Can I make a quick argument against this? As we all know, Hubski will forever be compared to reddit. As I occasionally surf through /r/all I am stunned by the incredible high percentage of posts that are either images, gifs or videos, I'd estimate it at over 95% of the top posts. I think that part of this is how easy RES and other tools have made it to quickly view images and upvote them on reddit. This gives images an unfair advantage over longer content. I know that the reply will be, "well you just have to curate who you follow" and yes this is true, but I guess the issue is to where you want the "soul" of Hubski to go.
I hear what you are saying, and I've made decisions aimed at the same issue, like not including the post time in the feed. As mentioned, I wasn't happy with my first attempts at this, but I haven't played with it enough to rule it out yet either. Currently we can see images in previews so there is some accessibility. Khaaan's images are unusually attractive, so I don't think they are the best measure of what we will typically see. I do appreciate it as a fresh look at the design of the feed, however. Even if we don't implement this, I could see it inspiring something else that we do. Maybe not forever. Among our current hypotheticals there are some divergent routes. But, I do know what I want the soul of Hubski to be about. BTW, just last week I was mocking up ideas of having the top-rated comment show up in the feed on hover; but it just didn't look right. You might have noticed that we have added a link to that comment with the commentor's name on hover over. I consider that to be in the testing phase. We debated it enough, and I liked it enough, that we decided to give it a try and see how it worked out.As we all know, Hubski will forever be compared to reddit.
I really like the idea of top rated comments showing up on hover over. I think it keeps the focus on discussion opposed to anything else. It also might prevent the trend that was seen in reddit of having posts be upvoted while the top comment completely invalidates the post. This really isn't the place for this, but do you have any plans to bring back "tab" options in controls? I really would prefer if I could set it so each link opens in a new tab automatically (I know I can do this through scroll clicking, but I haven't been able to train myself to do that).
I just haven't been able to get it to look nice and remain useful at the same time. One problem is the variable length of the comments. I might solve that by excluding comments under a certain length. I'll probably play with it some more. But I agree that the focus should be conversation. As for tabs, yes I can get to that. I think everyone would probably be ok with external links opening in a new tab as the default.I really like the idea of top rated comments showing up on hover over. I think it keeps the focus on discussion opposed to anything else.