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comment by mk
mk  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Wait, are we doing it wrong? [Potential major Hubski experiment]

This is a possible downside. However, the hope would be that someone you follow shares their comment and introduces you.

The upside is that you might not meet new people that no one judges worth introducing.





johnnyFive  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This was what jumped out at me as well. If someone new joins, and no one is following them, how exactly will that first follow happen? Moreover, I for one don't really want to have to go through all that curation, especially at first. We don't really have a problem with unwanted users showing up, so I'm unclear on what exactly this is meant to solve.

mk  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The site has become stale, and in my opinion, I have found discussions more predictable and interactions less cool.

I have less interest in the site as it is and many people that I value that have been and/or are users have shared the same sentiments.

rrrrr  ·  1307 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The site has become stale, and in my opinion, I have found discussions more predictable and interactions less cool.

Why would locking users' discussions (comments) into bubbles of those users they already follow address this? Wouldn't one expect it to make discussion more stale by introducing miniature echo chambers?

I actually like the sharing aspect of Hubski - when I submit a post or click the wheely thing to share a post, I feel I'm curating something for others, and that it's my responsibility to share only what's worth their time. Those others, and that responsibility, feel real to me because they have actively chosen to follow me based on the quality of my past posts and shares. So I had better keep the quality up. I have to suspect this sense of responsibility contributes to the higher quality of both posts and debate on Hubski than on reddit.

So both moves to me sound like a shift in an undesirable direction. Restricting comment visibility will cause echo chambers, while basing feeds on tags will remove that element of responsibility not to waste the time of users who have chosen to follow you.

Please be careful - Hubski is the only general-purpose site I can think of where debate remains intelligent and polite after 10 years. To the users this is worth more than another site with a large userbase, and more than a torrent of mediocre content.

steve  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·  

perhaps this could be a toggle setting on each post... or like... only the comments show up from people I follow, but there could be a "click to see more" which would expand the comments not normally visible to me. dunno... just thinking.

psychoticmilkman  ·  1307 days ago  ·  link  ·  
wasoxygen  ·  1307 days ago  ·  link  ·  

johnnyFive  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Fair enough, but I don't see how what you're proposing will change that. How is having fewer visible commenters going to make discussion more diverse?

mk  ·  1308 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It won't at the start. It might never. But here's the hope:

If my comments must earn an audience, and if they can lose the audience that I have earned, I might be more thoughtful about them. In time, this might lead to discussions that seem a bit more like the ones we have when we are in the same room.

elizabeth  ·  1307 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I might be more thoughtful about them

while i'm all about thoughtfulness, i feel we're already pretty good. raising the bar even more will have the opposite effect of intimidating new users. That's actually why i've been spending lots of time on the chat. With the removed pressure of always being super insighful, I can have more fun, casual, fresh chats with yall internet buddies.