Hubski: #blog.hubskihttps://hubski.com/images/discussion.pnghttps://hubski.com/pub/439191https://hubski.com/pub/439191Today's update makes Hubski a bit more like the morning paper. Hubski now has a weather forecast!https://hubski.com/weatherHere are my current weather conditions:Currently🌥Temperature: 50°FFeels like: 48°FLight breezeScattered cloudsYou can find a link to your forecast in the bottom menu. This is a first roll-out, and feedback is welcome. As you can see, we aren't going for a very data-driven type of weather report. The wind descriptions are from the Beaufort Scale.Currently, the weather is based on your geocoordinates that are provided by your browser using getCurrentPosition().If you have geolocation disabled, you won't be able to see your forecast. We are using the weatherbit.io API. The calls only include the latitude and longitude. However, if you think that's TMI, don't use Hubski Weather. The weather javascript is only served on the weather page.If you are in the US, temperature will be reported in Fahrenheit. If you are outside the US, temperature will be reported in a sensible manner.Feedback is appreciated!https://hubski.com/pub/435569https://hubski.com/pub/435569Hubski now hosts its own chat: https://hubski.com/chatOnce you have earned a hubwheel or have been promoted, you can participate in chat.Chat does not respect Hubski markup, and all html is scrubbed. Thanks to kingmudsy who demonstrated the wisdom of this choice by totally breaking chat with JS in the 5 minutes that allowed html. :)Chat comments are not stored in the database, and are wiped if I ever restart the app. Also, currently only the last 180 comments are saved.A link to chat can be found in the bottom menu.As always, feedback is welcome.https://hubski.com/pub/432728https://hubski.com/pub/432728The State of Hubski doesn't happen every year. It's happening this one.Not only are we coming to the end of the 2010's, 2020 will be the year that Hubski turns 10. I created the mk account 3313 days ago; part of launching news.arc includes the creation of an admin user.Since launching, thenewgreen, akkartik, b_b, insomniasexx, rob05c, sounds_sound, and forwardslash have all been part of team Hubski in one sense or other. I am grateful to all of them, and anyone that uses the site owes them the same.As you all know, thenewgreen has been instrumental in building what user base Hubski has, and he remains a committed (if not totally consumed by Forever Labs) believer. insomniasexx, b_b, and sounds_sound take much credit for community development (and our better design decisions) as well. forwardslash remains a constant source of technical support, and much of the code base bears his fingerprints. rob05c delivered a monumental improvement by migrating us from files to a PostgreSQL database, which meant that Hubski wouldn't eventually freeze like the Tin Man. rob05c, if you are reading this, I now have some understanding of your integration, and can actually troubleshoot. akkartik helped me cut my teeth on Arc, to deal with early scaling issues, and I remember one day calling akkartik when I deleted our DNS name servers.mike, steve, ecib, and cgod were pre-Hubski friends that became integral early on, and gave me confidence in what I was trying to do was worthwhile.We don't have any analytics for user metrics, and I have become even more ideological when it comes to internet privacy. Props to alpha0 for calling me out for using Google Analytics about 9 years ago. We've been busier, but we've been less so. I suspect disabling posts for newbies isn't a growth hack. I have some anti-spam/pro-human updates in the works.I could create a massive list of shout-outs to the many friends that I have made here, but I know for certain that I would neglect to include a few critical ones, and I am going to avoid the creation of that guilt. You know who you are, and it's wonderful and absurd that I communicate with several of you as frequently (or more) in person, or by text. I know that I am not the only one that has meaningfully expanded my IRL social network on account of Hubski, and that makes me downright weepy.Ok, fuck that. I'm going to shout-out kleinbl00 and lil, because kleinbl00 and lil. But I don't love the rest of you any less.Having quit my day job and launching a VC-backed "startup", the last couple of years have left me struggling for balance, and Hubski (not just the website) has been a victim of that struggle. I am not proclaiming enlightenment, or even balance, I am not denying therapy, but I can say with some confidence that I have learned some important lessons that are translating into reasonable behavior with increasing frequency. Hubski remains as important to me as ever, and it is important to me that it gets fitting care. This fall, I have pushed more fixes/updates than the last two years combined.Despite my ominous predictions, we outlasted Google Plus!The best way to serve people is to develop tools that make it easier for people to do what they want. Google often does this very well. In my opinion, Google usually succeeds by taking a pragmatic and efficient approach to address a need. However, now that Google is building a social network that spans across their applications, it will be more difficult for Google engineers to build applications that simply align with a particular need. Instead, Google applications now must not only align with a specific need, they must align with the needs of the Google+ meta-application. Over time, I think that this will create an infrastructure