To be fair, I said that I abhor tribalism, not cults of personality. :)

This has just become a much more useful conversation.

WHY I FOLLOW VERY, VERY FEW PEOPLE

One thing about upvotes - they don't matter. An individual upvote is a raindrop in an ocean. They can be tossed about willy nilly without much impacting others' user experience; they can be slathered on without altering the site dynamics.

Hubski shares are different. If I click the button, that article suddenly becomes visible to nine hundred people. With comments it's a little better in that comments can't be shared separately from links, but it still radically shapes the appearance of the page.

Which would be one thing if people thought of clicking on a button the same way they think of sharing a link on Facebook. But they don't. I can't claim ESP, but I can claim a more-than-passing familiarity with online behavior, and what I see regularly does not reflect "I want to show this to everyone following me" it reflects:

- I read it

- I made a good comment and I want people to see it so they will vote for my good comment

- You asked a question or said something funny and I don't have time to respond so I'm showing you that I heard you, thereby using the "share" function like a read receipt

People love to form groups, and Hubski doesn't make it easy to do so.

This is incorrect. There's a network magnification effect at play: Let's say I'm following you and you're following insom. You will share things that insom posts, so I'll see it 2x. insom may follow b_b, as will you, so I will be exposed to his posts... and will likely eventually follow him. Pretty soon there's a rolling herd of us who have a substantial portion of our follows in common - we've become a club that reads the same stuff, comments about the same stuff, and shares the same stuff while out there in the world, other things are happening.

That's why I got rid of all my follows... and added back in people who are following those I ignore. You can run the analytics; I can't. But in viewing other peoples' front pages, I'd say there's likely to be 70% overlap between you and the people you know unless you are actively working for diversity by exposing yourself to discordant material.

So for you, the "global" page is an abstraction - it's that thing for people who haven't figured out your "follow" topology. For me, it's That Place Outside My Bubble. I may be hypersensitive to the bubbling issues around here - chumminess makes me itch - but I think you underestimate the utility of the site you've created outside of the individual follow.

You've built an interesting network. The part you were aiming for is pretty well refined... the leftover frontier experiences a lot of tail effects. One of those tail effects is the assembled hordes of refugee waves. NOTE THAT I AM NOT INTERESTED IN DISMISSING THE REFUGEES. I am interested in their learning the ropes outside of my experience.

You have filtering already - I can look at unshared global posts, I can look at global posts with two shares. I can look at unshared(?) global comments, I can look at global comments with eight or more shares(?). If I'm not in Global, I'm not likely to see anything by anybody I don't know anyway; I don't follow a lot of "general" tags (PRECISELY because they tend to be used by newbies that haven't found their way around yet). But if I am in Global, I may just find something that nobody in my "circle of friends" has seen... and I may want to participate without sharing, I may want to share without participating.

I should not participate in Reddit threads. I know too much and have far too little patience. But I did... BECAUSE THAT'S ALL THERE WAS. Without the ability to filter through the immigrants my Hubski choices become "bubble" and "Reddit."

Let me also share something with you: Every reasonably sized subreddit runs Automoderator. Everybody running Automoderator has it set to remove posts by anyone less than (X) days old. Some subreddits have it set to 1. Some have it set to 7. Some have it set to more. Many subreddits also have a karma cap - 5, or 10, or "more than 2." As a consequence, moderators tend to see comments from people who have been filtered. Not a lot - a very, very, very few.

The one thing that distinguishes the people who are smart enough to post a worthwhile link and also smart enough to notice it doesn't show up?

Their accounts are over 7 days old.

Food for thought.