What's so sacred about following individuals? Does that have to be the only way we can have thoughtful conversation?
Following individuals is essentially whitelisting your own exclusive community. Exclusive groups are generally less susceptible to the Eternal September phenomenon because offending or low-quality contributors are easily eliminated. Public groups have no defense at all, except by collective action of the group members, which is of course directly undermined by the process of Eternal September.
That is fair. (And a pithy statement of the problem!) But Eternal September isn't the only failure mode here. There's also the problem of encouraging diversity of opinion. The ideal community is neither too open nor too closed. It has ways to discover new interesting voices, and ways to focus on existing interesting voices. Following a tag + ignoring users is currently too blunt, yes, but we don't have to give up on it just yet. Some ideas: ranking posts on tag pages (which we already do but can improve), filtering posts that lots of people choose to ignore, permitting whitelists on some (broad) tags and blacklists on other (narrower) ones. Now a private group of people that all know each other can be great in spite of being closed. But it's incorrect IMO to extrapolate that all closed groups are close to optimal.
I'm not extrapolating that every closed group is optimal. Hubski's follow mechanic doesn't simply create a closed group, it creates my own personal closed group that I have complete power over. It is very easy for me to instantly reshape the group to fit my personal definition of "optimal". You say that this has the potential to destroy diversity of opinion, but that's up to to the group maintainer. If someone excludes people who have opinions they don't agree with, that's their own fault, and it's done because they decided that's how to make their group fit their own personal definition of "optimal". Not every person will want their group to be that way.Now a private group of people that all know each other can be great in spite of being closed. But it's incorrect IMO to extrapolate that all closed groups are close to optimal.
But you have just as much power over tags since you can ignore users. Right? It seems not so much about what is possible but what is convenient. Following users makes certain scenarios convenient, but not others (such as, "notify me when anybody posts to extremely rare tag x_y_z."). All these are valid scenarios to consider in building a community. (Edit: Also, to clarify, yes I meant optimal from a personal, subjective perspective.)
When you have small numbers of people posting to a tag, that might be true, but the issue we're discussing is scale. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that scaling internet communities is infeasible, because they reach inhuman proportions that are simply impossible to effectively moderate with blacklists. Whitelisting as an opposite approach has had considerably more success with scale. Twitter and facebook are massive, successful examples of the whitelisting approach.But you have just as much power over tags since you can ignore users. Right?
I think we're in agreement, just using different words. I think of scale as "possible in theory but inconvenient in practice, so won't happen." Hence the ideas I threw out for improving things. Yes, whitelisting is an easy way to ensure we never get crap. But it might also leave many kinds of interesting conversation unborn. Since there's so many other places that do simple whitelisting, I'd like to explore other options to enable conversations that don't have a home anywhere else.
I agree and I think hubski's sort of hybrid reddit/twitter universe is a good, novel and interesting approach that enables good conversations. We have the whitelisting approach to aggregation of external content like twitter, but all of that is cast aside in the threaded comment section, which is where real discussion is generated like reddit.Yes, whitelisting is an easy way to ensure we never get crap. But it might also leave many kinds of interesting conversation unborn. Since there's so many other places that do simple whitelisting, I'd like to explore other options to enable conversations that don't have a home anywhere else.
Yeah, that's a hole. It's hard to do ignoring and following in the context of a comment tree. What if somebody you follow is responding to somebody you don't? One idea I explored in the past is to show individual comments with context rather than the conventional tree view. The app itself doesn't exist anymore, but what do you think of that sort of 'all parents' button on Hubski?
As it stands, users can follow tags, they can follow people or a combination thereof. Nothing is stopping users from only following people, right? I see the reintroduction of following tags as just another way for people to use Hubski, ideally as an introduction to the site. Then as you find people whose content you like you can trim away the tags, if you'd like. In short, just because the ability exists doesn't mean it has to be utilized.
If it's not intended to be utilized, why provide it? The mechanisms we provide do influence the culture of the community. I think minimum_wage makes a valid criticism. Something for us to be aware of as the site grows. Hopefully we'll be able to stay ahead of the curve and not be forced to throw the baby (tag following) out with the bath water (the tragedy of the tag commons)...just because the ability exists doesn't mean it has to be utilized.
I didn't suggest that it shouldn't be utilized, but simply that it can/should be to the extent that someone finds it useful. If minimum_wage finds any of the 56 tags he/she is following to begin to wane in quality he/she should cease following it, but continue to follow those that posted high quality content around that topic. As I have mentioned in the past, I see tags as a means of discovery. When you meet someone, you often meet them around a topic. Whether it be sports, arts, music etc. You may meet someone at a concert and become friends because you both like that music. Later, you'll notice how many other things you have in common and the friendship will expand. I don't think Hubski is any different, people can follow tags in order to find people with similar interests. Then they can tailor their feed accordingly and get rid of tags or people as necessary.
Most people I maintain IRL friendships with, I've met through friends, not through public events. Most people I follow on hubski, I've discovered either because the people I've followed were following them, or, the people following me have shared my stuff with them, and they liked it enough to share it again, thus bringing them to my attention. Perhaps it's just my personal experience, but I think people overestimate the incidence of social interaction forming around topics rather than circulating through individuals.As I have mentioned in the past, I see tags as a means of discovery. When you meet someone, you often meet them around a topic. Whether it be sports, arts, music etc. You may meet someone at a concert and become friends because you both like that music. Later, you'll notice how many other things you have in common and the friendship will expand. I don't think Hubski is any different, people can follow tags in order to find people with similar interests. Then they can tailor their feed accordingly and get rid of tags or people as necessary.