that first impedes innovation, and later, impedes quality of service.Huh. Not completely off-the-mark...Hubski is here to stay. Something that doesn't evolve into a reality-bending parasitic shit-show ought to, right?The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2019.Happy New Year, Hubski!https://hubski.com/pub/430902https://hubski.com/pub/430902One of the most mobile-unfriendly aspects of Hubski was the "colorbox" overlays that gave information like post previews, or who shared or badged a post or comment.Those overlays have now been replaced with an inline drop-down that contains the information.I've also made a few other fixes and tweaks (such as sorting chatter by time), so let me know if anything seems wonky.https://hubski.com/pub/410875https://hubski.com/pub/410875I removed our Piwik analytics today. I never looked at them. We were masking the last three bytes (nine digits) of your IP address, so there wasn't much information to see anyway. There's no point in collecting something we don't need. If we have traffic issues, we can tell via the app.I can't say that we won't ever have analytics again, but we'll let you know if we do.I've updated our TOS to reflect this.https://hubski.com/pub/404681https://hubski.com/pub/404681Because of the Facebook shitshow, I decided to peruse our Terms of Service, which hadn't been updated since 2014.I made the following change:Previous language:User information will only be shared with third parties in an aggregate form that preserves individual user anonymity. Emails, IP addresses, partial IP addresses, and user-activity will not be shared with third parties.Updated language:We do not share user information with third parties.We haven't gone the "selling our users" route, and we aren't going to. If there's not a better way, then maybe there shouldn't be a way.https://hubski.com/pub/398371https://hubski.com/pub/398371This is the sixth State of Hubski.I can't say that know the state of Hubski very well. This year I have been more a user of Hubski than an admin, and I have not been as active as I have in any years previous. Within the last year, I quit my day job as a researcher to work on Forever Labs full time; this included a summer in Y Combinator, and a whole lot of travel. For this reason, and others, this has been one of the most transformative years in the 42 I've had thus far.I am glad that Hubski is where it is at now before this year happened.From day time I started Hubski, I knew that it would just be something that I do no matter what. That's not going to change. In fact, in some ways, I am in a better place to support Hubski than I have ever been. I have a feeling that Hubski can yet evolve, that it will evolve, but that the technology isn't there just yet. Hubski is and always will be a place for thoughtful communication. That is its purpose. I can imagine that we can better enable that, but I am not a fan of doing things just because we can.Forever Labs is going to be no less consuming this year. However, I intend to make some deliberate improvements to Hubski, and I value the ability to swing in and chat it up with you all more than ever. You are family. Still, I have this odd feeling that Hubski is going to grow significantly one of these years...Like I said, I can't say that I know the State of Hubski extremely well beginning this New Year. However, I suspect that it is as strong as ever; on my end, it is.Thanks, thenewgreen, rob05c, forwardslash, and insomniasexx.Thanks, hubskiers.Happy New Year, Hubski!https://hubski.com/pub/376225https://hubski.com/pub/376225We are going to try an experiment.Starting today, when you sign up for Hubski, you will be able to comment immediately, but you cannot post until you have earned your first hubwheel.Importantly, there are now three ways that you can earn your first hubwheel:1. As before, if your commenting activity is appreciated by the community, you will gradually earn a full hubwheel.2. If one of your comments is badged, you will earn a full hubwheel.3. If someone with a hubwheel chooses to, they can promote you to a full hubwheel at any time.For those of you that have earned one or more hubwheels, you will now see a 'promote' link over the comments of new users. Simply click on it to give them a hubwheel.As always, feedback is much appreciated.EDIT: I don't think that 'promote' is the best word. Definitely open to suggestions there. Circledot?https://hubski.com/pub/366522https://hubski.com/pub/3665222016 was a year of transitions.For Hubski, the most significant transition was that rob05c moved our data from the flat files of the Arc app, to a SQL database. This was a slow and arduous process, but one that has put us in a much better place.On a personal level, 2016 was the year that I incrementally replaced my day job as a grant-supported scientist in a hospital laboratory, as the co-founder of an adult stem cell storage company. Equally important to Hubski, thenewgreen has taken this journey with me.On top of that, insomniasexx co-created the extremely popular Ethereum application, and she and randomuser got married!The effort that this transitional year required of myself and the team has resulted in fewer Hubski updates, and often the choice to maintain rather than build. It's fair to say that aside from the back end development, Hubski has spent much of 2016 in the horse latitudes.For this reason, it might sound strange to hear it, but to me, Hubski feels more essential than ever.I don't believe that I alone harbor the impression that many significant