One of my favorite people on here quit yesterday, and there was something I could have done that likely would have prevented it. I run the site and all that, but some of you are my friends, and many have earned my respect. I'm going to code up an update.
This in the first one that really hurts and makes me reconsider some stances. I don't know why she left, but I've always been of the stance of "when the redditors influx, give it a few weeks of shit before the assholes leave." But they haven't left and now one of my favorite contributors is gone, and I wonder if it's time to take a bolder stance to ensure the culture of the site isn't threatened.
That's a major part of my point. The culture of the site isn't immediately clear to new users, as it isn't with most sites immediately. But no one ever listened to the time-wisened knowledge of "lurk moar." Since we're so small, a ton of redditors will come in at the same time, believe we're a reddit clone, and will treat it like a reddit clone, none the wiser that what they're doing is contrary to what we are trying to do here. It's not their fault, it's just that since they came in with a bunch of redditors, their experience here is.... a bunch of redditors. It's hard to try to quantify and lay out to people the difference too. Saying "we care about personal relationships with other users" and "your network of people, ideas, sites, and connections is a vital component here" and "the experience is truly more in line with a coffee shop, or a pub, or any sort of local hub with people you love than an internet community". These are abstract ideas, and ones that other sites will use, and ignore, and they think it close enough to reddit that people will start to get angry at central components of the site, telling the people who have been here for years that they're wrong for wanting it one way or being resistant to change. And don't get me wrong, we value new ideas, but the angry vitriol people come in isn't new. You know how many times we've had to fight users about the mute function? It's tiring. I understand not wanting to put up with another month of assholes coming in and ruining something you love. I understand having a socialist, feminist safe space cut out for you on the site, only to have it shit on by assholes who don't get it over and over and over as new people come in. The important thing is the people like you who come here, don't want to step on toes, do want to understand, and do contribute a very large amounts of good quality. But that's such a minority on the internet. That's why we're small anyway. People will come in, self-centered, see a platform to preach their stale language from, and will be angry when they're not given voice. Reddit serves that masturbatory sense of ego, where here, if there are people who want to listen, they will. If people don't want to, they won't, just like in real life. If you have the self-awareness of "I've made bad habits", and "I want to learn", and "I would hate to step on the culture". you're a hubskier that we want here. That's what we strive for. If it's the people saying "I want to shape this place for my voice", get the fuck out of my coffee shop.
Literally every single slap fight I've had with new Reddit refugees has been "old makes way to the new" "but it's the old that attracted you here" "but I'm new and therefore better and therefore STFU." You remember how much blood and treasure was squandered over muting? As it turned out mk rolled out the feature I wanted, exactly as I wanted it. Go to "settings". "Filter users less than 2 days old." OMFG it improves your experience. Gives them a chance to get their sea legs and it gives me a respite from watching them orient themselves to a culture not built on pandering and flame wars.
I think part of the issue is volume. Say there are 20 active members who essentially guide the disucssion, mood, community feel, etc, of the general site. If you get 50 new members, even if each of them only sticks his or her foot in his mouth once, all of a sudden the whole pool is looking really, really shitty. I will be honest that the waves of new users in the past few weeks has driven me more away from Hubski than otherwise. I am sad about it, and it is not because I do not like people in general or as a whole. But I'm not here to chill with new users, I'm not here to watch people fall for bait, I'm not here to hold hands and share fluffy bunnies, I'm not here to pretend or put on a friendly mask. What's most unfortunate to me is that I feel driven out, instead of that I should and can defend my territory. I guess the other option's the pass of thermopolae? This, by the way, is why I'm so gung ho about a 30-day free trial and then, pony up your cash. If that would make a potential user decide not to join, I'm very, very fine with that.
you can't see but i'm banging my fork on my fruity drink glass in agreement. it's very loud. i've been on hubski for ~800 days. I don't think I first started commenting or getting involved until at least 100 of those 800 days (partially because I forgot about hubski) because i wanted to figure out the ropes before i jumped in. i don't understand why that's so difficult. rinx tagging you here because i'm muted on dear OP's post. you're attempting to tango with the devil and i am going to advise you now that it's not worth it
I'm new here, but I've been told you try to talk out differences, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I keep trying to talk to him rationally, he just ignores me so far. Is there a way to filter him for just that tag? He keeps posting things with interesting conversations elsewhere, then trolling the feminism and gender tags. I'm a little disappointed he has so many followers. I thought hubski was different but right now 3/5 top posts in #feminism are mens rights clickbait.