I have a book recommendation for you! Its premise is that people used to come together by activity a lot more in the past, but don't do so as much in America today. Even if it's gone down, it's not gone entirely. I remember the first time I went to a neighbor's poker game. I'd just learned the rules, and I was kinda nervous to be playing with money. The first few weeks I just focused on calculating odds. But over time I got to know the people around me. I learned where they worked, what they did, who had the crazy sense of humor. I started cracking jokes myself. What started out as activity-centric time became people-centric time as I became close friends with my poker buddies. It is extremely natural for people to join groups around activities because they want to 'meet people'. There's no contradiction here. And yet the online world has no way to seamlessly turn activities into relationships. I think there's a huge hole in the world here.
[off topic] but it occurred to me via our conversation that I rarely follow someone based on them "sharing something" or even "posting" something. I follow people based on comments. If someone leaves a comment I strongly agree with, I'm likely to follow them for a bit. Which is why I follow so many people, but still it works for me.
I've done the same. I would consider it another example of social interaction circulating through individuals rather than topics, because you're reacting to things they are personally saying in comment thread that already has your attention, rather than discovering their simple involvement with the topic itself by browsing a tag.
That's a valid point, for sure. I too have made a number of friends through others. Almost 2 years ago I moved from my home state of Michigan to North Carolina. I didn't know anybody here. I stayed with the same company I worked for in Michigan and through work, I was able to meet some people. At first, we had that one thing in common... work. Then, one of the guys and I hit it off and realized we had a lot of other things in common, family, love of sports, beer and music. Thus, what started around the topic of work and was, at first, just an acquaintanceship, turned in to a friendship. I've had a number of acquaintances here that have started out around the topics of "running", "entrepreneurship" etc that have become actual friends. Now that I have lived here a bit, these friends are directly introducing me to other people that they know I'll get along with. So, my point isn't that your way of meeting people isn't valid, it is. I use it myself. My point is that meeting people through topics is often our only means by which to do so at first. New users will likely be more tag heavy than veteran users. My hope is that we will see an arc over the span of a users time here, bending towards the following of users. We shall see. As mk said, we are watching this closely.
I think this early desire to seek out tags can be satisfied with the existence of tag feeds, but reliance on such discovery should be discouraged by preventing users from following the tags.So, my point isn't that your way of meeting people isn't valid, it is. I use it myself. My point is that meeting people through topics is often our only means by which to do so at first. New users will likely be more tag heavy than veteran users. My hope is that we will see an arc over the span of a users time here, bending towards the following of users.
It's possible that you're right, and 'user' is somehow meant to be a more first-class concept than 'topic'. But I find this lack of symmetry inelegant and troubling. I hope that hubski will eventually find a basis set of a handful of concepts, and operators that we can all uniformly apply to them all. So I'm hoping that you're wrong :) Or if you're right about tags, that we can find a different, more first-class concept with the benefits of tags.
Delicious had different goals than we do. :) I think a good way to look at this is to ask yourself how tags are currently limiting or otherwise affecting your experience, and what specifically you'd like to change or accomplish based on that. There are endless things that we can do. But the key question is why we do what we choose to do.
Oh, but we can make similar claims about anything we don't like :) Sometimes I look at a change and want to say, "but is this the most pressing problem we need to work on?" But at other times I like a change and I say, "I don't know what problem this solves, but let's put it out there and see how people use it." Both are forms of rhetoric cloaked in the semblance of objectivity, thanks to a biased default. Discoverability is a problem we'll have more and more as the community grows. Tags are a way to do discoverability. But they add a concept to the user's cognitive model. Add enough concepts (hide, ignore, mute, ..., yuck) and the whole thing starts to break down. Delicious showed a great way to have a parsimonious set of nouns and verbs that can all be applied to each other. I don't know what goal it set out to accomplish, but I've seen different people use it in very different ways. So it merits our attention.
I hear you. But in all honesty, I've found that the changes that we've made that end up being most satisfying were those where we could clearly define to ourselves the need. It's a lesson I've learned a few times now. Columns and and community tags are the first examples that came to mind where a large aspect of its nature was just satisfying curiosity. Experimentation is not all bad, of course; sometimes it opens our eyes to what we'd really like, but it can be a distraction too. I agree that discoverability will likely become more of an issue as the community grows, and I also agree that it is best if we can limit the cognitive load required. Above you mentioned to b_b that tags are slightly unsatisfying as they have an asymmetry with the first-class user. b_b makes a good point that they aren't sentient, or they don't create content. There might be something fruitful found in the tags that users follow and use. We have relationships between users, and we have tags that they follow and use. Maybe tags can have some sort of autonomous nature to them? Maybe posts earn tags, based on user activity? I'm not sure. I'm just turning it over and seeing if it might fit into what we have in some surprising way. It so easy to expand upon tags, and I see that as not only increasing the cognitive load, but pushing their importance up to a point where it might diminish user relationships. I'd most prefer we hit upon something where we all go: oh yeah! and it just fits like a glove.