transitions are occurring around us, and the pace and interactions between them are profoundly changing our world. Most people throughout history died in the world that they were born into. That is not our lot.Not only are we experiencing a convergence and acceleration of transitions, the extent to which we share their effects is increasing.Hubski is not your average web app. Hubski is going to be here. Hubski is not a web app at all.The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2016.Happy New Year, Hubski!https://hubski.com/pub/357952https://hubski.com/pub/357952A significant thing happened to Hubski this week. rob05c completed the migration of our data from Arc's non-database to postgreSQL.This was no small undertaking, which you may have followed on #devski.rob05c did this on his own time, and we are in a much better place for it. Our ability to scale, to improve the app, and to offer a genuine API have been greatly expanded. In short, our previous architecture was untenable, and rob05c put us on a sustainable path.I'll leave it to rob05c to discuss details, but know that from an architectural standpoint, Hubski is in a better place than it has ever been.Thanks, rob05c. You get all the alfalfa.https://hubski.com/pub/329541https://hubski.com/pub/329541Five days ago, we tried a new approach to spam.It didn't work as intended.In short, we created a one click link to tag posts with the community tag #spam in the global feed. New users also filtered #spam by default.The intention was to leverage existing behavior to more easily send spam posts into the abyss. The effect was that we codified the community spam tag as the principle means to avoid spammy posts, and made moderation less individual. The spam tag became more powerful, and its application more controversial.Today we are trying a different approach that we feel is more aligned with the nature of Hubski and its characteristic individual moderation.In the global feed, you can now find a 'filter' link on posts. Clicking this link will filter the user, removing their posts from your feeds.We have long used filter as one signal to bring spammers to our attention, and will continue to do so. Thus, filtering a spammy account does help remove spammers from Hubski. However, unlike the #spam community tag, it does not have an immediate effect upon everyone else.You can still community tag posts with #spam. However, like with other community tags, you will have to open the post first to do so.As always feedback is welcome.https://hubski.com/pub/328541https://hubski.com/pub/328541You may have noticed we have had a new wave of spammers recently.It has become common practice that people will community tag these posts with the #spam tag, so that they can be reviewed and filtered en masse.This update adds three changes to better take advantage of this effort:1) If you have earned two hubwheels, you will see a 'spam' link on posts in your global feed. Clicking this link will automatically add a #spam community tag to the post.2) Logged out users do not see posts with the #spam tag.3) New users are automatically filtering the #spam tag. They can unfiltered the tag if they wish.There are a number of ways that we can address spam. This is an experiment that leverages an existing behavior. Let's see if it is an improvement.We monitor which posts are marked as spam, and will continue to do so.As always feedback is welcome.https://hubski.com/pub/317286https://hubski.com/pub/317286One problem with private messages has been that if there are multiple people in a PM, only the person that is being replied to directly would be notified of a new comment.Today we added email alerts and notifications for PM conversations.That is, if someone makes a new comment in a PM, everyone in that PM will now receive an email alert, and the comment will appear in their notifications.You can toggle 'private message emails' in your settings.In addition to this change, there are two aspects of PMs that we would like to get feedback on: 1) Should hubwheels be added to PMs? 2) Should the OP be able to add more people to the PM? This is currently possible. As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/314771https://hubski.com/pub/314771As most of you know, we created Hubski to get rich. As the old adage goes, "If you want to print money, start a social aggregator".thenewgreen only drinks bourbon bottled before he was born, insomniasexx collects passport stamps as a hobby, forwardslash spends every waking hour in virtual reality, rob05c is building a Slack service for AI, and mk is building a private Fort Knox of cryptocurrencies.All these things cost money, and our server costs are not helping.Thus, to feed our insatiable need for currency, we have created an annual Hubski funding goal. If you aren't viewing the site on a mobile device, you can see it on the upper right.Currently, Hubski's server costs are $212/mo. That equates to $2544/yr. These costs are too high, and reflect an inefficiency of the Arc app. We are currently working to correct this inefficiency, and once this work is completed, we expect that out costs will drop to $116/mo, or $1392/yr.In addition to paying for servers, we buy stickers a couple of times per year, send them to people, and typically buy a few meals, drinks, and t-shirts. We might also include occasional travel expenses in these costs, but Hubski meetups feel too much like vacations.Hubski has always run in the red, and the money has come out of our pockets. This isn't an ideal situation, but it is a bearable