Like many, someone mentioned hubski on reddit so I came to check it out. Looks like there is some good discussion, and you have kleinbl00 being a regular user so there MUST be something good about the place.
However, I'm interested in knowing how hubski intends to handle growing, if that happens, from a governance perspective.
Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, have failed or are beginning to fail, because the original intent of the site was lost when serious money and influence became involved.
I liked Kleinbl00's idea of voting for features by allowing people to put a bounty on them. That's a cool idea.
So, does hubski intend to avoid a repeat performance of the social media discussion sites that have come before it and do something innovative in this area?
If we can avoid it, I would consider it a badge of honor. The post that thenewgreen linked below explains my thinking fairly well. No matter what anyone says their intentions are, it comes down to money, and who controls it. While there may be some institutions that would not turn Hubski into garbage, there are not many of them. If a social site like this is a platform for profit, it will be destroyed. I can imagine some ways in which a site like Hubski could provide value to a parent organization and not be ruined, but I don't see these approaches being tried at the moment. There is a value in these sites that we all understand, and it does not survive a strong profit motive. I am afraid that the temptation to milk it will always be there. Speaking for myself, I am going to do my damnedest to do right by what we set out to do, and what so many here set in motion. The world has plenty of sites fighting over quantity. That's not what we are interested in. As for how that determines our future, and how we pay for this, I can't say for sure. But it could mean a unique structure that hasn't been tried before.
It's a good question and there are reasons that others have failed. Related discussion: