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.