This was originally going to be a response to thenewgreen in that other thread about this, but the discussion has advanced beyond me, apparently. All of the following are my personal thoughts on this idea, and Hubski in general. I wrote this while I was very tired, so the flow of some of the ideas might not make sense. Don't kill me, please. Hubski is a scary, difficult place for a new user. I was a lurker on Hubski for about a year, maybe before joining? And I wasn't getting an inviting image out of it. It was an interesting place to browse, but my biggest turn-off was the user-base. I felt then, as I feel now, that Hubski was the first old boys' club I'd ever seen that wasn't a country club for the rich. There is a pervasive feeling of general smugness and snootiness (Isn't that just the funniest looking word) among the people here. At first, I didn't know why I felt that way. Everybody here was at first glance nice enough. The conversations were polite, ish. I kept reading and rereading comments and posts that I got that vibe off of. They had several things in common. 1: A veneer of kindness kept up until a disagreement. 2: A condescending and sarcastic tone. 3: A sense of superiority. So many discussions are filtered by these problems that any large thread has multiple instances of them. It makes the conversation difficult to join, and uninviting because of it. Next comes the hard part. The people here are, on the whole, not so bad. I've had arguments with practically everybody here and the majority of the time I was the source of any deucery. But there is no patience here for differing opinions. Lip service is indeed paid to the idea of tolerance, but any dissent is punished with condescending sarcasm. This becomes almost omnipresent when dealing with any speech deemed unfit by the "quality" standards of Hubski. These standards are enforced with rigor by people hiding snark under the guise of keeping to an arbitrary level of quality. Hubski, as a whole, is one of the few places on the internet where it is possible and common to develop friendships with other users. This is made possible because of its size and popularity. Hubski has a small userbase coupled with a small amount of new users. This prevents "Eternal September" because new users can be ingrained with the site's social norms faster than other users can join. However, it also leads to viewing prospective users as inherently troublesome or useless, as time must be spent to rein them in. So where the fuck am I going with this? Good question, strawman listener. An invite-only system only works when many, many people want to join a website without being familiar with its culture. This isn't happening. Not only is it not happening, the culture and nature of Hubski actively turns away new users from joining. The "secret club, us-against-the-world" mentality, funnily enough, makes Hubski a thoroughly difficult place to enter. The only time a flood of new users appear is when Reddit decides to blindly send a few hundred people all in one day. The keyword there was "blindly." An invite-only system would be appropriate if that was a constant situation, but each Reddit Rampage only lasts a couple weeks, with months between each one. My point in all of this is that there isn't a point to controlling the number of new users. Hubski does a very good job of controlling growth all by itself. Sure, if the popular opinion is to do it, do it. But it will only hurt in the long run. When the issue is having too few people at the party, don't put a lock on the door.
I've found, in general, that tone online is 60% interpretive to the reader. There are many times that someone types something in a positive way, and the responder reads it in a negative way. Indeed, I would posit that such interactions are how most conversations here start. We're got some passionate, opinionated people on hubski, myself included. However, when interactions seem heated, it's best to assume that the other person isn't yelling at you over the computer, and just because someone is telling you "you're wrong and here's why", it doesn't mean they are judging you actively as a person and finding you lacking. The above sentiment, I think, is part of the "weird tone" of hubski. Compared to somewhere like reddit, where everyone's an expert and all views pass muster, Hubski has lots of passionate people who can and will peer review your shit. I found it a nice change, but I can see why it can be off-putting. Before I post an opinion here, i usually go "Where do I know that from?" and check my sources. I treat hubski like a peer-reviewed journal, because I want people to be able to trust what I say.
Isn't demanding proof or sources for an opinion insulting? You can't peer-review an opinion and you shouldn't need to do so. You're saying that all views need to be accepted by the community before being discussed? I disagree with that completely. At any rate, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the effect the tone of conversation on Hubski has on the image of the website as a whole.