one. However, there may come a time when our situation is not so bearable, and we thought it would be a good thing to be clear about where we are at.We have set the 2016 funding goal to $2400. Assuming we can bring our server costs down as planned, $2400 should enable us to pay for our servers, and leave some money for stickers, swag, meetups, and some room for an increase in server demand.If you donate to Hubski, you will see it reflected in our donation bar. Thanks!As always, feedback is much appreciated!https://hubski.com/pub/312869https://hubski.com/pub/312869This is the fifth State of Hubski. Let's do something we haven't before:Perhaps we should do this every year.Yesterday thenewgreen posted a summary of 2015 which you should listen to.tng's summary does a fine job of addressing my thoughts and feelings regarding what has happened in the community over the past year. It is no exaggeration to say that this place has enabled friendships that I could not have had otherwise.Five years ago, I had an inclination that a rare kind of space could exist on the internet, and that anyone could be a part of it. You all have proved that possible. I am constantly surprised by what people bring to this site, and the conversations and collaborations that result.From a technical standpoint, one of the most significant things that happened this year is that rob05c joined the team. As #devski indicates, good things are afoot. Reading over previous State of Hubski posts, I realized that we have been promising an API for about 4 years. To be honest, I made some mistakes in the last two of years that resulted in significant development delays. Specifically, in 2014 we embarked upon a rewrite of the site that was too ambitious for our team's part-time capacity. As a result, forwardslash and insomniasexx spent much time and effort on work that you never got to see. This was a painful experience. In 2015, we corrected our course, and forwardslash and insomniasexx didn't kill me.More generally speaking, we have learned a lot in this past five years, and IMO 2015 has found us on firmer footing. Hubski is growing up. Questions have been answered. It has become increasingly clear what this corner of the internet is all about.That's not to say that we aren't going to be experimenting. Hubski is always a work in progress, and there are changes in store for 2016.On that note, forwardslash has a New Year's gift for you all: https://hubski.com/ircThanks for being part of Hubski in 2015. You make this place what it is.The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2015.Happy New Year, Hubski!Cheers!https://hubski.com/pub/287441https://hubski.com/pub/287441Today's update has been a long time coming.You can now donate to Hubski. You'll find the link in the bottom right.We are using Stripe as our payment provider. Your credit card information does not touch our servers, so you needn't worry about us handling it securely.You can see the total amount of your donations in the stats section of your profile. Only you can see this information.We will be updating the look of the donations shortly. Thanks to rob05c to getting us over this finish line.As always, feedback cash money is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/261808https://hubski.com/pub/261808Last week, we mentioned that a change would be coming to chatter.That change has come.Starting today, your chatter shows badged comments, the comments of people that you follow, and comments that they have shared with you.That means that clicking on a hubwheel next to a comment shares it with your followers.Also, on your chatter page (and other pages featuring comments), you can now see who has shared a comment, and who shared it with you.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/258628https://hubski.com/pub/258628Currently, chatter shows badged comments, the comments of people that you follow, and comments on posts that you have shared.Soon, this will change.After the next update, chatter will show badged comments, the comments of people that you follow, and comments that they have shared.That means that ‘upvoting’ (circledotting, blooping, etc.) a comment will send it into the chatter feeds of the people that follow you. Comments will be shared.In addition to this change, just as on posts, comments on your chatter page will feature "shared by" information indicating who shared the comment, and who shared it with you.We are giving a pre-announcement for this update, because it means that comment 'upvoting' will no longer be anonymous. If you'd like to see the comments that you have shared, follow the link below, changing 'mk' to your username:https://hubski.com/cdots?id=mkOnly you can see the comments that you have shared at this time.We are making this change for two primary reasons: 1) Chatter and feed functionality will be similar, and the sharing mechanism for posts and comments will be similar. 2) It is our hope that removing anonymity from comment support will increase the support for thoughtful comments, and decrease the support for less-thoughtful ones.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/246092https://hubski.com/pub/246092Today we are implementing a new moderation option: Block.Block toggles on the hush, filter, and mute moderation options. In addition, you and the blocked user cannot PM each other, or reply to each others comments.Like our previous moderation options, block is individualized. However, block should be considered a last resort, and it is intended to be used only when other moderation options have failed.We would prefer not to have any moderation tools on Hubski. However, as in real life, constructive conversation is based upon a mutual agreement whereby participants are taking part willingly. Thus, people should have the option to avoid conversations that they do not want to be a part of.The decision to implement block was not made lightly.I am more pleased to present our second update. Comment threads are now collapsible.At the top of any comment tree, you will see a '—'. Clicking the '—' will collapse that comment tree.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/244053https://hubski.com/pub/244053Today we are starting an experiment.What we are testing may not work. However, if it has a chance of working we want to know, and if it doesn't work, we want to know why.Starting today we are testing a bitcoin-based donation model to fund Hubski. We are not using real bitcoin or real donations. However, we are asking that to the best of your ability, consider than the donations are real, and act appropriately.Here's how this donation model works:When you donate to Hubski, these funds are converted into bitcoin, and deposited in your 'donation bank'. When you share a post or circle-dots-to-the-clockwise (bloop, uphub, etc.) a comment, some bitcoin are transferred out of your donation bank. These bitcoin may be split between Hubski and the author of the post of comment. You determine the amount of bitcoin transferred with each share, and the ratio of the split between Hubski and the author. If this were not an experiment, you could withdraw your balance at any time.You can find the balance of your test donation bank in your profile. There is also a link there to your donation settings. You can use your donation settings to control how much (imaginary) bitcoin is transferred with each share, and the ratio of the split between Hubski and the author.We are well aware that there are reasons why this idea could be considered good, and reasons why it could be considered to be terrible. We have discussed many of these reasons. However, as I have previously written, the current model for funding a social aggregator is flawed. We want to make more informed decisions regarding our future funding model, and this experiment is designed to help us do that.For this experiment, we use the unit 'bit', which equals 1/1000000 bitcoin. Currently, 3500 bits has a value of about $1 USD.As stated above, this is just an experiment, and these bits are not real. Do your best to pretend that they are, but understand that they will be erased after the experiment is complete. We expect to run the experiment for about 2 weeks.Feel free to share feedback and your predictions below. I am sure we will have plenty to discuss when the experiment is complete. Thanks in advance for your participation!We are running the experiment with 20 test donors, each starting with 35000 bits. We have selected 12 people to be donors. If you want to be one of the remaining 8 test donors, let me know below.Update: We now have our 20 initial donors. 700000 imaginary bits are now floating about. Let's see how they move. Thanks!https://hubski.com/pub/240601https://hubski.com/pub/240601First off, we would like to officially welcome rob05c to team Hubski!rob05c brings programming firepower to the team at a much needed time. Like all of our team members, rob05c was first a hubskier, and it is clear that he gets what we are doing. Speaking for myself, I knew that rob05c was a great pick when he said that he could only join us if we open-sourced the code.So yes, we are open-sourcing the code, and that will happen once we have made sure that there are no vulnerabilities exposed in the release.rob05c is already at work, and he is also leaning on us to clean up our workflow. :)All in all, rob05c has already been a great addition to the team. Feel free to send him all bug reports. :DWelcome, rob05c!Regarding updates, a couple of days ago flagamuffin inquired about some information that used to be available on a tag page. Previously, you could see the users that most commonly used that tag.We have brought that back, plus a little bit more.Clicking on 'more' on a tag page will reveal some additional information about the tag.It's likely that this functionality could be incorporated elsewhere on the site in time.As always, feedback is much appreciated.Welcome, rob05c!https://hubski.com/pub/237304https://hubski.com/pub/237304Today we are making two quick updates, both suggested by new users.A number of you, like goo, have lamented that it is difficult to follow tags while on mobile. Previously, to follow or filter a tag, you needed to navigate to a post that carried that tag. Now you can follow or filter a tag from your feed:It's not perfect, but it is definitely an improvement. insomniasexx and I are in the midst of a CSS spring cleaning at the moment, so more tweaks like this are likely to follow soon.kainjow recently suggested that RSS include feeds for tags as well. We have now added them.Check out the RSS page for all the feed options.Here is the feed for #blog.hubski: https://hubski.com/rsstag?id=blog.hubskiIn other news, thanks to thundara and CashewGuy, we have a new IRC channel:#hubski @ irc.frenode.netA permament link has now been added to the TMI page.