I think you will unanimously be pleased that we are no longer conducting the following experiment:
It's clear that no one liked this change. I have no desire to implement something so unpopular, and I don't think I can force users to be nice to each other. Thank you for being patient with me.
I am serious about keeping Hubski a place known for thoughtful interaction, and I believe that we have been better at that in the past. I can think of a few factors contributing to this decline that have nothing to do with the mechanics of the site (a lack of attention from team Hubski, an attrition of culture with the loss of early users, and a global pandemic among others...), however, I do entertain that there may be ways that the mechanics of the site can support us being cool to each other.
Maybe something as simple as a "please be good to each other" reminder above the textbox would help.
If you have thoughts or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.
If we happen upon something that seems worth trying, maybe we will.
Until then, it's on us.
I think goobster's movie post is a good indication that there are eyes on the site who are happy to engage. Haven't seen that much excitement about a single post in a long time. Ok, it's not a long form discussion of economics or politics, but it at least shows that the users out there want to talk to each other. That's gotta be something to build off.
I think the popularity of goobster's post goes to show that the pressure to be as "thoughtful" as possible is pretty high, and that pressure can be surprisingly intimidating. It was actually a deterrent to my participation when I first started lurking around here... and I'm sure I'm not the only person who has felt that way on Hubski. Being able to discuss conflicting viewpoints is what keeps this place interesting, which means the occasional tactless exchange is inevitable. That's not a problem, but being able to approach a sensitive conversation at a different pace can be helpful for someone less familiar with each user's idiosyncrasies. It was nice to have a period during which I could edit my comment or reconsider my perspective without being immediately bludgeoned back into silence by someone like kleinbl00 (obviously, nothing against you, kleinbl00 - your contributions keep things lively, but yours is definitely not a style of discourse I was in a hurry to engage with). The experiment may not have had any positive impact for the Old Guard, but they've had years to get comfortable with each other, and they can exchange jabs without issue. The delay in visibility actually encouraged me to participate more. It gave me the chance to find my bearings with a smaller subsection of the community, and now I feel comfortable expressing a thought without always feeling like I'm about to defend a dissertation. I might never have participated at all had mk skipped the experiment altogether. I don't know if there are any other new users who found the same benefit, but I wouldn't mind having the delay as an option I could toggle for my own posts.
We also need to recognize that not many people communicate well via long form text-based media, like most posts/comments here on Hubski. Writing and debate are learned skills, and learning to communicate a clearly structured thought/story via text is not a talent many people have. (See: All of the emails you get at work.) There are a few of us Hubskis who actually have made our living (and vocation or avocation) from writing professionally - me, KB, veen, etc. - while others may have equally valid points or thoughts, but simply have a hard time putting them into well-structured arguments/stories. I see many conversations on here devolve specifically because the structure of the person's argument is incorrect or misleading, and might be obscuring a perfectly valid point they are having a hard time articulating. And I think there is a generational divide with these forms of communications, too. I've been debating online since the mid-1980s, so I just simply have more experience in this form than almost anyone else on here. That doesn't make me right more often, it simply makes it easier for me to make a fully compelling argument in support of my position more quickly and effectively than someone without that experience. Or, to tear their argument to shreds when they fall into logical fallacies and internal logical inconsistencies in their position. And getting called out on your lack of skill by an imperious "old person" is never going to go well... which is something I try to remember... ... but is also why I am muted by at least two prolific members of the Hubski community today. (Hangs head.)
