Related: It would be useful to have a discussion about pulling Hubski off Google. Not sure the tire-kickers are the ones you really want to attract… and because of the radically-higher signal-to-noise ratio here than Reddit, participation here is radically increasing my doxing profile. My favorite forums are invisible to google. I do not think this is a coincidence.
This, especially, is an extremely good point. Are there any pros to remaining indexable? Tentatively it might increase content-related traffic (as opposed to people thinking about reddit traffic). People might conceivably read a Wired/NPR article about hubski, try to google it and give up because they draw a blank. But surely this won't happen almost ever. EDIT: oh, the biggest pro -- without google I would never find any old posts or comments that I needed to reference. Can't de-index without a passable replacement for searching.and because of the radically-higher signal-to-noise ratio here than Reddit, participation here is radically increasing my doxing profile.
Yup. I used Hubski search first but 50% of the time end up using google and site:Hubski.com to find what I need. There is a limit to the number of old posts you can see (you can only click more so many times) so not everything is indexed in google and hypothetically it isn't googled by forever. But popular posts that get clicked stay longer. I think.
Google has been very handy for finding old posts. Including that picture of flagamuffin - flaggy, I remembered that it was you and a bicycle -- nothing else, and found it very quickly with Google.
We actually just implemented a robots.txt recently, but it doesn't include posts. As mentioned, until Hubski search performs at least as well as Google site:hubski.com, it would likely be a loss, and I agree. But to that end, forwardslash has some proposals for some significant changes to our architecture which could greatly improve our ability to query and serve the whole of Hubski. I haven't given too much thought to it, but we sure don't do any SEO. It is a conversation worth having. Tonight, however, I write the State of Hubski post.
This is the first New Year's Eve I can remember that I'm not doing anything of note. Staying home, watching American Graffiti with the wife because she's never seen it. Then I plan on drinking some Rye and ringing in the new year solo... Probably working on a podcast. -times they've changed.
Better than non-indexability would be making it an invite based community. If enough people know about it they will manage to make it here. Its not like it has a super obscure URL or something. I think the quality of non indexable communities has more to do with the fact that they are invite based than that they cannot be found via Google. A rogue search engine/misconfigured robots.txt and word of mouth on sites like Reddit will drive people here.
I'm curious, the forums you frequent, are they based around a specific common interest? Acoustics, cooking, weightlifting, etc. ? Or are they general forums, kind of like hubski?
What's the best way to find a good forum? You say that your favorites are not googleable, so how would you find it in the first place?
I wish I knew the answer. The ones I'm fond of are actually built up around something else. My participation in them is based on affinity for something else. A community I'm no longer part of (but is apparently still going) actually predates google by a good 12 years.
I've never participated in one. I can't comment. EDIT: So a little clarification. I suppose that a Non-Disclosure Agreement is technically "invite based." However, I think there's a distinction there. The other thing to keep in mind is that technical communities have a reason to exist other than "shooting the shit" although that often becomes part of the fun. So I'm not really sure how to answer this question. On the one hand, I feel like I've never participated in one. On the other hand, the ones I've participated in are locked down tighter than The Illuminati but they don't feel invite-based (despite the 22-part web form I needed to fill out for one of them). I need a vacation.
By invite only do you mean that someone on the site already would have had to invite you to join? I think that would be an interesting idea. Perhaps it would have to be someone that already has earned a badge to give?
Thought it was you but maybe it was mk who said they were firmly against the elitist viewpoint that "invite only" communities lend. If hubski were such a community I would not be here. Neither would anyone who has ever stumbled across hubski via reddit. Growth would crater, I think -- something that what.cd is fine with (even welcomes), but that would destroy the entire culture you've worked so hard to create.
Yeah, it would be very difficult to do given that some people use Hubski as a comment section on their sites and blogs. How would their user base be able to join in the conversation? Plus, I certainly wouldn't want to miss out on more flagamuffin's; are there more flagamuffins out there? I think not. Happy New Year, I woke up feeling surprisingly rested for january 1st.
I'm packing up my house all day. -no es muy fun. But I'm about to go on the first of many runs this year. Woo-hoo!
What on Earth..? Would you be willing to tell that story?
That's absolutely outrageous. Not much else to say. I forget how many terrible people there are in the world.
Spend more time on Reddit! I really oughtta sanitize some of the stuff we got when /b/ decided they wanted Samuel L Jackson to recite racist copypasta. One of these days I'll write up something about night letters and the new Internet.