I've noticed that on Reddit, many people have begun to complain about the teenagers coming to Reddit and pretty much destroying the already dwindling interesting content for the sake of karma. Being a teenager myself, I find it pretty damn annoying that people my age can't hold a conversation for more than five minutes, let alone actually submitting probing questions or insightful opinions. More along the lines of my question, what do you think is the current age group using Hubski and what do you think will be the main age group using Hubski once it really gets off the ground?
Personally, I think that like Reddit, sooner or later it will become overrun with teenagers, but unlike Reddit, at least you can pick and choose the content you see in a filtered way I guess?
I hope it's mostly the mid/late 20s plus age group. I am on reddit a lot but it's beginning to get really annoying(even with the filters) of some seriously irksome posts by teenagers or possibly even older(who knows, it's the internet). I honestly enjoy the entertaining aspects of reddit tremendously, but there has to be an informative and knowledgeable posts to go along with it. And that's what I'm hoping hubski has to provide. I just hope hubski doesn't get flooded with posts like...'ohh look! i star wars, i am nerd...make me front-page' kind of posts.
I'm hoping that the crowd who is currently displeased with Reddit's eternal September will largely migrate here. Hubski's been getting a lot of new users, including me, from that post on /r/TheoryOfReddit... As long as our users maintain a preference for quality content and a distaste for low-effort content, I think this community will flourish.
What really annoys me on Reddit is all the /r/aww and /r/pics posts that have no value whatsoever. It's so stupid how someone can take a picture and have a funny title then make it to the top, smothering something much better along the way.
r/aww and r/pics used to be one of my favorites when i first joined reddit. Not for any intellectual gain, but simply cute animals and some amazing pictures(great quality, content, etc). Now it's just...'oh look my girlfriend got me a t-shirt of [insert nerdy hobby here]...', 'my dog, so derpy...LOL' and majority of r/funny posts just being facebook snapshots. It's just getting really really annoying. And something worth looking at doesn't even make it past the first few minutes on r/new. I think it's because people lost track of what quality content should be. It shouldn't be what' redditors will upvote so I get tons of karma', it should be what interests you and that you want others to enjoy, regardless of the popularity aspect of it. But since majority of front page posts are legitimately dumb, new posters follow the same footsteps and try to post things that are more likely to reach the front page.That being said, hopefully we can get some entertaining as well as informative contents here. Besides, wouldn't want hubski to turn into the 'vent site' for ex-redditors or just angry redditors who no longer like reddit for whatever reason.
Don't get me wrong, I'll always enjoy subreddits I'm subscribed to and such, but in my opinion hubski is going to turn out better. Like you said, the quality just plummeted. Being relatively young, I've only been a part of Reddit for about a year or so, but even in the one year, quality has been noticeably lessened. I agree that there's no need for a new rivalry or anything like that, cough 9Gag cough, but as long as it's not blatant hate, I don't see why we can't discuss Reddit's faults and try to make sure it doesn't happen here.
I feel most of the "humor" of reddit is just repetition of old jokes. "You, sir bla bla" "Work of god bla bla" and people tend to comment just to comment. It's not fun anymore. I'm 27 and I've been looking for a new place to use some internet time :) I'm just so so tired of reddit (and facebook).
I think that on Hubski it would be a lot harder to dig yourself further in, away from the popular meme/picture posts. On reddit you can simply unsubscribe from certain subreddits but here anyone can tag anything as they please and you can't bury bad content. Hence I feel like eventually we will have 14 year olds posting memes or shitty pictures under #photography which would be hard to escape.
When you click on a users name a shadowbox pops up. On the left you'll see in red: ignore user. If you find someone continually posting content you dislike, use that button.
But then doesn't that raise the issue of not knowing what good is? Your good may be somewhat bland for someone else. But I guess that's where the hashtags and such come in to play.
This is a great question, and I'm going to answer it sideways... I think that it's more about emotional and spiritual and experiential age than physical age. I'm no spring chicken, older than any demographic yet mentioned below. I've lived a life, raised children, had many careers, been disappointed more times than you've taken breath. But I consider any other thinking human my conversational dance partner, and you, honey, have got "it" - the willingness to ask the hard questions, the want of something real, solid, better. I love when there is a mix of age and thought and experience and want and knowledge. I can learn so much from someone younger than me, someone older. And in many ways I may be the youngest person here, and in many ways the oldest. What makes a vibrant community is a memberships' willingness to be open, honest, thoughtful, quixotic at times, earnest. So, I hope that Hubski grows in all directions, ages, genders, realities, timelines, genres.
Why, thank you. I'm glad someone else realizes my it-ness. ;)
I would imagine it would cut out a lot of the immaturity created by Reddit's voting system which favours quickly accessibly/lowest-common-denominator content. I also think scale has something to do with it. The bigger it gets the more chance that lowest-common-denominator stuff has of getting more popular - depending on the users of course. So hopefully it will be a lot of mid-20s and up, and below that age range it would favour those who are more engaged and communicative.
I have been getting more and more disenchanted with Reddit as it evolves, while simultaneously hating that I have adapted into some short attention span, immediate gratification tendencies as a result. I am 27 and I like to think I am a pretty intelligent guy. So far I am very impressed with Hubski (I lurked for a few days and made an account today) and hope to have many insightful conversations and connections as I settle in. I use Facebook occasionally and I have a Twitter that I never use. As I get older I just don't care about some things on the internet anymore. I feel like the demographic for Hubski will feel similar and be late 20's into middle aged.
I guess newer sites, in a 'social networking 2.0' kind of way, will have a harder time starting up but will be able to address many of the flaws of older (and bigger) sites. As for age groups? Similar to reddit although perhaps as we see more children being 'born into the internet' the populace's age will rise.
I really do not mind what age group will use Hubski, here´s why: I´m part of the new hubskiers that came from reddit. Reddit is big, and has been big for a while now. I realized on reddit that you can get a lot of different points of view from different age groups and I think that´s what Hubski needs for a great discussion. However it needs to be an intelligent discussion. Hubski needs users that want to participate in discussion and debate on a topic. The thing that really bugs me about reddit recently is that they found "a voice" of their own, and this voice turns into circle jerk that doesn´t allow any intelligent discussion, karma is big part of the problem. Hubski needs users to disagree so we can discuss on a topic. Hubski doesn´t have to be for a certain age group, it can be for all, just as long as it participates in a smart way.
Honestly, hopefully older than students or young twenties. A lot of the sections on reddit with older demographics are much more competative and fun to use. Hopefully around early to mid 30s.
I think you are overestimating the average age of redditors. I would be thrilled if we could keep the high-schoolers and less interesting college students out.