1: So very true. akkartik has brought some good pressure on that front. (TBH he helped thenewgreen put more pressure on me.) We have now started watching people who are completely new to Hubski try to sign up and navigate the site. We have a growing list of notes, and picked some low-hanging fruit (Ex: Now when your badge icon reads "x 0", clicking on it tells you what badges are, rather than just letting you know that you have none.) 2: Ok, here it is: kleinbl00 was right about tags, and mk was wrong. :) Seriously, this is also true. I think our first step is with search. It would be great if searching for #writing would bring up a list of other tags that included #writebetterdammit. It would also be nice if it pulled up a list of who uses that tag a lot, and who did recently. Similar info should be returned for users. I think that building that out will give us some better ideas how that kind of discovery can be implemented elsewhere, -like on profiles or community. Maybe 'similar posts' could come back and be useful at the same time. 3. I know you didn't mean that as a compliment, but it didn't work out that way. But yeah, like in item 1, we are debating this stuff and getting fresh eyes on it. But look, The New York Times is copying us! Even so, I'm willing to keep moving to an aesthetically happier place. 4. Absolutely. Regarding the backend, this would be insane if akkartik were not aboard. Much good has happened behind-the-scenes, and more will come. As far as the frontend, I know that this is going to put new pressure on moderation. Assuming we march forward, we plan to start this out slow, and build up. I want to find the biggest gliches when it concerns just a handful of cases. There are a number of ways we can get burned, and I am sure that I can't imagine them all. No doubt, and I know that you appreciate them. This is something that we’ve been ruminating on for a few months. I definitely don’t want to give the impression that we are just launching a neat new feature. This could easily be the most impactful thing we’ve done. Thanks for the feedback. I expect that we will be discussing this more as things develop. At the very least, it should be interesting.The style looks like something an East German varsity chess club would come up with in 1987.
This is a big decision. It has sweeping implications. Start thinking about them now, before they matter, because someone else will ask.
1) Great. Keep it up. 2) I know fuckall about search but I know that in a Google era it's how people find things. One thing I think sets Hubski apart from anywhere else is the multidimensionality of tags v. users and having a contextual search that can be tagged would help a bunch. Perhaps the way LinkedIn does it - give the users some radio buttons to click on to see if they agree with an auto-generated tag cloud. 3) For clarity, I'm not calling for "a prettier interface." I'm calling for "a more extensible interface." The data and information you're presenting isn't that form-dependent and if you let a simple CSS replacement structure replace your bare-bones with whatever the user wants, you can let the market decide. Take a look at Protopage - all it is is a pretty front end for a bunch of RSS and applets, but it's really handy. The reason everyone runs RES on Reddit is because unlike Reddit, it's being actively developed to reward the user experience. Without RES, Reddit is as unwieldy as it was in 2008, but with 200x as many users. 4) "Moderation" is a dangerous word. A "moderator" keeps people from fighting. Start thinking in terms of "curation." A "curator" arranges things to make them easier to consume. To Moderate is to arbitrate or mediate. To curate is to preserve and maintain. In the end they may be doing the same things but the approach a curator takes is very different from the approach a moderator takes. I really think the "moderatorless" nature of Hubski is a real benefit over the way Reddit does it. I think if the tools can be put in everyone's hands to keep the tags centralized, organized and logical, there will be no real need for moderation. Let's see what you come up with next.
I agree on all points. Re: 3, styles is more-or-less a tip of the hat in that direction. I'm sure akkartik would be keen on one style/interface that could be user-modified rather than multiple independent ones. Re 4: I'm on the same page. I'll try very angle to keep it user-based over top down. I don't want to go down that road.