What have we learned? A lot actually. I think we confirmed a lot of what we already knew:
1. New users can be very friendly, excited about Hubski and often need some guidance.
2. Many of the old-users will help the new users out. This is awesome
3. Many of the old-users like to take a week or two long Hubski vacation until the influx subsides. Hey all, you can come back now.
4. Many of the new users will act as though Hubski was just created and will make many suggestions for improvements. Many of which already exist.
5. The users that stick around tend to be those that take the time to suss out what it is this place is all about. To use kleinbl00's phrase, they "lurk moar."
6. Trolls will troll. Use the tools. Trolls get bored. But during an influx, new tools tend to emerge.
7. Conversations about muting and free speech will occur. These conversations are tiring for old-users as we've had them many times. Your feed is your feed, your posts are your posts. You get to decide who you let in. Not much to add here.
8. The site will normalize again, ideally with some more newbies that we can all get to know and welcome in to the community. This always happens. It's the calm after the storm and some of the best "hubski-ing" occurs during this period imo.
9. The level of "askhubski" type of posts will grow substantially. Many of the questions are ones we have hashed out many times in the past. This can be annoying to older users. My advice is to filter #askhubski for a while.
10. We as a site will be tested as to how scalable we are. We will make changes as needed and be better off for it.
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All of these things occurred. We are in a good place as a community. We need to examine how we can further mitigate the risk of a troll(s) effecting the experience of new users and old users alike. It's a problem that several new and old users pm'd me about. It's worth solving.
We need to figure out how we are going to pay for the site. I really appreciate all of the ideas that you all have provided. Particularly KB.
We have a LAUNDRY list of to-do's on the site that mk is going to be returning to. We couldn't have brought on rob05c at a better time. I happen to know that forwardslash is damn close to getting a new and more robust search up and running. I know that insomniasexx and I are on the same page regarding the future of the site and I look forward to sharing some of our ideas with mk upon his return. -I am personally of the opinion that the future of Hubski doesn't involve advertising dollars, but rather a fee for service model (no fee for you guys, but for content creators) that leverages Discussion Via Hubski. The more I think about it, the more this makes sense to me. I have no desire to EVER sell any user info (we don't really have any anyways) to an advertiser. But I think mirroring the discussions we have here back on the content creators site for a small fee makes sense. What do you guys think?
As I mentioned before, I like the donation model too. A site financially supported by it's users with some incremental revenue from a proprietary commenting system which leverages the most thoughtful, kickass community online.... sounds like a plan to me.
Thoughts on my rambling post?
I have thoughts. 1) The Great White Hope of Reddit was going to be 3rd-partying their system as blog comments on Conde Nast's properties, a la Disqus. This ran aground when they discovered what a bloated mess Reddit is to run. If you guys can spool out an installation of Hubski that can be run locally, is lightweight and has optional central coordination, I'll bet you could license that. Hubski has a better chance of being a ranked Wordpress plugin than Reddit ever did. This will mean focusing on functionality more than community but it's probably worth doing. I'd look at Red Hat's business model, considering Rob's thoughts on open-source. It makes sense to unleash the code onto the world and then get paid to support it. 2) #askhubski turns into a shitshow during influxes because it's an obvious tag. #vaguequestionsbypablo, on the other hand, does not. Likewise, #writing is a perennial pigfuck while #writebetterdamnit is not. And while I think a parseable, searchable tag taxonomy is vital to the future of Hubski as a site and as an architecture, it's also clear that quality through obfuscation is a thing. 3) I think people underestimate the chilling effects of muting. By my observation over several of these waves, a user need only lose their temper and get muted in a couple places before they decide to fuck off home. We have few recurrent trolls and a lot of our "trolls" are actually maladroit teenagers that aren't used to interacting in an environment that remembers what an asshat you are every morning. I think we would benefit from really exploring and nailing down what muting and blocking mean from a social standpoint. They're much more influential on a user when they're new. I'm wondering if it might be useful to have the system send an acknowledgement, not when someone mutes you, but when someone unmutes you. But that's just me spitballing. There's plenty to discuss about muting but we never get there because we burn all our energy on "yes, we need that, sit down and eat your porridge." I want my conversation tracking graph back. Maybe you don't get that until you've been around the sun a few times, but considering how relationship-dependent this place is, knowing what the last conversation I had with User X was is useful. I get that it's cycle-intensive. Finally, if you intend to monetize Hubski and accept donations, you need a way to convert those donations back into something of value. This pretty much demonstrates that you see a donation model as a stopgap on the way to profitability, which makes donors unwitting venture capitalists with a guaranteed 0% return. That will foment resentment.
