I was considering transferring here but I see literally no difference. What's so great about Hubski?
That's a good question Goniloc. First of all I personally think that reddit is a great website, with many fantastic aspects. I don't think it's a competition, I think the two are vastly different and satisfy different niches for people. On reddit you tend to follow topics via subreddits. On Hubski you can follow topics via tags, but most people follow other people. For example, I follow humanodon, lil, theadvancedapes, minimum_wage and many others because they post content I appreciate on a variety of topics. This way, my feed is comprised of a multitude of different topics from many different sources. But, my favorite part of Hubski is the community. People are generally very civil, smart and creative. I'm sure civil, smart and creative people exist on reddit too. Again, I don't think it's a competition. Hubski is a small community, one person described it to me as a "boutique website." I guess that makes sense. What I think most people on Hubski would agree with me about is that it takes some time. People on Hubski tend to have connections with one another that are lasting. They have ongoing conversations, debates etc. It's much harder to be vitriolic when you know you are likely to converse with that person again. You might want to check out the about page, the FAQ page and definitely check out the tutorial at the bottom of the page when you are in your feed. Also, for some of the best content, check out the badges link at the top of the page. Hope this helps. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. I don't eat at just one restaurant, why would I visit just one online community? I think there is room for many online haunts, and Hubski is one of them. Welcome.
I'd like to emphasize this. Many of us use Hubski and Reddit, they are not mutually exclusive. They serve their own purposes, and while being similar in design and nature have vastly different atmospheres and communities. That and Hubski is devoid of memes and jokes that pervade most places not named AskScience or AskHistorians, and just about everything I can't stand about Reddit, which is very nice.That's a good question Goniloc. First of all I personally think that reddit is a great website, with many fantastic aspects. I don't think it's a competition, I think the two are vastly different and satisfy different niches for people.
Word. Less worthless low-effort bullshit and 'witty' one-liners in the comments and more actual content and discussion for thinking people. As both thenewgreen and ButterflyEffect have mentioned, reddit serves its own purpose but to me Hubski is a completely different animal. Both sites are content aggregators but Hubski is more personal and has a lot of potential to broaden your worldview for the very simple fact (that insomniasexx mentioned to me when I first started really using this site days ago after registering months prior and never really jumping in both feet first) that everything posted isn't going to be 100% directly related to your interests, because of the different people you follow. So there isn't any 'hive mind' mentality and you get to see a lot of interesting stuff you might never have checked out otherwise. Side-note, what happens when Hubski grows? Are people worried about the site suffering content-wise the way reddit did? It seems most of the site functions (the hub wheels for one) are more suited to a smaller community. I really enjoy how low-key it is here and the feeling of community that comes from that, I'm just curious about the future.
December of last year we had a huge influx of people come over from reddit. Literally thousands in one day. Many of them posted crap, but I didn't see much of it because I wasn't "following" any of them. [edit] I should mention that many of them are still around and post awesome content and the meme posting people got bored and left. insomniasexx once used the comparison to twitter. There may be millions of people using the site, but my feed just has the content of the people I follow. So if my twitter feed is full of garbage, then shame on me for following crappy people/tags. Where it could get interesting is in comments. Shortly after that influx of people we introduced the "ignore" and "mute": If you ignore a user, you don’t see that user’s posts anywhere. If you mute a user, that user cannot comment on your posts. You can ignore, mute, or both. I haven't had to use these functions since that influx, but they're there to specifically protect a users experience. I can say that we are in NO WAY interested in growth for the sake of growth. We don't care about pageviews etc. We are about providing a place for the thoughtful exchange of ideas/conversation. If Hubski grows to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people and we can keep the integrity of the content and conversations... great. If not, then we aren't interested in it and we will do everything we can to maintain what we think makes this place special. We love this place and we don't want to fuck it up ;-)
Theory of Hubski time. Okay now what could one reason be for having less low-effort bullshit as you just mentioned. The fact there is no karma here. You don't upvote or downvote, you're not collecting imaginary internet points. You contribute, and fill up your hubwheel. Sure, you could make a lot of low-effort posts to fill that up but what does it get you? A badge to give to somebody else for their content. To me, that's a huge difference in philosophy from Reddit. Karma is entirely for the person making the content, there is no return for anybody else on the website besides yourself. Here, it allows you to say "hey - this post is worth giving something I have earned from contributing". Off-topic, but just my 2-cents on that. You edited your post while I replied but I think my thoughts somewhat address what happens when Hubski grows. Plus with the way tagging, following users, and most recently following domains works, I think everything is suited towards having your own micro-chasm in a more in-depth way than what is currently found on Reddit. Edit: thenewgreen I was one of the December newbies! Whooooooo.
Wouldn't badges being applied to low-effort content incentivize the posting of low-effort content? I think that a site-wide rule against low-effort content would be the only thing to prevent it.
Yes, and that would be likely to happen if badges were easy to come by, but as it is they take a while to earn the right to give and therefore aren't doled out willy-nilly.
So in other words... powerusers will rule the content algorithm once they've put in the effort to earn the badges?
I have a twitter feed and I see what I want to see in it. I can also follow tags here on Hubski and ignore or mute certain users that I think use that tag but don't post the type of content I think best represents it. Also, there are no "top posts," per se. We do put a "most popular" post and comment on the community page, but that is for discovery purposes and is something we could easily eliminate if the need arose. You could use Hubski and never even know that a "power user" exists unless you were following them. If you did get their content in your feed because someone you follow shares them or because they post to a tag you follow, then you can easily "ignore" that "power user" and you'll never see them again. What's more, you can "mute" that power user and they will never see any of your posts either. There are tools in place to help you navigate the problems you foresee. These tools were born our of necessity and as we see a "need" for something that we think will help people to use the site more effectively, we will implement more tools. It's a work in progress and we definitely listen to our users. It's not reddit, we're not trying to be. Reddit's been done, and it's a great site. This is Hubski. It's not about points or how many followers you have, it's about having some nice discussions with people that, in time, you can eventually become familiar with. We are a small community though, approximately 8k users and even less "active" users. If you are looking for immediate gratification from a comment or post, we aren't the place at this point. All this said, I'm glad you found us, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. I appreciate the question. [edit] Not sure if that answers your question about power users gaming the "badges". My suggestion is to give the community a shot and you'll see that earning a "badge" is not as easy as you might think. It takes a while and doesn't provide for the quick return that most people that want to "game something" require.
It would be interesting if you could ignore/mute based on user AND tag. Thus if you had followed User because you noticed they posted a bunch of really great stuff to #foo and then found out they posted a lot of really not great stuff to #bar, you could ignore User&#bar. Or whitelist User&#foo if that's all you wanted to see from them. Presumably tags also work on an OR basis, so if you're subscribed to #foo you would see a post tagged #bar AND #foo, even though you never, never, wanted to see anything tagged #bar. Which may be non-ideal for some use cases (e.g. #nsfw).
Those are some good suggestions and eventually I do think it would be nice to be able to curate your feed more. I ignore #kiwimusic but I follow several people that post it often. It works. But what if some people post great kiwimusic and I don't want to miss some of that genre? Your idea makes sense. We are a work in progress and we definitely appreciate the suggestions. Thanks.
I know you were!! There are a bunch of really great people that came over from that time. What I found amazing about that December influx is that the people looking for cheap laughs via memes etc didn't stick around, most of them got bored and left. Some were posting awesome content from the get-go. But most interesting to me was seeing that some of them stuck around but changed their behavior. Truth is, many people have something interesting or worthwhile to say/post but they need an environment in which to do it. I loved seeing that, it was a great validation for the site imo.
Nobody has mentioned the mechanics of the website. Hubski is kind of a hybrid between reddit and twitter. You follow people like twitter, follow tags like subscribing to subreddits (except less exclusionary), upvote/retweet things you're interested in, and there's ranked threaded comments like reddit. The sharing model is better than the upvote model, imo, because you control who is trusted to rank content on your page.
If Goniloc is still lurking, understand that adding dots to the noble hub is sharing - when it occurs on a post. It is not raised or lowered in where it appears on a feed - the dot indicates that someone liked it and wanted to share it with followers or in the case of thenewgreen, someone didn't like it, thought it was controversial, and wanted the community to respond appropriately. When a comment (as opposed to a post) is dotted, it denotes approval or in some cases, simple "I was here."The sharing model is better than the upvote model
I think so too.
The sharing model seems ripe for abuse as a content ranking method. The hashtag subskis seems like they'd be polluted with whatever the eventual powerusers reshare with each other.
Yeah, I'm a little wary of following hashtags, it really is equivalent to "subreddits" and we all know how that turned out. But the "following people" mechanic is much harder to abuse, if I don't like what someone is sharing with me, I can simply unfollow them.
I would encourage you to use both websites. The big difference I have found here is - besides the lack of memes and low-effort "Look at this picture of something!" submissions - is, as others have said, the community. Some people have gotten involved in Reddit and see it as a community but I have never felt that way. Reddit seems more like a receptacle for anonymous or pseudo-anonymous sharing. Its userbase is too large for you to run into the same people time and again unless you subscribe to some very small subreddits and are a very active user in those subreddits. Here, on the other hand, I actually - well, maybe I can illustrate it with this: here, I actually read people's usernames, because I probably actually know or have interacted with these users before. On Reddit, I don't bother. I don't give a shit about the "community" of Reddit because there isn't a community. Of course, it did take me a while before I a) experienced this and also b) embraced it. After a couple of years of Reddit I was used to being a solitary member of a community and didn't necessarily "get" why someone would get involved in an online community. I'm still a more detached user than others on here, or at least others in my feed - people who participate in our book club or the CD exchange or the letter-writing exchange - but I have gotten to know some users outside of Hubski comment threads and I've really enjoyed that. I'll also say that I try to put a lot more effort into my Hubski content. I actually care about submitting content here as opposed to Reddit where I am mostly a voyeur. I care about keeping a certain content/comment ratio (and this is probably purely because of the little pie chart on your profile that tells you what that ratio is). I avoid posting one-line comments because that's kind of against the spirit of this community. We're here for discussion, not pun threads or "FTFY" jokes or "This" comments. Have I reflexively almost made those here? Yeah, but it's really not the place, and I avoid doing so because it degrades the discussion. I think Hubski's a much friendlier place than Reddit. Also, seriously, just use both. I use both and I still end up bored on the Internet sometimes.
It's a website, not a marriage or political party. You don't have to choose just one, you're free to use both, one or the other, or none. I think many people here probably use both. I go to Reddit for some small niche subreddits and things I still enjoy there, but the frontpage and default subreddit stuff has gotten pretty bad there. Like others have said, there's very little sense of community on Reddit anymore. It's too large. As a result, people don't care if they tell someone off, people don't care if they just troll, people don't care if they just repost crap or memes. Personally, I'm not into all the circlejerky stuff there, or memes, or another story about how someone lost 50lbs, or found a cat, or looking for sympathy because a family member has cancer and they want upvotes for posting their picture. Sure, you can get away from that in the smaller subreddits, but that stuff still even happens in some of those. That's kind of the "bulk" of Reddit these days, and I don't enjoy those aspects of it anymore. But I do enjoy that it has farrrrr more content than Hubski, I enjoy that there is a niche subreddit for everything, like ecigs, buddhism, IT sys admins, lawncare, home owners, etc. That's what I like about Reddit. There's a lot of general topics here, but nothing getting down to that granule of a level. The community just isn't large enough yet, and while that is a weakness in some aspects of content, it's a huge strength as far as community. Here, like everyone has already said, it's a small community. When there are discussions, I actually recognize the people, I know what states/cities most of them live in, I know a little bit about them and their opinions. People like thenewgreen even go as far to give me a shout out when they post something about SpaceX or Elon Musk because they know I'm into space stuff. It's things like this that make Hubski great. So use whichever you want, or just use both like many of us. :)was considering transferring here but I see literally no difference.
This platform reminds me more of Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/news), which I highly suggest you check out. It is much more tech/programming heavy, but there is generally a lot of good links.
I think the main selling point of Hubski truly is the intimate sense of community. I see the same people over and over, and generally get to know what they are about and what they are interested in. The people here really are some of the most intelligent and thoughtful people you will encounter on the Internet, and I think Hubski's format encourages that. I'm always finding new content both through simply browsing my feed and through exploration. There's different features and projects that you can explore and become a part of. The mixtape project and the weekly music thread pop into my mind immediately as examples, as I'm quite interested in those two. Reddit has it's own strengths, and while I still browse over there regularly, I can say without hesitation that I would choose Hubski over Reddit if presented with such a choice.
By the time I got to reading your response to Goniloc's question I had to wade through briandmyers graphical deconstruction of the word boobs, insomniasexx's bedtime story, and humanodon's pre-insertion conversations. And just above all that, insom was noting giggle.I think the main selling point of Hubski truly is the intimate sense of community.
Yes, truly intimate.The way the reddit system is designed, its easy to fall into a huge circlejerk
What's so great about Hubski? Well, I for one, actually feel like a member of the community. I think this is because, as thenewgreen said, users tend to interact with each other much more often. It's a site driven by user interest and it functions by following those areas of interest and/or particular users. By being able to follow people with interests similar to mine, I am then able to share things with particular people and have real conversations about topics, similar to the way that I would when interacting with people in the real world. I really like reddit, but as far as discussion goes, I like Hubski by a few miles. A lot of active users post original content as well. People are willing to put themselves out there and to explore topics in a way that I rarely see on reddit. I feel like I could get along with a lot of users on this site in real life, which is not a feeling I often get from reddit. To me, that's a big deal, because I'm pretty "whatever" about a lot of people I meet.
Probably the most important difference right now is the size. The simple fact that Hubski is smaller is conductive to a very different community and type of content. Of course that will change with time, but aside from that the site mechanics, while initially seeming very similar, make a big difference. The two largest most profound differences are that 1) there is no downvote button and 2) you follow people. The absence of downvoting or equivalent cannot be overstated. It changes the discussion in that there actually is some. You can't just dismiss opposing views and suppress them. People post what they think without fear of retaliation or hive-minding. And the fact that you follow people instills an innate sense of community. I will never feel a sense of community on reddit, nor likely even recognize any users there from one post to another. Yet on Hubski I sense that I know something about the people I interact with. I even communicate with them outside of the website. The other issue is that Reddit is absolutely bloated mechanically speaking: the site mechanics are terrible for what the site is now. They've been piling-on band-aids for a while now: subreddits that tag posts, add flair, disable downvotes, multireddits, mods clamping down on rules, the fact that half the site uses RES, subreddits undergoing mitosis to divide shit and quality content, endless subreddits centered around promoting discourse "the way it should be", etc. Reddit right now is layer upon layer of tacked-on mechanics that are trying to fix the fundamental flaws of the site which stem from its huge population, voting system, and feed ranking system that discourages deep, time-consuming content. Right now browsing subreddits is like jumping from one ugly geocities site to another.
The biggest difference is the lack of a single-topic community like reddit. Reddit has subreddits. Everyone submits content to the subreddit. What ends up happening is every subreddit is a bubble based around a community sharing essentially the same things. The results can be great (like TheoryofReddit or the niche topic subreddits) or horrendous (like atheism and politics.) The way the reddit system is designed, its easy to fall into a huge circlejerk because you are only seeing posts from like minded people on a single topic. If people have the same interests, thoughts, opinions as you, how are much room is there for expansive learning or growing? You see this is both the posts and the comments across reddit. Hubski on the other hand is based around following people. People that may have the same interests as you but also have interests or opinions that you normally wouldn't subject yourself to. I may be following someone that posts and shares great music, but I also see their posts about dumpster diving. This mimics real-life relationship more and gives more diversity and serendipity. No one has the exact same set of interests as other people, but hanging out in /r/atheism for too long and you will no longer be challenged by new ideas, opinions, or topics. The other difference with following people, is you start to notice usernames much more and the community and relationships you have with other users here grows over time. It has to do with the quantity of users as well, but I consistently recognize usernames and associate the name with past discussions I've had. I have gotten to the point where I usually know who the poster is before even looking at their username. It's a small detail but it makes the community stronger, IMO. You don't have to chose one. I consistently visit reddit for the graphic design / freelancer / startup subreddits to get my fix of inspiration and critiques. But when I'm looking for a high-level discussion or some mind-penetrating articles, I am here. It is harder to find those long discussions or deeper level thinking on reddit these days.
And don't forget that there are fewer boobs, though theadvancedapes is working on changing that . . . :)
I like how the word "Boob" is shaped - first letter is overhead view, next two letters are head-on view, and last letter is side view. Magic.
I have that problem with penises. For the first time, I did a glorious job in merging the intelligent conversation & my sexual obsession. Last night I got excessively drunk with a group of people my partner & I are hoping to do some work for in the very near future. Got home, jumped onto/into bed with the lovely boyfriend, and rambled for about an hour about how cool it would be if humans had duck dicks and how evolution plays a part in genitalia design and what sorts of things would need to happen over a very very long time to get humans to have, what I consider, the coolest freaking penis ever. Apparently this post is still on my mind. After an hour of listening to me drunkenly, sleepily ramble about duck dicks, the boyfriend goes "Babe, if you want my penis inside you just say so. I really don't need a drunk evolution lesson right now."
Haha! There was a video about the corkscrew nature and rapid erections of ducks and how female ducks have vaginas that spiral the opposite way and methods of directing the ejaculate into different . . . crevices? I don't know, somehow the females were able to make sure they weren't inseminated by undesirable mates. Human mating behaviors are complex enough as it is. Plus, people wear deodorant and perfume and all kinds of fragrant things. I wish I had a subtle way of letting women know "hey, if you want to get down without any strings, that's cool. Or with strings is cool too. I'm pretty open minded." Without spoiling the mystery. And also the pre-insertion moment of condom/no condom/I haven't fucked anyone sketchy lately, have you? Oh you're on birth control and never want to have kids/Are looking to get pregnant, etc. Anyway, drunk evolution seems like it's how we got to this point, but there's something to be said about being straightforward when the situation calls for it.
When I lived in Boston, I'd hear people talk about New York City all the time: they hated it, they missed it but still hated it, they were there last weekend and got messed with for wearing a Red Sox cap (or got confused with a Brooklyn Dodgers fan). There was a certain obsession with the city only 210 miles away. That suited me, because I had grown up in upstate New York. Then I went to college with a bunch of wicked smart but wicked solipsistic New Yorkers. When I found out there was a whole city that actively hated New Yorkers, I couldn't move fast enough. That overexposure got it out of my system. New Yorkers, in contrast, didn't notice Boston. They were hung up on themselves and had plenty of things within that. They needed cans of Pepsi that mentioned New York on them for some odd reason. I live in Los Angeles now. People in San Francisco have a strange hatred of Angelinos. It reminds me of the Bostonian hatred of bigger NYC, except it makes less sense (except for the Giants fan that got beaten into a coma after a game at Dodgers Stadium -- that was horrible). It's like being resented by the gods: San Francisco is a beautiful city wrapped in clouds, while we have food trucks. Los Angeles is perfectly nice, so why do the better-off people feel the need to be our rivals? Hubski is small. We're going to talk about Reddit because there is some modelling of its community. We'll also talk about it because we go there as well, then come here to get out of the loud bazaar and into the quiet tea room. We're Hamtramck inside Detroit, Brookline surrounded by Boston, West Hollywood always a couple blocks from sketchier but more famous Hollywood. We have that removal because it keeps our brains in order, our lives in perspective. Something that goes giant on Reddit can wind up mentioned on TV. Something that fills the eight-dot circle and gets over 20 comments in a day here could still be tiny news. That's fabulous.