If you had a friend in real life who was blatantly sexist or blatantly racist how long would you be willing to tolerate the racism or sexism because you sometimes have really interesting discussions? Would it be after the first time they said something really terrible in public? Or the first time you were embarrassed to be out with them because of your conversation or their attitude. Would it be when you realized that everyone else who knows your friend knows that they are a terrible sexist/racist, and when they see you two pal-ing it up, they think that either you must be ignorant, or also sexist/racist? Do you think it's possible this user deliberately posts interesting content outside of the racist/sexist discussions, in order to a) hide his wolf nature in sheep's clothing, b) convince others he's not a troll, c) be that much more successful in his trolling? LOL do not blame Hubski for this. You can blame waves of users who may or may not have arrived recently, but Hubski has over and again been a place to defend minorities (race, color, gender, etc). I have had many great vehement discussions about it. Some even with this-user-who-must-not-be-named-because-we-care-so-much. Ben will tell you that when I want to I come down like a hammer. But if there are 50 new people on a site having discussions I've already had with people I've already figured out are trash, I am not going to spend the energy. That's not fun, it's not social media, it would be a god-damned job. My theory is that that user is just the trollingest troll playing a long game. Obvious trolls are obvious. A troll who appears otherwise sane and reasonable and even funny or nice to talk to - now that's a troll that will work, and can stick around. If you are repeatedly engaging with this person outside of his areas of trollery, you are making him appear more legitimate to other users. Trash should be taken out to the curb; ignorant people who like to pick fights and act innocent should be muted, filtered, and hushed. You will find that they bother you less. I'm a little disappointed he has so many followers. I thought hubski was different but right now 3/5 top posts in #feminism are mens rights clickbait.
Heh you're kinda assuming some things about me here. I do have sexist friends. Not many, but a couple. I keep them around because ignoring them means they go on being sexist. We have occasional debates about it, but more importantly they see the unfair things I struggle with. Even if we never see eye to eye, we learn from each other. If it gets to the point where knowing them is bad for me I'll happily cut them off, no problem. But for now, my goal is sharing and expanding each others worldview. To me, hubski seemed kinda about that too. I'm not blaming hubski, although I do believe grendel is proof that the site probably has some kinks to work out. It's hard to invite my friends to the site. "Hey check out hubski! It's different from reddit! Women are welcome!"
"Um.. rinx... why is the 3rd post down about whipping feminists" "Oh trolls are a very small minority, you can block them!" "yeah... that's what people said about reddit" For me personally he doesn't bother me. Like I said, I know people like him in person. Once you've met them it's impossible not to feel sorry for them. I would like to see him have less representation in #feminism, so that's why I suggested us consolidating on a tag to filter.
I think the difference is though, that while you and your friends disagree sometimes, you can still have civil conversations and healthy dialogues. My best friend and I for example, we agree on almost nothing, but that doesn't get in the way of our friendship because we have an honest respect for each other's opinions. With trolls, it's a different story. They often choose belligerence for the sake of belligerence and when you discover that they're not there to be reasonable, sooner or later you have to decide how far you really want to go to work with them.
Sure, my point is more, I'll always start with an attempt at real conversation. If it's obvious I'm talking to a troll, or it's something that is unhealthy for me, I end it. Otherwise I try to keep the pipeline open even if I disagree with people. Grendel's an obvious troll, but probably also a really unhappy person. I don't regret at least attempting a reasonable conversation, although I won't keep doing it.
Trash should be taken out to the curb; ignorant people who like to pick fights and act innocent should be muted, filtered, and hushed. You will find that they bother you less. I know myself personally, that I've rubbed a few people on here the wrong way, even though that was never my intention. When you put so and so's behavior exactly like this, I start to wonder if that's how my actions come across as well. I think, especially for those of us who have come from Reddit or other sites with an ingrained culture of confrontation and belligerence, really need to stop and be careful of not only what we say, but how we say it. At the same time, I know this is a frustrating period for a lot of Hubski veterans, and though it's not my place to say it, a bit of patience on their part is definitely appreciated. Unless someone's a complete dick. Though, how many of us really wake up in the morning and say "Today, I intend to be a dick."?My theory is that that user is just the trollingest troll playing a long game. Obvious trolls are obvious. A troll who appears otherwise sane and reasonable and even funny or nice to talk to - now that's a troll that will work, and can stick around. If you are repeatedly engaging with this person outside of his areas of trollery, you are making him appear more legitimate to other users.