I think you're right - there is a tendency to see discussion as something adversarial, particularly among people who strongly tie their identities to their ability to make a compelling argument in a written format, regardless of the actual validity of their points. Doubly so if writing is their profession. Writing/debate skills could be an obstacle for participation for a lot of users, however I personally feel that navigating eccentric personalities in an insular community with strongly held values can be a greater challenge. I can also see how generational differences could factor in. I know I am often inhibited by my fear of being accidentally disrespectful - an inhibition not always shared by older folks, in my experience. Though, I expect this tendency is likely to fade as I age and learn to care less about what others feel about my opinions. I guess I just don't see why a conversation should "devolve" because someone chose to "rip" the other person's argument "to shreds" instead of furthering the discussion, the latter of which can sometimes require a little more finesse. Case in point - my very first comment on this site was actually a response to a post of yours about the use of the phrase "wine-dark sea" in greek epic poetry. Another user commented dismissing the post outright as stoner-level navel-gazing. I also disagreed with the presuppositions in your post, but I thought the idea was worth talking about, so I said something. I think there's a huge difference between pointing out where someone's argument or thought process fails, and just being an asshole to relieve some pent up angst (often the easier option). Of course, as a newbie here, it's likely that I don't yet understand how all the old-timers relate to each other, so what may seem like blatant disrespect at face value could just be old friends sparring with no ill intent. Another point in favor of letting me have my own "don't post this for six hours" switch, haha.
I remember your comment! And appreciated your input. I still think only you and I understood what I was talking about in that thread, though... :-) It's a defensive response when someone blows holes in your comment, logic, or presentation. Professional writers are used to getting feedback on their writing, logic, and how the ideas are presented. We take editing at face value, and try to lock our hearts/feelings away in a fireproof safe before reading the editors' notes. It's part of the job. But non-professional writers feel very personally attacked when their argument/logic/position is shown to be flawed in some way. Rarely, if ever, do they come back with a better-framed argument, or rewording their position to be clearer and more legible by people with different backgrounds and biases. The knee-jerk natural reaction is to punch back, because they feel like the feedback was an attack. They are retaliating. So things devolve into them being rude, because they don't have the same agility with words that their 'attacker' has... so they resort to their base instincts: to fling poo instead of learning where their argyment was deficient and iterating on their debate tactics or points. (Funny aside: I am active in several "helpful" sub-reddits where people ask questions, and look to others for answers. I am frequently accused of being a shill for a product/person/company because my writing style is informative, thorough, and I use formatting like bold section headers, italicized notes, and links to sources. But it's just a side effect of the nature of my work as a writer. That's what I do for a living; present ideas in a clear and detailed manner for specific audiences. I want my answers to be useful to as broad a group of people as possible, and easy to read. So I use layout and presentation cues most commonly found in marketing blather. So people often flag my account as spam or whatever, and the mods have to step in and smack down my haters.) ...I guess I just don't see why a conversation should "devolve" because someone chose to "rip" the other person's argument "to shreds" instead of furthering the discussion, the latter of which can sometimes require a little more finesse...
I really really appreciate the thoughtful comments - thats probably half the reason why I come to this site - to see the perspectives of a cool group of people, and importantly, the same group of people. I love kleinbl00's norman rockwell rants and _refugee_'s art galleries. But I agree though, it does make a high bar for a comment. I myself basically only comment on pubskis, light "facebook-level shitposting" like the movie post, and meta things (like this!), and maybe that's a good thing, but it definitely is a thing
The thoughtful discussion is 100% the reason I come to Hubski. I come here because Hubski never fails to deliver stimulating posts and conversation, and that makes this place an oasis from all the other noise on the internet. I mention the intimidation factor in part because the experimental delay alleviated a lot of my apprehension about commenting, and also because I've noticed a lot of long-time users expressing that they feel the quality of discussion has changed somehow. As a newer user, I don't have a frame of reference to make a comparison between present day Hubski and how things may have been in the past. mk has pointed out that there was a dip in the general respectfulness of interaction, but the comments on the posts discussing the changes to the site suggest several Hubski veterans see lack of user engagement/activity as the problem. As an outsider, I suspect these two phenomena are related, but I'm curious about what users with longer tenure think - and I'm especially curious about the perspective of other longstanding users who tend not to participate.
