking this way to seriouslyyyyy. We're a bunch of guys with words and fingers and sometimes we use one to deliver the other, so do you. If you got something to post post it, if you got nothing to post post about that too, who cares. Just enjoy it!
Yeah, I get that. And thanks for putting this out there. It may not be a big problem here since there are nifty features like muting and filtering available, but I do still think there is a lot value in lurking a bit first to get an idea of what's already there. Seems a bit like streaking through an unfamiliar neighborhood otherwise..
Or perhaps more importantly, the value of any comment is dependent on its context and that perfectly valueless things gain immensely depending on what they engender. The phrase is "cheaper than dirt" right? Yet without dirt there are no rose gardens. Treasure night soil as if it were gold. - Chinese proverb
Or occasionally, the lurkers lurk because a poweruser on the site has blocked them which means that it is hard for them to comment on things.
Either take your lumps as a sign you need to lurk more, or if you have such a valuable contribution, post it yourself. I'll read it and share it too if it's worthwhile. That's just how it works. Hard to start out, but if people who value your contributions follow you, it won't matter who mutes you.
If a poweruser has blocked you, using kleinbl00 as an example simply because I don't have time to do math on someone else, that means you can't comment on (on average) about two posts a day, which at best represent less than 5% of all posts. That does not mean it is hard to comment on Hubski in general at all in any way.
Hear hear. I wish I could mute all this nonsense wasting the top spots of my feed. I'm all for friendly discussion but this horse is turning to glue.
I still really want to know how many people have me on any of the three filters. Not who, just how many. It'd be funny.
Eh, I hope so. As I said before I wouldn't take offense to it, I've got nothing to fret over if someone just wants to tailor the site so they can enjoy it how they like. 'Tis one of the things that makes Hubski unique. Just take it easy braaah
the only person you're really talking to is the person you're replying to, and whoever else may be reading.
Which is often quite a few people. Note the "chatter" link at the top of the page. People often look there to see recent conversations and join in. Others might click the "badge" link to see what some have felt badge-worthy -- although note: it might be ironically badged.
Maybe it's just that I've been around for a little bit, but I've seen what seems like an increase in it and I'm not in favor of it. It's one thing for users to ironically badge things in the spirit of fun (at least I think that's how I got some badges), but using it to spotlight something the badger deems worthy of derision or ridicule seems on the cruel side to me. . . . but let's not have this turn into an "issue" . . . please.
When I see "ironic" badges from other people I mostly just want that shit out of my feed. It's one of those little egotistical poses that makes one feel clever in the moment but is really just annoying to everyone else. As if y'all care about the shitlord randos sniping at my posts. edit: this doesn't mean I'm going to stop, I'm just going to contemptuously judge everyone who does it
Ironic badges slightly bother me because they prevent the "badged" page from truly representing the best content. However, they still represent a "cost" to the user who has badged them so I would hope that it still indicates the comment is worth reading, just perhaps with a different context in mind. I do sometimes badge comments that I find hilarious, especially when out-of-context.
When we first introduced badges, the size if the community was much smaller. Therefore, it took longer to earn a badge as less people were sharing/appreciating your posts and comments. Now, I seem to get a new badge to give every single week. insomniasexx mentioned this in our Monday night team call and I think it's worth exploring slowing it down. It's supposed to be something hard earned and therefore special.
I actually was thinking about that as well on a somewhat related issue. As we gain active users it becomes significantly easier to obtain a full wheel, but after the wheel becomes full it is no longer possible (from the post) to accurately see how valued (or circled) it continues to be. I was wondering if you might be open to considering weighting the circle system as votes accumulate. Or rather if anyone thought this might be a good idea. For example, I think that the first vote a post or comment gets should always yield a circle added to the comment. But what if after that it took, say, 2 additional people to click the post before it earned another circle, or something? I don't think this is an imminent issue but I thought it was interesting. I had also considered how the speed of the site is changing.
It's hard to say what a good system is. Still, the majority of posts and comments get 0 or 1 share or click-of-approval, respectively. Then, out of the blue, something gets 20 shares, or who knows how many confidence clicks. Maybe throttling is the way to go: spoke 1 and 2 take one vote, three and four take two each, and so on. Not sure, but it's worth thinking about.
Another idea, perhaps when the 8 spokes complete the wheel in a comment, additional shares would come up as a tiny (+#) for how many upwheels it gets, like a super-superscript of the wheel. So a 12-upwheeled comment would have the fully-spoked circle with a tiny +4 beside it. Just a thought.
Yeah, it's being considered. I think it's more of an issue with comments than posts, currently. I like that I can see every user that has shared a post. But yeah, it's getting to point where we need to examine these things.
I feel like there's a philosophical aspect to ironic badging that I really love. minimum_wage started it and it's feels like this postmodernist degradation of the concept of value. I like it especially because it makes seems like it discourages badging of simple funny comments instead of well thought out quality posts. So either getting a badge means you did really, really well, or did something horrible, and it's a riot. I love it. But yeah let's not have something else for new people who just got here to complain about.
Haven't you heard? They're opening a Hubski Museum of Modern Badges, yeah it's super progressive and ironic, I hear the debut exhibition is a collection of ahametals posts on a canvas. Million dollar price tag, too.
I agree. Also don't think ironic badging should be a thing. I mean users are allowed to badge whatever they want, but it's kind of like the passive aggressive retweet of someone talking smack about you, and letting your followers do the insulting and fighting for you.
re. lil's "chatter" point- this has been my no. 1 tool to get familiar with the voices/online personalities (hopefully close-ish to real-life) of various Hubski users. I still use it all the time. First off, it's a great way to see what subjects people are coalescing around. Second off, if you've shared a post or commented on that post, chatter brings up all comments on that post, whether you follow the users or not. Which has been a great way to broaden the list of people I follow. Generally though, you pay enough attention to chatter, and you start to recognize users just by their voice.
I have only recently started using "chatter" and "global" because I read other users talking about them. I enjoy both. "Chatter" is a good opportunity to walk into a conversation in the middle, usually elicited by a hilarious out-of-context comment or a long, thoughtful one. Instead of exploring "global" more though I may begin exploring "posts with 0 shares" and "posts with 1 share." Global doesn't do exactly what I want it to do, I suspect it is because most of the posts in global show up in my feed already.
I'm pretty sure that simply commenting on a post does not bring comments from non-followed users into your chatter. Maybe it should. if you've shared a post or commented on that post, chatter brings up all comments on that post, whether you follow the users or not.
Hmmm. Good idea. I think that's probably an easy fix, if we ask forwardslash really nicely.
Either commenting or sharing... Or maybe both together? Never really thought about which one did it. Something like that...