There's no rationalizing with this one. You can go through my past comments and see what happens when you try and have a real honest to gosh conversation. I think if you filter the user, you won't see their posts in a tag. The real tag you wanna use is #grrlski
I will personally shout him down. If hubski is my bar, grrlski is my barstool. And you don't get to shit on my barstool without me making a big stink.
Suggestions as to why it's not done more are: * most of the people who notice how badly the place is being shitted up because of him don't get the chance to tag him; they nope out when they see him dominating activity stats and getting shares * those who filter in the hope that enough filters will eventually get him globally filtered don't see his posts * troll watchers want to watch the fights * the majority here are from privileged demographics and still think it is genuine discourse and use the free speech card despite holy fuck look at what that did for reddit. But anyway, some people have started tagging him #troll, though then someone went way too far and mk and insomniasexx (rightfully) had a sad.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can take it. He can't mute me on my own posts.
We've used the bar analogy a lot and when I stop and think about it, I've always left my favorite bars after a while because the vibe changes as new regulars populate the place. I feel like if there were a few such places on the internet where I could go and bump into familiar usernames, I'd feel less annoyed by influxes. I don't think that any of us wants to feel that we have to maintain anything, especially for something we're doing in our free time. For me, over the past few influxes hubski has started to feel more like a chore.
For it to continue. In real life this is done through things like tradition, common history, food, language and family. Other than, "welcome to hubski! did you check the primer page?" and "lurk moar!" what can we do? Take everyone by the hand and show them how we've been doing things? Sounds exhausting to me, but cheers to anyone who has been trying to maintain the site culture.
Keep participating. Welcome people who are doing it right. Give the cold shoulder to people who are doing it wrong. Don't feed the trolls. Eventually some people decide this isn't the community for them, some decide this is the community for them, and the trolls realize they're foaming at mouth in an empty room. It's a fragile thing and stops working if an overwhelming number of people want to come recreate reddit, but I don't think we're anywhere near that point.
I was just remarking to mk that I think something like 99% of laws and rules are made to protect people from the 0.1% of people out there who are complete jerk offs. With regard to the internet, it's amazing how far one really committed troll can bring down a site.You know how many times we've had to fight users about the mute function? It's tiring. I understand not wanting to put up with another month of assholes coming in and ruining something you love. I understand having a socialist, feminist safe space cut out for you on the site, only to have it shit on by assholes who don't get it over and over and over as new people come in.
And that's what it always is, unfortunately. Before it was mreiland, before that teamrajoncal or something like that. The names stick with you because it's always that one dedicated chucklefuck. It just feels worse this time because usually a flux is a month, a month and a half, and the person makes some grandstanding nuclear meltdown of a post and leaves. But with how it's been non-stop fluxes for two months now, it's terrible. It provides him with new venues every day, and it makes him the face of the site that everyone sees. It's extremely frustrating.
hidden posts: 0 hushed users: 46 muted users: 30 filtered users: 149 filtered tags: 20 filtered domains: 1 I don't screw around with filtering users.
Hush is my first line of defense/first reaction. Hush is for when I feel you are a person behind your username, and I want to give you a chance, but damn do you piss me off. I usually hint at it when I've hushed someone because I tell them, "Hush, you." I hush people when I still want to give them a chance.
My thinking is: Spammer? Filter. Posts things I don't like? Filter. Posts things I don't care about? Filter. User I like who infrequently posts something I don't like/care about? Leave it, not that big of a bother. Don't see much of a point in using the hidden post feature given how much control I already have over how my feed looks.
I'm almost the opposite. Hardly any mutes or filters except for a few #technology spammers. I think it might be because I hardly visit global... hidden posts: 2 hushed users: 10 muted users: 6 filtered users: 12 filtered tags: 0 filtered domains: 2
Or you're substantially less combative than me. Keep in mind: Every chucklefuck flameout Meriadoc mentions hasn't been "fuck you Hubski" it's been "fuck you Hubski also kleinbl00 is your butt buddy and I hate him" or "fuck you kleinbl00 also hubski because you're kleinbl00's butt buddy. I think Hubski attracts the thin-skinned, and a lot of them harbor an untested notion that they're cleverer than most. It's difficult to disavow them of this notion gently, and until they are disavowed of it much of their discussion is flavored with "you're wrong because I'm clever, mommy told me so." It stands to reason that I end up as Bubble Burster In Chief 'cuz if you don't have a thick skin you got no business moderating a default on Reddit. Little-publicized fact: the FPH fiasco caused at least one moderator suicide. this stuff is realer than most people realize.