Demanding isn't polite; but if you can't provide a solid basis for your opinion, there's not much reason for other people to find it of value. Often I am wondering if my own opinions are well founded. Understanding the basis for those that differ from mine helps me to challenge my own, and often to modify them.Isn't demanding proof or sources for an opinion insulting?
I know. What i'm saying is that the tone of the text is mostly in the mental voice of the reader. If one comes in here expecting aggressive speech, that's what they'll get (and considering how discourse often is on the internet, it's not surprising to expect that). However, you could read this comment in a condescending way, or you can read it the way I'm writing it, which is "I disagree with you like an adult, meaning we can use our inside voices and hash our disagreements out". No. You, and everyone in the world, are allowed to hold whatever opinion you choose. However, When you advance that opinion in public - which is what the internet is, regardless of its presumed anonymity - you are opening that opinion to criticism. If it doesn't pass scrutiny, why do you have that opinion? Is that opinion worth having? There are lots of discussions where both sides of an argument will have lots of evidence - Economics, for example, or "How does one run a country?" Disagreement and discussion is great, I'd argue it's most of why we're here. People disagree about shit all the time here. take this comment tree for example, where I say something dumb, get called on my shit, and I said "whoah, my Bad" then learned a bunch, while retaining that much of my fundamental point was unchanged by what I learned. The world didn't explode - indeed, i enjoyed the whole exchange. but to an outside viewer, i can see how that comment could look like it includes: 2: A condescending and sarcastic tone. 3: A sense of superiority. To me, it held none of those things. You're right that tone has an affect on the image of this website, but I say that the tone of this site is not as poor as you perceive it to be, or indeed, as many people who come from other places probably perceive it to be.I'm talking about the effect the tone of conversation on Hubski has on the image of the website as a whole.
Isn't demanding proof or sources for an opinion insulting?
You're saying that all views need to be accepted by the community before being discussed?
1: A veneer of kindness kept up until a disagreement.
This whole comment could have started at the paragraph that begins, "Where am I going with this..." Instead, you took time to criticize a community as a whole based on some interactions you've had with a few. You write, I find it hard to read something like this that paints an entire community as the types of people that only pay lip service to civility, only days after the founder of this site invited you to join him and others for dinner. You've been welcomed by many, many people here. I dare say, you'd not receive a more open armed welcome to a community. What you do after that welcome is in your hands. However, it's not lost on me that Hubski can be intimidating. In fact, some of the smartest people I know have said as much to me. That's something we could work on from a new user on-boarding standpoint, but once people engage the community, it's been my experience that hubskiers are VERY embracing. It's pretty awesome really.Next comes the hard part. The people here are, on the whole, not so bad. I've had arguments with practically everybody here and the majority of the time I was the source of any deucery. But there is no patience here for differing opinions. Lip service is indeed paid to the idea of tolerance, but any dissent is punished with condescending sarcasm. This becomes almost omnipresent when dealing with any speech deemed unfit by the "quality" standards of Hubski. These standards are enforced with rigor by people hiding snark under the guise of keeping to an arbitrary level of quality.
-cite examples please. I'd like to see where I've been snarky towards you, where anyone outside of maybe two or three people have been? I saw a discourse on here between you and elizabeth where she ever so gently suggested you take a look at yourself and it literally couldn't have been put in a kinder way. I think you might want to take her advice. any dissent is punished with condescending sarcasm.
I for one welcome dissenting opinions, I don't welcome stupid ones. Any interaction where I leave it knowing MORE than I did prior to entering it is a win. The times when I get to say, "you know what, you're right about that and I'm wrong," are the moments where I as a person grow. So, dissent is the foundation of a thoughtful community. Again, I'd challenge you to cite examples.
There is a specific set of people who I feel that that applies to. You aren't a member of that set. I'm not naming names because this is already douchy enough. Plenty of people here aren't like that, but the problem with a small community is that a couple people can dominate the conversation. That paragraph was directed at those people in particular. I'm sorry I've painted you with the same brush. You and many other people here have been nothing but good to me. Hubski is an intimidating place, and that, in my mind, is one of the reasons.