A year ago I wouldn't have felt the need to maintain some degree of anonymity on here. I am now afraid at how much information about myself is on Hubski. It's sad..
I've been so busy these last few weeks that I never figured out that it was wage that left. I knew someone important had tapped out but never had the time to put it all together... Now 8bit... Things have changed here. We are losing bit of heart and soul. We are losing some of the perspectives that were the most interesting to me. I often didn't agree with minimumwage but at the same time her comments and links did more to change my perspective on things than almost any other user. I can't say that I didn't see 8bit coming. He couldn't shrug off the shitty people. I would say that I hoped that if he did a cost benefit he would realize that the good outweighed the bad but whatever, maybe he did... It will be interesting to see what becomes of Hubski. There is a lot to value here, certain bits that were valuable are getting ground to the nubs.
I think the fact that you're even thinking about not posting certain things is a problem and gives me a bad idea. What if posts could be made private but distinct from private messages? Public posts go to the global feed and all that, but private posts would only be available to people with a mutual follow relationship and other users you could specify? With regards to your shop, it's clear that those of us that care enough to interact with you in any capacity are very excited over this whole thing! Hubski's definitely changed as it's grown and there was a lot of "golden era" talk earlier, which I agree with _refugee_ on. Too bad those comments are now down the deleted drain.
Just to add. I almost didn't post anything about the coffee shop on Hubski because I've had enough scrape ups here recently that I thought someone might go after me online or in real life. I thought about asking kleinbl00 advice for the first time in my Hubski life because I know he has wisdom about vicious internet thugs bleeding into real life. In the end I said fuck it, post it, what's the worst they can do? I've never had so much to lose in my life and I question weather it's worth it to add any unnecessary risk. What seemed like the best Reddit wave yet has oddly caused a lot of misery.
I don't think we scale very well. I think that for a wave to go well there need to be enough active, positive, friendly Hubski members that make an individual impact on the new users that stick around, to kind of help impart the idea of the website and also serve as gentle guides as to maybe what's more appropriate or less or so on. I think it has to do with getting new users to make personal connections as much with anything else. Right now I feel like we are just running around stamping out little fires and trying to keep up with them. If there is a large influx, large and active enough to override the tone that has previously been established here, those who already were present can't do much about it - the concentration is diluted. Ironically the website takes on the flavor of whatever place the new users were fleeing, as it's their frame of reference and their habit. When 20 new people move in to a row of houses on the block, it's not that you've got new neighbors. You've got a brand new community. And sure you want to get to know them all but it is a lot more difficult to learn 20 new names and personalities than 5. It is easy to become overwhelmed. Meanwhile the established users continue to slowly leave or wander off.
Meh. This place is for everyone who wants to be a part of it. Every time there's a big influx, most of the people leave, a few turn out to be jerks, and a few turn out to be really good members (_refugee_ came from a big reddit influx, for example). There's nothing particularly different about this influx. The user everyone hates the most didn't come from it, FWIW, and this isn't the first time a well liked user has quit.
I don't know if this is universal, but there have definitely been times in my life where I've had a lot at stake and then suddenly I feel the urge to start doing risky shit (a form of l'appel du vide?)-- maybe in the hopes that it'll all come tumbling down so that I won't have to deal with it anymore. Anyway, that's one of the things I'm working at changing with this new direction I'm trying to go with in my life.In the end I said fuck it, post it, what's the worst they can do? I've never had so much to lose in my life and I question weather it's worth it to add any unnecessary risk.