EDIT: You make some excellent points here. but I guess I'm a social media luddite. And maybe I'm the exception, but I don't understand something: Lately, I have noticed more discussion about what hubski is than discussion about the things shared here. It's like standing around a motorcycle and discussing every nut and bolt instead of getting on and enjoying the open road. I know that mk values this kind of discussion. He started this thing and wants feedback. He wants to address concerns and bugs and enhancements. But I gotta tell you, all of this conversation centered around the site, and the site only, detract from why I come here. I am old, slow, tired, and not well read. I don't have the most interesting things to say. I don't have the most interesting posts to share. I come here to broaden my mind. I come here to widen my perspective and engage in discussion. so much focus on the site mechanics and fears of hubski becoming the next digg or reddit or slashdot or hackernews... don't want to see stuff from kleinbl00 or thenewgreen? ignore them. There's no race here. There's nothing to earn for being a "super user". You know why KB and TNG are popular here? They've been here a while and made solid contributions that people enjoy. They've ruffled feathers. They've pissed people off. But in the end, on balance, they contribute more than they detract. Who cares if you have 1 follower or a thousand. I just don't get it. Come in. enjoy. discuss. contribute.
You've been here two years. The lion's share of users have been here two weeks. Most of their discussions are going to be related to "WTF is this place?". Speaking as someone with 555 followers, it's retarded that anything I post has 10 times the viewership of something joelg236 posts. Rather than foster egality and discovery, it's turned me into a "kingmaker" - a post that sits for a day with zero votes will pop up to the top if I guess correctly that it's worthy. I still feel quite strongly that people who are interested in writing should be able to click "follow #writebetterdammit" and be done with it, rather than type "writebetterdammit" into the search bar, find nothing, click on "community", see it's neither a popular nor a trending tag, and give up in frustration. It's three clicks to even see the tags I'm ignoring. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
Now that looking at content by tag is no longer an easy option, I find myself missing it more and more. The option for following either or both seems better. EDIT: but I like mk's "follow people to connect personally" site model, too. I can't stress that enough. I've made friends on hubski in only two months, which means they're doing something right.It's three clicks to even see the tags I'm ignoring. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
My mind is moving, flagamuffin and kleinbl00. My biggest aversion to tags has always been avoiding the tragedy of the commons. It wasn't clear to me why tags were any different than subreddits, and why they wouldn't follow the same content cycle. Over the last few days I have come to some important conclusions on this front. I'll follow soon.
Tags are different simply by allowing more than one tag per post. I've been hammering at the admins of Reddit to allow cross-posting for going on four years now but the simple fact is their architecture doesn't allow it. Yours? You can do it as an afterthought. You've been awfully cagey about tags, never fully elaborating why you dislike them. I'm curious how tragedy of the commons applies in your mind. Care to share?
I just have a sec before I am supposed to watch the Walking Dead with my wife (It's awful and good). The short version is that a tag gets too many subscribers, and too many posters. Soon #space goes from discussions of volcanism on Titan, to countless Neil deGrasse Tyson love-ins. Everyone is soured by the quality of #space and declares Hubski to be full of mouth-breathers. A few survivors create #realspace, and it begins again.
All right, thanks for that. The short version of my answer is the same as the long version of my answer: If you clutter up my #space feed with Neil deGrasse Tyson love-ins I can ignore you. Subreddit crawl is a problem in that subreddits are one-dimensional. By allowing your users to subscribe to both tags and other users, you create a two-dimensional subscriber space. Granted, if a person posts three lame things and one awesome thing I might miss the awesome thing because I'm ignoring them - but if I see one awesome thing in a miasma of crap I can follow the person who posted the awesome thing without having to worry about the miasma.
Anyways, I think hubski naturally promotes content good for discussion. Since tags can be used by users to mark bad content (ex. #spam or #repost or #loweffort), I think it would be pretty easy for the community to regulate itself, provided that it doesn't get flooded with people who like bad content, in which case almost everything is useless to combat it.
I've been chipping away at the boys on this one. I think that if we impose a character limit in the tag line, it would be difficult to use them as spam, but within that character limit, one should be able to makes as many tags as possible. If tags exist, there isn't really a great reason to limit them to one. I see all or nothing, and everything else is a kind of Obama '09 stimulus package, a nod to the fact that its a good idea, but close to useless in practice.
