I have a funny feeling most the people complaining about this didn't even start going to Reddit until 2011. I mean enough say so in the comments of their announcement thread. It's funny because those same people drove me to seek alternatives and find Hubski. Maybe more will come here because of this. But I'd be happier if those that do aren't the ones that subscribe to /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/coontown, and the like.
I am definitely one of those users, or close enough that it doesn't matter. I found Reddit towards the end of college so my subs migrated quite quickly from the defaults, at the time, to smaller and smaller subs. I hadn't seen it much before, but from my few years I have seen small subs I've enjoyed turned to cesspools more often then not. As time goes one more people will jump ship to alternatives, like Hubski. However, the biggest issue with switching to any alternative is the breath they have. Reddit having such a huge userbase allows me to find the niche subreddits that are interesting to me, but places like Hubski I find somewhat barren in that regard. It feels like the only discussion you can find are in the global feeds. Maybe that has changed though, since the last time I looked here. All I know is I have to take a look around and see how Hubski has changed since last I looked around.
Hubski feels very small compared to Reddit, but that can be a good thing. For me, with some of the smaller forums I've been on before, not only do you get to know users better, but you'll also find yourself taking part in conversations you never would have otherwise, just because at the moment, they're the only things to talk about. So you're exposed to new things, but in a different way.
Hubski is very small compared to reddit. If there was new content here more frequently I'd totally jump ship. That's what I did from digg to reddit when reddit was nothing more than a joke among digg users. Reddit has shitloads of new stories every minute. Not that that's a good thing most times but if you throw enough shit at a wall. If there were 4 new, interesting documentaries posted here every day I'd write off reddit like a bad check. Reddit's only saving grace is volume and they seem to have pissed off their based pretty severely. Over things their base didn't know existed when they woke up but are now a rallying cry. It's exactly the type of response I expect and it might even slightly affect active user base.
I agree with you. I wish there was more content too. I try to post all I can but I have a problem with posting things I don't find like..super awesome interesting. I think there just needs to be generally more people (and I'd love more diversity—I feel like we have a lot of writers and musicians but not a lot of designers...or brain surgeons...or veterinarians....) It's sort of a catch-22. If we had more people there would be more content (even though it might be shittier?) But, if we don't have awesome content, we don't get people. We don't market or advertise (besides STICKERS!) because every time we've even thought about it, we've realized it may be detrimental to the community. I mean, if all of fatpeoplehate came here, I think it might be a bad thing. All I can say is keep posting, keep commenting, invite people who you think would be awesome, mention Hubski around town, and we'll get there. That's what I do (and try to do better everyday) anyways.
You don't have the infrastructure for more people. Hubski, steady-state, is many many interconnected groups of people that interact or not based on their interests. It becomes a fluid mixer. You need the ability to keep your interactions under Dunbar's Number while also opening up your field of play to the horizon. User follow keeps your true interactions under 150 or so, and it works quite well. In order to go bigger you need subject affinity (tags, search, etc) such that your "crowd" can move freely about the "map." until then, you will have one crowd in one corner of the map and anyone who wanders out will not be followed. Build out search, build out tags, build out the other axis and Hubski can expand to the horizon.
Yes to all of that. forwardslash if you have search done by tomorrow night, drinks are on me and mk.
Serious question: are you guys thinking this is a 10-100 man-hour problem or a 100-1000 man-hour problem? Because there's your need for monetization: I suspect that if every active user donated $50, we still wouldn't have offered up enough coin to breach the "insult" barrier. I'm no programmer but I have a reasonable understanding as to why search is hard. It's one of many unwieldy problems that are going to rear their heads as the site evolves. In my opinion, there's a lot of real tricky coding that needs to happen and you're either asking someone to take several hundred hours on the chin or you're rolling a Miata's worth of coin into the problem. Which is great when there's enough love or money to go around but we all know that never lasts.
Comment threads are one of the worst cases for text search, because you're comparing short texts (query strings) to short texts (comments). There are ways to make it work, but most of them involve crunching some very big matrices periodically, and you don't want to do that if you don't have some big iron to do it on.
I'm no coder either so you're asking the wrong fella. Buuuut... It's been a LONG MOTHERFUCKING TIME COMING and I know that / is no slouch and has a strong work ethic, so I'm fairly confident it's a big endeavor. That said, this was one of those years where each of us on the Hubski team has had some major life changing, big stuff go down and we aren't where I'd like us to be developmentally. I don't think any of us are happy with that. We had some big goals. But... we are picking up steam. Edit: Also, it's worth noting that what we do have is pretty substantial. It's over 4 years worth of tweaks, updates, new functionality etc. That's something that shouldn't be overlooked but is easy to. I want search and I want an API. YESTERDAY. I'd like to give those things to you all (and myself as a user) and then add a donation button. The donation button will help with stickers, server costs, other swag and maybe, maybe, just maybe we can get forwardslash some help. But by all accounts, he's making some good progress building us a functional database to search... and beyond that it's above my pay grade. Basically though, we're asking forwardslash to take it on the chin. But, all of us on team-hubski do this. We don't run this place for the money, that's for damned sure.