I can't remember where I got it, I think freakanomics, but I like the idea of giving people some control over the direction of their donations (the freakanomics example was talking about taxes). So TNG would post three upcoming projects from the to-do list and when you donated you could donate those dollars to one of the three specific projects. Once one is "funded" it gets made. It's a sort of very pragmatic value add that gives donors the feeling of control on a site.
Thanks for the reply. I agree with much of it. I don't see user donations getting us there, but perhaps I'm wrong. I would also be glad to take a SUBSTANTIAL pay cut in order to make Hubski my full time pursuit. The way I was thinking about it was very much akin to the NPR model, where only 34% of the operating funds come from the public: Also, I'm literally just spit-balling, which I know YOU know, but anyone else reading this, don't get freaked out. None of this is in the works, I'm just thinking transparently with you all.I want my conversation tracking graph back.
-We all do. I don't think this was an intentional thing. When mk gets back, we'll put that at the top of the list. I miss it for the same reasons you do. It's a good feature. if you intend to monetize Hubski and accept donations, you need a way to convert those donations back into something of value. This pretty much demonstrates that you see a donation model as a stopgap on the way to profitability
I hear you. I'm not sure that "profitability" is the goal, but sustainability is. If we are to continue to put the amount of time we put in to this place, eventually it needs to become my full time pursuit or I will keep getting fired from my jobs. No joke. 
I've been doing work in the non-profit sector of the triangle and they have a lot of technology issues. I haven't been able to put my full force behind figuring it out, but there may be a solution there where you can build solutions for them part time, implement hubski as a back end chat program for donors and participants, and use that money to support the project. Just random thoughts.
Thanks for the thought. I'm not really interested in an enterprise version of Hubski. If you take a look at the DvH model, you'll see that it's a perfect fit. It doesn't disrupt the community at all, we would get to hand select the media/pulications/blogs that have it in a manner that helps to grow our community around high-integrity content. Thanks though.
if you're willing to accept money to make the thing go, you should be willing to accept money to make the thing stand up on its own. I'm not saying "all in on Mammon" but profits give a lot of operational flexibility. You either make money or you don't. If you're willing to make money, don't set out to suck at it.
I hear that, but I also don't want it to ever be the driving force. There are needs and wants and it's dangerous to confuse the two.
I think point 3 is something we need to take note of, for the reasons you mention. I don't think we should change mute, at all. However, I know that "You are muted here" message is not at all nice to read.
Maybe if that "You are muted here" text were an obvious link to some more text explaining why mute works the way it does, and some reassuring text about how they shouldn't take it personally, (i.e., people mute for all kinds of reasons or sometimes none at all); maybe something like that would mitigate the perception problem.
backtoyoujim, I'm sorry to say that you have violated one of the provisions in Hubski's super secret, non-published code of conduct. By directly mentioning the website that shall not be named, twice in one post mind you, you will be fined $10.00 and must report to thenewgreen for further punishment to be metered out at his sole discretion. He is tough, but fair. Still, I wouldn't wish him on anyone. May God have mercy on your soul.
We could totally have a a bad word jar. reddit is one dollar, cunt is 1.50, faggot is 3.00, nigger is 4.00 and so fourth. Maybe we could also add those words that have turn into pseudo intellectual words that are used too often. Like ad hominem. That'll be 50 cents please. Would you like a side order of cunt with that to make it an even $2 this evening? this is all sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell
Shhh...This is a totally fool-proof plan that has been exceptionally worked out in all it's details. :P
I think this site only continues to improve as it grows. In regards to donations, I've been waiting years to help support Hubski. A wise man once said, "don't be a free user."