These two statements are not mutually exclusive. Do you consider "internet crush" and "blind worship" synonyms? You are not the first person who has observed, and attempted to leverage, that flippant remark as if it denotes a deep, significant, connection - for some reason some small subset of people sees that "I have an internet crush on kleinbl00" and assumes not only that I am a slave to him in my devotion, but that I must be enlightened, freed from my crush. And that it is THEIR duty to disillusion me! If you cannot disagree with someone you have a crush on you are in for a very hard time in life, relationships, and dating. If you cannot perceive flaws in those who you admire and enjoy, then you are either not very perceptive or willingly blind yourself to negatives. Neither of those traits describes me. You know what having an internet crush on kleinbl00 means? It means that when we disagree (and we do disagree), I make a conscious decision as to whether I want to engage or not. It means I sit and consider, "Is this discussion worth it?" and sometimes I think, "Nope." It means that sometimes, when we disagree, I sit back, consider everything about myself klein doesn't know, ponder how he must have an equal or greater share of such items in his invetory, and I think, "He thinks he is right, I think I am right, it is not harming either of us to think that, and to prove would be exhausting. Let us both instead be happy, and continue to enjoy talking to each other." Thank god I'm the only one claiming to have an internet crush in this discussion tho' cuz damn I don't want to know what the other side of it would or wouldn't look like. If anything, I strive to simply accept the internet user for who and what he is. It is impossible for two strong personalities not to clash heads sometimes. If my bio said I was a pistol-totling pussy-whipping rattlesnake-eating half-Mexican half-Asian cowboy learning the tricks of the rope trade to train in the rodeo, would that somehow be relevant to this discussion of whether I "only agree with [a person] when I agree with them"? No. Would you believe it? Does it matter? Nope. A person who cannot see, acknowledge, even appreciate the vast gulfs that exist between us all - the ones that get deeper and bigger and vastier as we get more emotionally close - a person who cannot accept fundamental differences, is a person who doesn't know what affection is. That is a person who thinks love is weak, simple-minded, dependent on another to be led, wholly reliant on its object in order to take shape. I do not worship. I do not grovel. I do not, as they say, put the pussy on a pedestal. I accept humanity. tl,dr: i's a dik
i'm singing britney spears after reading this so you can tell how my friday is going
Wow. It was a tiny joke. I don't care if you agree with kleinbl00 on issues or not. Like not even a little bit. And this isn't about you 'accepting users' or any larger philosophical comment. It was a little joke. It's not my duty to disillusion you. I don't even know you. But as this is the first time I can remember talking to you, I hope this isn't you putting your best foot forward to a stranger.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope I can change your mind one day. Though I looked around at our comment history and there aren't many interactions worth mentioning, not because they were good or bad, but because they weren't much of anything memorable. I don't know what I said that got you so riled up, but if you ever want to fix it and move on I'm happy to be a part of that.
I think of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and how on that colony they didn't have any particular laws. If there was a problem, either man could accuse the other and find a third party to act as judge. After hearing the case, the judge would give a one time verdict. I have to go back to the book to fill out the nuances, but it was an interesting idea that didn't rely on tomes of preexisting rules and let the community deal with problems as they arose.
Here here to this. I was one of those that came in the Reddit exodus and it is a bit jarring to see some discussion take on more of a Reddit-y tone. I much prefer Hubski simply for its more soothing and, I guess, cerebral atmosphere (without sounding like a bit of an ass) and I do hope that the community tries to maintain that.
Damn...this is equal to when eightbitsamurai left (before he came back, which...yay!) for me. Bad thing to read right after hopping on Hubski.
is an overstatement, the only reason there's no "user_inactivated" is because a search party would be sent for me and steve would probably find my address and just knock on my door one day asking where I went. I only ever show up now when someone @'s me, lil makes a post, or there's another influx and I get one of these or these or hey look another one because I can't help it my snark meters override anything else And yeah yeah yeah bad apples blah blah blah just mute them blah blah discussion blah blah but I just want to talk about how I'm a racist asshat blah blah blah but shit ya'll like I said before, I can just choose to not have to deal with people combing through my history and posting on shit from weeks or months ago telling me that I'm wrong/racist/dumb/angry/etc, and even if that last one is true, the choice is what makes it so FREEING. Plus if you mute #askhubski 1/3 of my front page disappears so there's that, hacame back
This is what I'm getting at, too. When racist asshats dominate everything, it makes it preeeetty fuckin' clear to POC that this looks just like reddit. I've been racking my brain for a week about what better things we can do to moderate out scum, I've been picking the brains of other users, I was talking to mk today, and the few ideas I have will piss off a number of people no matter what. I find it worth fighting for though, so I'll push ahead as much as I can, but then again I'm not asked to defend my stances on race relations every single day. Oh wait, a racist asshat made sure there's been a thread in my feed every day for a week to tell me white privilege don't real. He must be right.
piggybacking off that, 8bit isn't just being required to defend his stance on race relations... he's being asked to defend his own existence.
I'm pretty sure the answer is "stop engaging," and I'm pretty sure not enough people get that for it to be effective. If we all decided a shitty user was shitty and no longer fed that user attention, there wouldn't be such a problem. To be honest I've had that one we've been talking about all day triple-modded for so long that when people started to post about him, I had to go looking to figure out what the issue was. Yes you should stand up against someone's racism. No you should not make a habit of giving a racist an audience.
What if you didn't have to stop the asshat from being an asshat, but their comments were rendered invisible to you? Almost as if they were muttering to themselves…
It's a great idea that I like a lot, along with a block feature that mk and b_b were talking of earlier. My bigger issue is the image that is put out. The asshat we're talking about has made himself present in every post recently, so new users first experience is going to be... a vitriolic racist red piller. It would still be great, because as users will go on, they'll see that people have applied the Mutter option to him so much he never gets responses.... except from new users who don't know yet. Imperfect, but it's still a step that would do a lot.
Posts highly-muted people make are hidden from global, comments on others' posts are not though. But then again, false positives in posts on global are only slightly bothersome. False positives on highly-muted people having their comments would be a lot worse (and easily abusable).
I cannot blame you, bit. mk What if we didn't allow new accounts to post to askhubski? :D :D I'm mostly kidding, but also, god damn do new kids like to ask questions that have already been asked and aren't that interesting. Seriously I would care about your goal of the week if I cared about you, (pick a user at random). But I don't. I don't know you. I have no reason to care or to share except maybe a bunch of people will think my goal is cool and spoke me or comment vaguely flattering things about it at me. I know this is going to sound crazy but I don't get off much on other people's validation, especially when they're all hollow masks of a crowd. So I'm not going to share a goal just so other people circlejerk it. And also, person who asked that question: I don't mean my comments personally, I just picked the last askhubski post I could remember that wasn't something completely stupid like ("when's your birthday?"), seriously, please don't have a shitfit. I hate everyone posting in AskHubski right now and it has only the littlest bit to do with actual-you.
I sincerely miss you posting more often, and I fully support whatever mod decisions that are made that allow you to be a fully active and contributing member to the community here. If a space can't be made for you of all people I don't know who the hell else can call it their internet home. Also, I'm going to @ you in every comment I post from now on. You're on summer break now, yeah? How's it going so far?
Gratsi to you + everyone else that posted. Oh yeah I forgot this was Pubski. This summer I have: Fasted Lost 10+ pounds Picked up Skullgirls competitively, did not win a tournament
Played Ace Attorney Played Rune Factory 4 Picked up Roy for Smash, did win a tournament Worked I guess, whatever Read some books Went to New York Got a second job Moved to a better apartment Probably other stuff but it's not important
Just visited. Skullgirls is awesome, I've never done any competitive fighting game stuff besides Smash but the tutorial is so thorough that I pulled off a combo like half an hour after reading it. Also the design is amazing and soundtrack is bomb. Cool beans all around.
woah, you've been getting shit done! Second job in your field or a college stop-gap? I've always wanted to do a fast, but I get seriously bitter and snappy about everything after 6 hours without food and I can't conscienably do that to my friends. Happy (and hopefully peaceful) Ramadan, btw
It's kinda in my field, foot in the door, so to speak. I would say with fasting the intent is half of what makes it easy. If I go to work and forget my lunch, I'm going to be cranky and pissed for the rest of the day. But if I wake up in the morning and have the intent to fast for the rest of the day, it's significantly less stressful.
that makes sense, I'm gonna give it a try once I get home. I've not been eating nearly as much as I used to which (which was A LOT, 2-3 mission burritos a day a lot) but I think I've been priming myself for something a bit more rigorous. Did you do any caloric intake at all, or just water/assorted teas? And the foot in the door is way to go, congrats! Connections go a long way, and something tells me you've got some rad ideas that would merit the support they can provide.