I couldn't agree with you more! It has always puzzled me why the OP is only allowed one tag per post - I would absolutely love it if that number were increased, even if it were only to three or five... unlimited seems almost too good to be true.I think that if we impose a character limit in the tag line, it would be difficult to use them as spam, but within that character limit, one should be able to makes as many tags as possible. If tags exist, there isn't really a great reason to limit them to one.
As it is now, every person gets to add one tag, presuming they've earned the right to tag. The difficulty with tags is that the taxonomy becomes a bear. At some point #writing and #writebetterdammit need to merge (or at least overlap) in order to make the content parseable. I have no solution for that as of yet. The rest of it seems pretty elemental to me - I mean, Twitter lets you follow tags, and Twitter lets you follow people. They've got a bit more of a userbase.
My only dislike is the lack of community in tags. No sidebars, no wiki, etc. But I am almost interested to see if one tag can be a whole different experience for two groups of people (if it can be pulled off). If it can than this site has FAR outdone what reddit ever will.
Community implies both personal connections and a more general sense of belonging. I think hubski does the first one very well, but communities within hubski just haven't come up yet. I think tags may or may not do that. If tags were implemented, the people who value personal connections more can follow users, and the people who value community more can follow tags. It seems like a good balance.
That is half the point though. People chose to follow you, and your posts won't go higher on the... But they will... Actually that is an interesting point. I think, maybe, that only badges should count when a user comments on or shares a post of someone that they follow.
I think there is a balance to be made between stuff and people. There is value in following a person because you find them particularly interesting, but there is also value in finding content through your interests. I don't see nearly as much #programming as I'd like to in my feed, mostly because the people who post there post a lot of other things, and don't solely focus on programming. It would be ideal to follow #programming for programming specific content, and follow users for more general content that I trust them to share. I'm inclined to be on your side of the tags argument. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
You might be overvaluing how good your feed would look by only following tags, but I see where you're coming from.
I will say that this post has a lot of shares and has a lot of comments and not one "power user" has shared it. So, I don't think its as big of an "impact" as one might think.And maybe I'm the exception, but I don't understand something: Lately, I have noticed more discussion about what hubski is than discussion about the things shared here. It's like standing around a motorcycle and discussing every nut and bolt instead of getting on and enjoying the open road.
Well said steve, I think the motorcycle metaphor is spot on. All of the feedback has been really interesting and as ecib mentioned here, people really are having an impact on how the site functions etc. It's wonderful, but the "will hubski be the next...." isn't all that helpful. As for "power users", honestly, I could care less how many "followers" I have and have stated before that nothing would make me happier than if there were thousands of users with more followers than me. I think once Hubski has a larger user base, this will likely be diluted greatly. But you are right about why kb, mk and myself have a lot of followers, we have all been on the site a long time and we contribute quite a bit of content by way of comments, original essays, podcasts etc. Once users like littlebirdie, flagamuffin and others have been on the site a while I would be shocked if they didn't surpass me in followers. Why? Because they post/create cool and original content.
I will say that this post has a lot of shares and has a lot of comments and not one "power user" has shared it. So, I don't think its as big of an "impact" as one might think.
That was something I was wondering about when writing the post. I know a few powerusers follow me and was curious whether or not one of them would need to share it before it broke the "viral" barrier of hubski. I know thundara provided an initial boost, but I see what you mean here. It's certainly possible to do it, I just think it's harder than it should be.
I guess I really believe that if something is worth while it will spread across the feeds. Just because kleinbl00 shares something doesn't mean it will get another share if it sucks. It may hit 600 feeds and go no further. Good content will spread, with or without a share from KB, mk or myself, I really believe that. It may take longer but it will happen. I do think it is important that new users are getting exposure to users other than the ones with the most followers. We are working towards this end. I do think eventually you will be able carve out your own experience here and if you'd prefer that to not include kleibl00, mk or myself it shouldn't really matter. I use twitter a bit and I don't really know who the "power users" there are? I get my information pushed to me by people I follow and my experience seems relatively unscathed by what a "power user" shares or doesn't share. I really think that as Hubski get's bigger it will not matter much. We shall see. aside: Did you see the update?
I don't think anyone would disagree with you. There hasn't been much hubski discussion in the last week though. And if you aren't interested in hubski discussion, just ignore #hubski. I just wanted to get my opinion out there and see what other people think.