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StephenBuckley  ·  4101 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Does hubski have general expectations for its users? If so, what are they?  ·  

In general, the expectations seem to be loose, which makes sense. However, are some things I've noticed from looking around and commenting:

1) If your comment is just a joke or an agreement, people won't like it. There's a guideline for group comedy that you shouldn't just agree, you should "Yes, and..." meaning to agree and contribute. While agreement isn't (always) mandatory, agree and enhance seem to be the norm. 2) Sources. Sources, sources and more sources. People love sources! Even when they don't read them! 3) Honestly, when talking to mk about features, keep in mind that he made all of this possible. And maybe thenewgreen. I'm not sure about that one, that's just context clues. It sounds like I'm saying they're fragile, but really I'm saying they deserve all of the respect you can muster. Unless you're syncretic or kleinbl00 or Saydrah or something, because all those guys seem to have a billion ideas for the site and some kinda understanding among each other. Maybe this isn't a rule, but still, I think respect in general should be on this list and if you can't do it for everyone, do it for mk. 4) Not everyone is as open-minded as we all pretend. Sometimes you'll run into someone where both you and they are not going to yield on the issue at hand. At that point, it's probably better to walk away, ignore, and move on. 5) To get a great feel about what's promoted and what's looked down on, try checking the "badges" link under the "discover" section. Or look at "recently badged/ most badged" to find users who have been/are routinely rewarded for outstanding badges. (This sounds super braggy, since I am the most recently badged person, but it really can give you a feel for the sight.) 6) We don't seem to have a list of "don'ts" but on that list we don't have is definitely beating women. I'm glad about that, and I think the overwhelming majority of the users I've seen/interact with would be deeply unhappy to see anything headed in that direction.

Cons: 1) Watch out for religion. 2) Sometimes people are jerks! 3) Some people are the smartest people they've ever met. Be careful! You might be one of these as well! I might be one of these as well (in that I act like a jerk sometimes).

Having said that stuff, I think that kleinbl00 has made this point before, but fuck what other people want. Post what you find interesting/important. Speak your mind to anyone who speaks otherwise, however you feel is appropriate. That's the only way to find out if this is the community for you. If you're not enjoying it, leave! It's a website, not a job.

StephenBuckley  ·  4103 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How should #askhubski be substantively different from Ask Reddit?  ·  

The simple answer is: Q: How should #askhubski be substantively different from Ask Reddit? A: There should be no #askhubski.

There will be/is no "whole Hubski." The entire idea of Hubski is that if you and I are part of completely different worlds and hate everything about each other, we will very, very rarely interact. Never, ideally, and if ignoring works as it ought to.

The idea of AskReddit is that you want to get people's opinions on things, or stories from people who interest you. Maybe you like hypotheticals about super powers, maybe I like stories from people's lives, maybe @mk likes questions about how cool space is. If we use Hubski as it ought to be used, as a series of diverse and interconnected communities, an ocean carefully sorted by the centrifuge of shares into an organized series of like-minded or similarly-interested people, then you'll be able to ask exactly the people whom you would most want to hear answers from.

If you like people who talk about hypotheticals, you'll follow them. And if I like people who tell stories, I'll follow them. And if we overlap, then our interests somewhat overlap! Otherwise, I won't ask you questions. And that is awesome.

Think about Hubski as high school. Not Hollywood high school- actual high school. Sure, you had a close group of friends you could talk to privately, and yes, you got all of the important gossip about a larger group of people, but did you ever really want to know if the second-string baseball player got the prom date of his choice? You didn't. Nothing against him, but unless you sat next to him on the bench or in class or on the bus and liked him, you just wouldn't care. Even if it turned up in conversation you'd think "huh. okay" and move on, and never talk about it again because you weren't interested.

That's what Hubski is. I like hanging out with the mods and the poetry people, and some people really like the programming tag, and I have some friends who like the programming tag because we both have #philosophy at the same time and we're interested in why kleinbl00 is always angry. But if your question is "Why are the Patriots So Bad This Year?" I honestly don't care. And I will not care. And if it pops up on my feed I won't share it, and I'll block the #sports tag if it gets bad. Nothing against the post. I just don't care.

In a very real sense, there is no Hubski group. The site is designed to avoid a hivemind in place of a clique attitude- no set boundaries, but definite and tight communities with a million ties to one another and no clear delimiters. So what should you "ask hubski?" Nothing! You should ask your #imagination friends what useless superpowers they want, and I should ask my #hubski friends why we don't have an easy way to block tags only from specific users, and if you're not interested in anything I'm interested in you'll never have to hear about my boring stories on the bus about this one cheerleader I love, because you and I won't interact! And if I'm constantly talking about board games and you don't care about board games at all you can eternally silence my board game chatter and still be my friend. And I will never know or care and I'll do the same to your sports!

Imagine instead in high school that if you were taking a math class, then every time someone had a question in any math class in the whole school it would be said into the PA in your room. How much math do you think would get done? That's what organization by subject instead of by user brings. And #askhubski is that, but for every question in every class in the whole school. Sure, it might be interesting to some people, but if everyone likes a question then everyone will be "talking about" (sharing) it, and we'll all hear about it. Hubski's sharing is word of mouth made into a website.

That said, if you're friends with a bunch of people who love the idea of asking hubski stuff- AWESOME! But the second I get bored of you guys, I'll just ignore you. And if I ever wanna phone up and see how you're doing I'll search for #askhubski

Don't Ask Hubski anything! Ask your friends!

PS-Congrats about the cheerleader. Seriously, dude, she's so hot and it couldn't happen to a nicer person. Do you think your parents will mind if I have some soda while we play PS2?

StephenBuckley  ·  4108 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A better way to get to hashtags?  ·  

I think one of the goals of Hubski is to move away from the idea of content-based browsing and onto user-based browsing. The first is more likely to lead to the glorification of the masses and the second more likely to lead to... well, whatever you want, not whatever everyone wants.

For instance, on Reddit if you want to know about politics then you subscribe to r/politics and whatever makes it to the top there is what you're likely to see, regardless of whether or not it's good, original content or just whatever people have forgotten about for long enough that the repost is worth karma.

On Hubski, all I have to do to make sure I'm seeing interesting political dialogue is follow a user who seems active, intelligent, and focused on politics! Sure, I'll get some of his other posts as well, but they're more likely to be submissions which I'm interested in rather than what hundreds/thousands/millions of users are interested in.

I'm sure that over time some of the more popular users will end up basically being "subs" unto themselves, but the user-follow system is much more likely to please each person individually by avoiding democracy in favor of a sort of information-bubble.