For me, it began about 1272 days ago. I downloaded the HackerNews source code, and modified it to look something like this. The site has changed quite a bit, but my (now our) mission hasn't. Welcome scriptingsoul. FYI, the Primer Page might be helpful if you haven't stumbled upon it yet. Also, the #newtohubski tag has a lot of good resources. In particular insomniasexx has compiled a list of posts that contain useful discussions about Hubski and the new user experience.
Did you notice the K:72 C:50 F:4 in the upper right? That was Karma, Clout, and Followers. Karma was a currency that was transferred into non-spendable Clout when you upvoted a comment or post. Thus, if you ran out of Karma, you couldn't vote until you earned more. I still think it's a nifty approach. If I remember correctly, your 'hubfeed' was comprised of posts from the people you followed and your 'hub' was just your posts. The logo took you to the main feed, which had everything. It looks like gq is there. There was no sharing at this point, and you couldn't follow tags or domains. I believe a post could earn up to 5 +'s. BTW, everyone still has clout, but it isn't shown. Your earning of badges to give is based on it.
I loved clout at first. Became Hubski obsessed and fought my way to #1 for a while until aleph0 blew by me. I really liked greedo, also. Wonder whatever happened to that fcker? Even though Hubski seems to working fine without karma and clout, I think they were a good tool to encourage growth in the early days. As was greedo. That fcker.
Seems like forever ago, doesn't it? No hub-wheels for voting/sharing. There's a Hubski update about email alerts.