Hello Hubski,
I joined Hubski a few months ago dang, almost a year ago, and while I've been lurking on the site and tried to be active in the beginning, for some reason it's not catching on with me.
I'm trying to wean myself off Reddit -- joined that community two years ago and slowly dropped time spent reading current events, books, etc.
I've picked up reading again, and have kept up reading the news, but I would like to add Hubski to that mix.
So, to that end, how do you use Hubski?
I use it for real talk with real people. It's often quoted that being on Hubski is a bit like having a seat at the bar - Like Cheers, everyone knows your name, knows some of your story, and has an investment in their interactions with you. Thing I love most about being on Hubski? I love being wrong on hubski. When you're wrong here, you'll hear about it - not in a cruel way, in an educational way. In a way that causes you to think more critically about what you know, and what you think you know. I love that.
Can you elaborate on this? Even if it's hard to pin down specifics, I would be great to hear why you feel this way. Compared to Reddit, Hubski is currently a quieter, more intimate place. This has benefits and drawbacks. I would love to see more fragmented communities here, but I've come to believe that some dynamics require a certain mass of users. I have definitely seen posts and interactions become possible here that weren't in the past, but as zonk mentions, we aren't yet large enough to sustain most niche communities. We continue to grow, and I look forward to some of the possibilities that come with an expanding user base. However, at this current size, there are some limitations to what Hubski can be. That said, feel free to try to make Hubski what you would like it to be. Use the following mechanisms as you would like to. Unfollow everyone (there is a button on the bottom of your profile page) and build a new feed every month or so. Follow only tags and domains, or follow only personal tags. Limit posts to one sentence. Whatever you like. I should say that we (mostly forwardslash) are currently rewriting the entire site from the ground up. We have a plans for the future, and have concluded that the best path there is to build with tools that are optimized for it. That's not to say that Hubski is going to be significantly different, but it will do what it does a whole lot better.for some reason it's not catching on with me.
Sure, I can try to elaborate. Lemme give some background. I'm not out of high school yet -- and thus suffer from a lack of certain life experiences and am at an age where I feel a little out of place on Hubski -- not a fault of Hubski itself or of its users, not at all. In my efforts to take a break from my studies, I turn to reddit and youtube for mindless entertainment, time which I used when I was little to read (a voracious reader, I was). I've brought that back up to steam during the summertime, but there's always the pull back to that community because it doesn't take effort. Again - not a fault of Hubski itself. That's on me. So when I go to Hubski during the school year, then, the level of interaction doesn't really jive in my brain with what I feel like that time should be used for. I almost see it as an extension of the kinds of activities my schoolwork requires, see, because of the level of engagement required. And because Hubski (in my mind) thrives on interaction between users -- no, scratch that -- between people, I feel bad being the proverbial man in the corner of the bar, watching everyone do their thing and sipping a club soda, wondering what I'm even doing there (or how I got in, haha). I dunno. Maybe it's just that I've got to power through with some of my own willpower, because I can tell that it's no wrongdoing of Hubski or Hubski's methods/ideology. We'll see. We'll see.
I'm almost here for the same amount of time as you, so I assume we come from the same thread from reddit ;)
When I was new, I tried to establish the gaming or even league of legends tag, maybe the hockey tag to find people who share my interest here, but pretty fast I realized that's not really possible, because the community is too small for that over here. Only Kafka and 8bit are in for some gaming stuff (even that I know their names is proof enough). So overall I'm probably less active over here than I want to be. It feels a little like being left out if you don't know the people pretty well, for example I've seen 8bitsamurai being called 8bit for a while now and it took me a little until I knew that they talk about him. Knowing that I will never meet these people in real life because I'm from Europe doesn't help either. So I just open the tab every day at work and see what's new, and barely bother updating the frontpage, because there's less activity than on the big sites. On reddit I'm subbed to mainly non defaults in the meanwhile and I either stay informed that way or some other ones have nice people where I chat along or submit stuff myself. Of hubski I always think of a reddit with serious- and smart-pants on (in a positive way), where you have more of a familiar atmosphere (not necessarily my thing, but it makes this site what it is)
I think that's kinda cool though because there are a few things the community is wholeheartedly interested in and hubski's a great place to learn about/get into those things. Stuff like physics. So it forces you to expand a bit. However as mk says niches aren't quite where we're at yet. (If ever.) Has both pros and cons.When I was new, I tried to establish the gaming or even league of legends tag, maybe the hockey tag to find people who share my interest here, but pretty fast I realized that's not really possible, because the community is too small for that over here.
Bring it!When I was new, I tried to establish the gaming or even league of legends tag, maybe the hockey tag to find people who share my interest here
-I can't help with the gaming, but I'm near certain that b_b, myself and scrimetime wouldn't shy away from the #hockey tag.
This is a convenient self-diagnostic metric. In my short time (~1/2 year), I have found that it's a very small community. On a daily basis, I would estimate that 90% of the posts and comments that I read are people who I am familiar with. There are a few people that pop in occasionally who seem to have once been major Hubski community members that were before my time, but most of the user names I'm familiar with are regular posters. That you haven't yet jived with this place isn't any fault of your own. That I have enjoyed Hubski thus far isn't any merit of my own. My advice is to exploit the "following" function for both users and tags (and tags.users, for following a particular topic of a particular user). If you realize that you enjoy seeing a user's inputs (both in submissions, shares, and comments), follow them. If you're interested in a particular topic, follow the topic. You can even filter out topics you disagree with from users whose inputs you typically value. Just be sure you don't fashion yourself a beautiful echo chamber. I recommend lurking. If you do, you'll soon realize that not only does Hubski have many brilliant users to listen to, but the build of this website itself is unique and worthy of recognition. Click on chatter. Click on global. Explore tags. Don't limit yourself to your personal feed. And don't hesitate to interact with any of us because we're typically pretty difficult to offend. Cheers!
I go to my front page and upvote/share/whatever anything that tickles my fancy. On the rare occasion I submitted stuff it never seemed to go anywhere, so I really don't bother much in that regard anymore. Basically I treat the site like reddit if I didn't mod or particularly give a shit about the conversations in comments.
I use hubski for a little bit of news, and a little bit of engaging discussion. I as well have been weaning off reddit. I started by unfollowing any subs that I didn't think were important to me. So now I've just got a bunch of smaller communities that I browse when I get the itch. But so far everything is just a repeat so it helped significantly in cutting down my reddit time. And now that I have hubski I find I can browse the front page and check out anything interesting in <10 minutes. So that has cut down on some procrastination. I've finally been able to focus on programming and reading again now that I don't have the leisure of just opening up a tab and having unlimited instant satisfaction.