I'm glad to hear that the experiment wasn't entirely negative for everyone. I also felt that there was some difference in the tenor of the initial replies, however I could just be imagining it. I did consider that those people that follow you are the ones most likely to engage in a positive way.
I imagine it would be too cumbersome to include something like that as an option for individual posts, but why couldn't it be something I can switch on/off on my own profile as needed? Let's say I'm having a rough few weeks, and I'm a little on edge, and I know that maybe I need to more carefully consider what I say to others for a time - I can turn on the delay option, and then only the person I'm responding to and people who follow me will be able to see my post right away, and then it can appear for everyone else after a set time frame.
So your own waiting period, shall we say. You hit the egg timer and if you don't go back and do anything, it publishes you after twelve hours or six or whatever. I think that's a great idea. Maybe ditch the "contribute" button and replace it with "comment" and "commit" with a pull-down timer or something. Then if I click on my name it'll show me all my comments, including the ones that are drafts, in a draft color.
That's an interesting idea. What if the non-follower visibility delay was initially set to say, 6 hours, but could be toggled by the user between 0 and 12? Spammers would not know that they had a delay, and users could adjust theirs as they saw fit? TBH I would probably set mine to 3 hours.
Exactly this. There is nothing "thoughtful" in that entire thread. it's Facebook-level shitposting and everybody knows it and everyone is enjoying it and nobody fuckin' cares. I think we forget that we're all stuck being "thoughtful" on the goddamn computer all day every day for most of a year now and bloody hell I don't want to ponder whether my words should be engraved in marble before typing them.
Honestly if you made "block" a two-week thing, rather than a permanent one, we'd all be a lot better off. I would also argue considering what a resounding success chat is that if you put a "blog" function on everyone's homepage to post their pictures or whatever whenever they felt like it you'd get some engagement there. I mostly throw random weird gifs in there but it bugs me that every time I change it the old one gets removed. If you want people to treat each other like humans you need to humanize the interface, not make it feel like people are appearing in traffic court. Frickin' build a themebuilder FFS. Let us build and share themes. Dumb shit like that. The world needs more dumb shit right now. My two favorite Twitter accounts at the moment are
I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash. I can see the value of the user-page blog thing, but it quickly becomes a whole other type of posting with all the formatting issues that brings. I've considered that it might be interesting to give OPs the option to have chat or comments appended to their post and see what happens.
There could be a couple of ways to do this... First, if you block or mute someone, you can set a duration for that block or mute to remain in effect. Say, a day, or a week, or a month. Whatever number the user puts into the field. The expiry would be shown next to the username in your blocklist. Second, blocking/muting someone could have three options: For a Day, For a Week, Cancel. If you know someone is just being a putz because they are worked up, and will be back to normal (or on their meds) after a while, you could do a one click action to drop them out of sight for a set period of time. Then, when the block lifts and you see them again, if they are still putzing out, with one click you can make the block permanent, if they still deserve it. I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash.
LOL you have demonstrated loudly and clearly that you don't care tho so sorry, you can't ever use that argument again. Said the guy who created "chat" when "weather" wasn't interesting enough NO Chat is ephemeral. Posts are not. You can't put a chat on a post because then the discussion about it becomes time-sensitive and subject to "who is looking at it right this moment." I am under NDA, but I will say that one of the most stolid, staid and conservative platforms I use is rolling out a theme builder. It has absolutely nothing to do with the functionality of the software (which costs four to five figures depending on how it's configured) and everything to do with human factors engineering and the fact that we're all stuck in UIs all day long now.I suspect that if I made block or mute temporary, there would have been backlash.
I can see the value of the user-page blog thing, but it quickly becomes a whole other type of posting with all the formatting issues that brings.