If I were to have to pay money in order to add content, I'd stop using the site. It unfairly gives leverage to people who are well off financially, and people who aren't. And for anybody who says, it'll only be a dollar, or five, or a few cents: I am currently getting by, food and all, on less than $360 a month. I severely dislike any website, game, anything that treats people from a lower income bracket like second class citizens. In such cases, those with money get to be the ones who provide the news, make the laws, control flow of ideas, manipulate the system. F2P, with the only cash shop items to be used in game are cosmetic items, is my preference. Never about content--that can kill video games. I'd much rather prefer a donation option.
Ah good timing. I just sent a message to mk about the funding experiment currently happening and gave some other suggestions. I'll copy the bulk of it here: However, I don't think it's how funding should work. For one thing, it is really easy to forget about. It just doesn't really affect anything.... until I remember it. And then I'm annoyed that I'm not really doing anything. The numbers are so small, but if they were big I'd get really war y of sharing things. Bitcoin is also so volatile, and I don't keep up with it, I wouldn't have a perceived notion of how much I'm giving. All it makes me think is "fuck I'd love to just donate money. My other main concern is how easily this can be gamed. People will start doing things specifically for the bits, or money, or what have you. It's like having karma, but it's actually valuable. This would be an issue immediately, but on scaling, it's an even bigger thing to deal with. It's a neat idea, but it's just not practical. It's prone to problems, and it doesn't make me feel like I'm contributing in the way I want. Of course a donate button is what most are going to ask for, because it's non-invasive and people will care enough to use it, but if I might propose an idea as well that might be just as abysmal, but might have value in consideration: Similar to what kb suggested, to have an account, it costs two bucks. That's all. In fact, you can even have an account if you like for free, but to comment or post, you need to pay the two dollars. I feel like this would more than cover the costs of an account, plus discourage trolls, plus would encourage "lurk moar." I propose it that way because I don't like the idea of having a "free trial" of 30 days and then needing to pay. It seems better to have "you can have an account on the site for as long as you like, but to be a part of the community costs a small amount." It feels better and less business-like. Additionally, something like NSFWCorp's Conflict Tower in addition to whatever you decide on might be good, where the prices to get in start low, and as it goes higher with more backers, a spot costs more. Doing say may give a benefit like a look into what hubski is considering doing in the future, or minutes of meetings. Maybe do like they did and have a dedicated "Hubski Event", like a dinner or an official meetup somewhere in the country.I think it's generally a good idea. At first I was worried about it, because I would share things for different reasons, and didn't like the thought of funding something I shared. Just because I booped it doesn't mean I like it, or that money should go to it. But I quickly forgot about it entirely and just let it do as it does.
We have a funding experiment going on? I couldn't agree more with all of your criticisms of the current experiment. I know mk was excited to try it, but I literally haven't thought twice about it since the first day. I spoke with insomniasexx and she had the same feeling. Like dublinben, many users have been clamoring for a way to help support the site, which is really, really awesome. More and more, I like a straight up donation mechanism. You choose the amount. It's a good clean start, then we can go from there. I do like the barrier to entry that your suggestion brings though. That's a good thing.Similar to what kb suggested, to have an account, it costs two bucks. That's all. In fact, you can even have an account if you like for free, but to comment or post, you need to pay the two dollars.
There will be a transactional fixed cost of about $.30-$.40 just to process a $2 transaction. I have always liked the $5 model. It's clean, it covers the transactional cost and the cost per user and puts some more in the hubski hat for things like stickers, t-shirts etc.
In the end, I think it should be a combination of things. A donate button should always be available to just straight up give, if it's a bit hidden. Have a small friendly reminder drive once a year to promote it too. The barrier is a really nice idea, but it will certainly piss people off. Not that it's a bad thing. I think we have something unique and valuable here that it's a good consideration, and it discourages assholes, and it regulates the fluxes along with keeping the culture preserved. There were some good points raised on poorer countries having access limited then, but there's certainly ways around that. I haven't thought it through that thoroughly yet, but there are a number that pop into my head immediately. And the more I think about it, the more I like the Conflict Tower approach as well. We already have a good number of meetups. Having one that happens to have a 'Members Only' meeting during it wouldn't be too bad. It's scalable too, and can be "filled" and finished if the site feels satisfied.