There's probably not even enough quality content generated in a day. Most reddit posts are pictures or some stupid meta bullshit. I want a better reddit but when you strip out most of reddit you probably aren't left with much. I'm subscribed to like 10 subreddits right now and I could have easily missed this news. Subscribing to ten reddits is very OK. Not great, very whatever but fun occasionally. But there always seems to be new bullshit I don't click on, so hey, there's that.
And that's why I come back all the time - Quality over quantity, every single time. It would be nice if there was more content on hubski, but I refuse to share anything I don't think is 100% worthy of merit and discussion. It's almost like we're... thoughtful about it (to hearken back to one of hubski's slogans). Thoughtful about what we share, what we say when we share and discuss it, and who we share hubski with to continue to have quality content.but I have a problem with posting things I don't find like..super awesome interesting.
I agree wholeheartedly. I enjoy having conversations and being able to discuss topics rather than have them devolve into memes or one liners. This is something I see that Hubski excels at. However, from an outsider, and in particular a potential new user, they are going to see the front page (for lack of a better term) as scarce. This is one of the top ones up there and it only has mid-twenties for comments. In fact, it is the only one that has more than 5 comments. I am not saying it is a bad thing that topics have smaller and more personal conversations, but I am not saying it's a good thing either. Right now I think it only attracts users that want to have a conversation, but that's about it. I guess it is a bit of the chicken and the egg scenario.
Yeah, I've been lurking for a week and I've only been a member for a day, so I'm pacing my posts so I don't annoy other people on here with my presence. I kind of want to comment on a few stories here and there though, to get some conversations going. However, I'm not too keen on accidentally stepping on any toes either, so I'd rather just err on the side of caution for now.
This is massive circle jerk that's on the front page of Reddit right now is the catalyst to finally make me jump ship. As a user who switched during the Digg 4.0 fiasco, i've been so tired of the same junk constantly posted to Reddit this last 2 years. I'm hoping as once active user slowly dwindled into a non-poster I can make a smooth transition here at hubski and finally start contributing some content to other individuals again.
I've experienced the same issue as you. When I started on Reddit, I was fine with the defaults, and honestly, the defaults weren't half bad. But slowly but surely the quality of discussion fell, and I migrated to smaller, more niche sub Reddits. Now even those are becoming toxic, and I just want out. But yeah Hubski is great but, like you, when I came to Reddit, it was at the right time. It was small enough that there was quality discussion, but big enough to have an active community with a variety of topics. We can only hope we find another site in that sweet spot. Hopefully, Hubski can be that. Unfortunately, it's a problem we'll always have to deal with as long as good sites become popular. It's called the eternal September
I'm kind of weird in that I bounced around from forum to forum, social site to social site, for the past decade and a half. I've hit some of the big ones, and ones so small I doubt if I named them anyone would recognize them. I'd usually stick around a certain site for a year or so, then when things started getting stale or repetitive, go somewhere new. Something about Reddit was different. I've been on there for about four years, going through about a dozen accounts (for the sake of anonymity). For the longest time, I loved it. It was so big, there was always something new to discover. I'd stumble on subreddits that exposed me to new music, rekindled my love for old music that I forgot I enjoyed so much, discovered so many passing interests that I could experience vicariously through other posters without investing time, effort, or money on my own part. I could become a voice in smaller subreddits while staying completely anonymous in bigger ones. It had so much to offer. Now though? It feels too big. Too weird. I've lost that sense of intimacy I've had in other communities. I think my current account there will be my last. Maybe Hubski will be my greener pastures, maybe I'll move on quickly, I don't know. I do know I don't regret the time I spent on Reddit, but I also know that once I finally do leave, I won't miss it.
A casual user notices that everything on Reddit is reliant on voting up, voting down, and choosing communities to be a member of. It feels very democratic. A moderator on Reddit notices that the votes don't matter, communities are fluid and that Reddit has a lot more in common with Somalia than Hellenistic Greece. A moderator has more in common with an afghan warlord than he does with a senator. So if you're a casual user, you go "terk mah free speeches!" and rouse your rabble. If you're not a casual user, you go "dude. Votes don't matter and never did. Enjoy your ban." and thus do both corners come out swinging.