I've considered that it might be interesting to give OPs the option to have chat or comments appended to their post and see what happens.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. I care more than you suspect, and likely more than I have let on. You might not like what I have done, but it's not because I don't care. IRC was useful but unreliable. Chat was a replacement for that. It was fairly easy to do because of its limited interaction with the application. Same with weather. Some things that seem like they should be easy are difficult, and some things that seem like they would be difficult are easy. This falls in the first category. I think chat on posts could be fun/interesting. It definitely wouldn't be fitting for all posts, but I can imagine that for some posts it might be more fitting. Chats on posts would probably be saved to the database.LOL you have demonstrated loudly and clearly that you don't care tho so sorry, you can't ever use that argument again.
Said the guy who created "chat" when "weather" wasn't interesting enough
That's your fault. Why? Why not let on? It doesn't benefit you in the slightest and dissolves your credibility and my empathy. You started this by saying, effectively, there's a whisper campaign of butthurt people who I won't mention and in order to soothe their savaged fee fees I'm going to impose a solution on everyone else that isn't up for discussion, isn't up for debate, starts now and will end when I feel like it and then the minute goobster goes look everyone you can no longer truly delete your posts how wondrous you jumped RIGHT the fuck in to say woo hoo let's end anonymity without any discussion whatsoever. It was only when a dozen of us rang alarm bells in your face that you waved off. You are behaving DANGEROUSLY. What you are doing is demonstrating that nobody here has any ownership stake but you, that the rules will change at any time and the only inputs that you will consider are the ones that interest you. I've been dealing with this for three months now - my kid's private school is doing the same "we really care, we just don't feel obligated to demonstrate it" bullshit and half their enrollment is threatening to leave. You're both making the same mistakes: you have given no thought whatsoever to user agency and you have felt no need to give anyone the impression that their input matters in the slightest. It's disempowering, alienating and off-putting in the extreme because what you're doing is communicating I'm only here for the people who agree with me. Classic coder mistake, and why non-coders hate coders: "hey it'd make life way better if you did this one simple thing" "yeah that thing's not actually simple I'm gonna do this other thing instead" "no one asked for that in fact it makes our life worse" "yeah but it's easier and I'll be able to tell our boss I solved your problem" "you aren't you're making my job harder" "tough shit you can't do my job so suck it." I have LIVED MY LIFE dealing with interfaces designed by UI experts and dealing with interfaces designed by coders. The choices are obvious and immediate and the long term effects are unavoidable. An interface that wraps around the code is universally terrible and will be adopted by the people who have to use the product while an interface that had code written for it may be less feature-rich but will be used by everyone. I used to design massive AV projects and half my goddamn budget was on the control system because you know what? If the History department can't even turn on the goddamn projector it won't matter if the lecture hall has 7.1 surround. Yeah you also thought a twelve hour waiting period in the "are you thoughtful" corner would be beneficial to the site. Let me be clear: I don't want this. I don't want this SO HARD. I would turn it off if I had the option, and if I didn't have the option, I wouldn't post. There is no "chat" section on any blog platform anywhere ever. "Then we can be the first!" no, candy corn doesn't go with zucchini either but guaranteed some schlub tried that somewhere and didn't write down the results because it was so immediately, obviously, verifiably terrible.I don't think that's a fair assessment.
I care more than you suspect, and likely more than I have let on.
Some things that seem like they should be easy are difficult, and some things that seem like they would be difficult are easy. This falls in the first category.
I think chat on posts could be fun/interesting.
Do you guys want more users? This community seems very insular to me now, for better or worse. Most commenters I recognize by name, and they all seem to know each other. I sort of feel like if users here wanted more fresh faces, I would occasionally see Hubski mentioned outside of Hubski.
Glad to hear you got results from the experiment that pushed your decision one way or the other. It's good to have results to work from. I personally like the "waiting period" for new users, but feel it might be tweaked a bit. They must read X number of posts before being able to comment. Or wait X number of days before being able to post. And either of them would show as a countdown on their profile page, so they had visibility into when their account had fully "matured". Maybe there's a second step after that, where they can comment on posts, but not create entirely new posts for a week. That gives them time to read, interact, and get a feel for things before they can post their spam ads. :-)