That username is green either because they follow you or you mutually follow each other (greenish-blue). Edit: went to delete this because the other person got there first, but then discovered I can undelete! That is amazing!
My husband and I both pay $12/y each for access to a site that helps us decide on WoW gear upgrades. So a dollar per month. I would probably be willing to go around the same for hubski. But this still keeps out the poorer folk who rely on public internet facilities/hotspots and I really hate that they'd be excluded from here. However, I suspect there would be people willing to sponsor others; maybe people would even throw in to a sponsorship pool -- $5/yr + $5 to the pool. Maybe a nominal amount from every paid subscription could get allocated to this? But how do we know who we'd be ok sponsoring? We could let newbies do shares and hubvotes but only make one comment a day, perhaps, and make it obvious that a badge would give sponsorship to people badging them. "+$" maybe. If paying contributors see someone who they want to keep around, but who hasn't paid up, they give them a badge, have the badge take the user cost/year value from the sponsorship pool and give them a month or a quarter or a year. I dunno. I've been thinking about it for a while. Maybe it's silly.
Something missing from this discussion since I first raised it is the first half of the equation: how much would Hubski have to cost. Rob and I nearly came to blows over a number I massaged out of Reddit - it was a placeholder number, not a hill to die on. I'd also be perfectly cool paying $10/year with the option to endow 4 subscriptions, for example, or $100 to open the magical floodgates whenever I damn well felt like it. Several of the private trackers I subscribe to offer the ability to buy ratio. Several others allow invites only when you've crossed a threshold. I think there's a lot of versatility IF we decide pay-to-play is worth pursuing. It's a big "if."
I know I'm new, so that means I'm not very familiar with your community. And I posted this before, but this seems like a better place to discuss this. So feel free to tell me to bug off or mute me, but here's my thoughts: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/15/you-must-blow-reddit-up-to-save-it.html After reading the linked article, I've been questioning whether a corporate startup environment is the right way to handle an online marketplace of ideas and discussion. There will always be the Imgurs and 9Gags out there to share pictures (shoutout to Plag and their fantastic app I found recently). But for larger and longer discussion that can give voice to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses maybe a different structure is needed. I know, that's blasphemy in today's Silicon Valley or Wall Street, but maybe that's part of the problem. Basing a community on the foundation of shifting sands that is VC funding is maybe part of the problem? Haven't corporate interests shown that most people can be bought eventually? An old corporate negotiating tactic is to invite the leaders of the opposition to your ivory tower and treat them like equals. Pretty soon they start to identify with you rather than who they're supposed to be representing and you get whatever you wanted. Slashdot, Digg, SourceForge, and now Reddit seem like they were bought out that way. So, respectfully I offer my two ideas about what may work: Mutual Organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_organization Pros: This is funded by members who are customers. Extra funds can be used to invest with and be at least partially self-funded. Perhaps at $5/yr it would cover costs and have extra to drive growth and investments to maybe lower costs or offer rewards/dividends. VC funding could be used to start with the understanding that they then would be bought out when investments start to roll in. Cons: This does not preclude people being elected into powerful positions and then being more interested in squeezing the most money out of members for their own pay/bonuses. VC is always a mixed bag. Sometimes filled with angry cats. Cooperative (perhaps Consumer or New Generation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative Pros: Could be non-profit and able to be a little above the typical corporate capitalist drama. Because all the users are in control the likelihood that someone will try to take over for their own benefit seems less likely. Also could let you do some really cool stuff like fund clean water for a remote village or a jobs fair for homeless in a specific area. Cons: Literally all the users would have to pony up to start the deal. Trying to find a standard price to buy into at the beginning would be difficult and/or getting credit to fund at the could be SUPER dicey. Having a completely democratic structure could mean that painful decisions get done at a glacial pace or not at all.
I signed up a couple of years ago but am a total noob as I apparently forgot my password. camarillobrillo and kleinbl00 and a few others have been very helpful to me and I am so appreciative. I have had many questions. I have tried to contribute but also have screwed up a few times and am still getting the hang of it. But I like it here.