We are going to try an experiment.
Starting today, when you sign up for Hubski, you will be able to comment immediately, but you cannot post until you have earned your first hubwheel.
Importantly, there are now three ways that you can earn your first hubwheel:
1. As before, if your commenting activity is appreciated by the community, you will gradually earn a full hubwheel.
2. If one of your comments is badged, you will earn a full hubwheel.
3. If someone with a hubwheel chooses to, they can promote you to a full hubwheel at any time.
For those of you that have earned one or more hubwheels, you will now see a 'promote' link over the comments of new users. Simply click on it to give them a hubwheel.
As always, feedback is much appreciated.
EDIT: I don't think that 'promote' is the best word. Definitely open to suggestions there. Circledot?
I have signed up just to endorse this. I've been lurking for entirely too long, and as a random browser I've been assaulted with entirely too much spam, yet knowing that those who are signed in see none of it. I was lucky to run across hubski through some random link or else I'd never know that there are many intelligent and creative people here. The face hubski shows the public is definitely marred with spam the insiders cannot see. Edited to complain that entirely was entirely used too much. Entirely.
Angryjesus, you should entirely comment more often. I would endorse that, entirely.
It's funny you say that, as it had just crossed my mind that I've always been a very voracious consumer of the posts here, yet I seem to have little to say. My theory is that it has something to do with my work. I'm a crane operator at a trash to steam plant. I work shift work and a great deal of overtime. When I'm caught up on feeding boilers I have the occasional short stretch where I can pause and read something. Writing this has taken 7 of those short breaks. It takes a great deal more time and energy to produce than to consume. I'm taking yet one more short break to read this over in it's entirety and make sure I haven't repeated myself again ;-)
It might be a good idea to tweak the Welcome post a bit to more fully reflect the new policy. Sounds a bit like new comers will be able to hit the ground running. I'm also gonna throw a little something into the hat for a 'promote' replacement: UpdootifyThe best part is you can post & share what interests you with others. If you don’t see your favorite topic of conversation being posted, post it yourself – there is a diverse crowd on Hubski.
I have always been a fan of the adagium 'lurk moar', so I think that that is a good idea. Spam is mostly linkspam anyway, I doubt there is much comment spam around. It might be worth keeping an eye on what kind of accounts promote what kind of accounts, because you might have someone spending some actual time here and then just promoting all of their bot accounts. Maybe to continue the 'hubski as a bar' analogy, you could use the word 'welcome'? I imagine a bar regular welcoming a young padawan to the table.
I'm on the other side of this fence. If there is a great comment thread with several really good ideas, or several posts with excellent comments, I don't want to be told I cannot reward that person for their quality content due to some arbitrary constraint imposed by the software. Participation should not be punished. However, I could see limiting a user's number of promotions for their first month of membership, or preventing them from being the first person to promote a post... that could limit the spammers enough to discourage them. I am starting to like the idea of rate-limiting promotion to once per person per day.
This may be too much complexity, but we could allow you a daily amount of "welcomes" based on how many badges you have. If you only have one badge, you get one welcome. If you're kleinbl00, you get a thousand.
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Sure, just wanted to test this out. I wonder, is there a better word than "promote?" Can anyone think of one?
Vouch and Sponsor? They seem effective to me,, but are the connotations correct? Are we creating a new-age Fremasonry or The Loyal Order of Water Buffalo? (For those Flintstones fans). To me "highlight" seems closer, not there yet, but is there a way to communicate "This account has demonstrated they are here to add more than they take, or not spam the crap out of us all?"
Of the connotations that can be relayed, I found 'highlight' as the least personable. To escape from guessing intentions in diction, I'm more a fan of 'circledot' or 'wheel' or 'some hubski-esque word without meaning'. Keeps it central to the site and no room for interpretation.... you just circledot them, take know? EDIT: This sound weird, but the more I think about it, why not 'orange'? That's what we all see as our own posts/comments.
After searching the thesaurus for variations of promote, endorse, support, vote, highlight and coming up with bupkus... Maybe you should just invent a word. Orange (suggested in another comment) may be too generic. I keep coming back to playing with the name of the site. Hubski. Hub-and-spoke is the system used to design many airports. Hubski reminds of an airport, where ideas come to land, takeoff, etc. So maybe Taxiing or Add To Runway (or something like that) ... Hatch? (an opening of restricted size allowing for passage from one area to another.) Hub-and-spoke is
Seems like a good compromise; lets newcomers see the posts that are there and allows them to contribute, but should hopefully cut down on the annoying links on global.
So I could just buy/spawn/recruit/sock puppet a billion accounts and immediately activate them, as long as I'm in possession or control of a hoarded-badge account? Jw, what're the current password requirements? In all honesty this loophole is probably too nefarious and Machiavellian to see much use, but I'll point it out there.
It's possible, but it if it looks like an issue, we will change things so as to know who is so dastardly, and who they have promoted. Another possibility is to rate-limit it. Say, you can only promote once per day. Very very low.Jw, what're the current password requirements?
I actually don't know mine, but it's not because I use some fancy password manager. One time I got drunk and changed it to a string of random letters and numbers I don't know. For what it's worth, same deal with my Facebook. But hey! Can't hurt to make those reqs any bit more stringent, could it? Another barrier to entry for new users, why not? Hubski doesn't force log outs ever so no one existing would be impacted.