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/229505https://hubski.com/pub/229505Last week we added suggested tags for posts.Today we've added suggested tags for community tagging as well.Perhaps just as significant, you no longer need to navigate to another page to add a community tag (or to see the suggestions) to a post. Hopefully, this will make community tagging a bit more useful, and further improve the tagging ecosystem.As always, feedback is appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/228395https://hubski.com/pub/228395One of the shortcomings of tags on Hubski is that it is difficult to understand how they relate to each other. As a result, it is not always easy to decide which tags are most appropriate for a post. In addition, unintentional dilution of topics caused by similar posts carrying different tags decreases the ability of users to establish communities.This update is a step towards solving that problem.Starting today, when you enter a primary tag in a post, you will be given up to nine suggested secondary tags once you click on the second tag text box.Here is an example:Clicking on any of the suggested tags automatically adds it as the second tag.The suggested tags are those tags that are most popularly used with the primary tag.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/221358https://hubski.com/pub/221358Today we are adding a new dimension to posts. You can now label a post as an event with a specific date.We have plans for how we want to expand upon event posts (including getting notifications for ones that you save), but thought it best to introduce them in their simplest form, and then to be guided in their development by your use and feedback.To see all events, simply click upon ‘event’ in any event post. By clicking upon the date of a specific event, you can see that event, and all events scheduled to come after it.Like community tagging, you must have earned one badge to give away before being able to create events. If you can create an event, you'll see a 'create event' link in the upper right of the submission fields.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/220659https://hubski.com/pub/220659Two updates in one day!Today Quatrarius made a few good suggestions.One of them was that you should be able to choose a page as your 'homepage'.So we did that.You can now choose your homepage to be one of the following in you settings: feed, global, chatter, or badges.Your feed is the default selection.Quatrarius also suggested that the global feed be sorted by 'time' rather than 'activity' as the default. I have received similar feedback that suggests that is what people would expect. So we are also trying that out.Now global, badges, and tag feeds sort by time by default, rather than activity. We will see how that feels.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/220638https://hubski.com/pub/220638The other day we were discussing the new user experience, and two ideas came out of that discussion that we are now testing out:1. A Welcome post is stickied in every new user's feed.This is that post:Feel free to sign in post facto.The reasoning behind the Welcome post is simple. New users typically need some guidance, and a welcome post is a good way for us to introduce them to Hubski. Also, if one user poses a common question, subsequent users can benefit from the answer in the same place.2. Everyone follows badged content by default.Starting today, badged posts appear in your feed, and badged comments in your chatter by default.Of course, no one should have to follow badged content, and you can choose not to by toggling 'follow badged content' off in your settings.Our reasoning behind following badges is thus: Badges are intended to highlight the best content, therefore, it makes sense that everyone can more easily see it. Also, giving badges more visibility makes them more potent. Finally, new users don't follow anything by default, and the badge feed is likely to provide some of the best content to get them started.As always, we appreciate any and all feedback.https://hubski.com/pub/219204https://hubski.com/pub/219204Yesterday wasoxygen and I had a discussion about the whereabouts of Hubskiers. I related to him what we know and what we don't, and thought it might be worth sharing with you all.This is what we know:I grabbed that map and data from our Piwik Analytics.I've mentioned this previously, but we do not log your IP on Hubski.We host Piwik Analytics on our own server, and we mask the last nine digits of your IP address (i.e. 198.xxx.xxx.xxx), so we can only resolve visits by country. We don't know what state you reside in. Piwik also expunges user activity data every 24 hours, and it respects 'do not track' requests.In short, we don't want to know more about you than what you choose to share on the site.https://hubski.com/pub/218564https://hubski.com/pub/218564Some time ago, insomniasexx suggested that it would be nice if Hubski links on Hubski itself could be more informative.Starting today, when you put a Hubski link in a post or a comment, the link will convert to a 'card', which provides more information about that link.For example:This is a post link:and this is a comment link:We are likely going to make a few tweaks to these cards, and as always, feedback is much appreciated.p.s. You're welcome, thenewgreen. ;)https://hubski.com/pub/209866https://hubski.com/pub/209866About eight months ago, we made a significant change to tags. Prior to that update, the author could add up to two tags to each post, and once posted, the community could add an additional third community tag. Personal tags such as #blog.hubski were optional.Since that update, the author could add up to two tags, where the first tag generated a personal tag, and the second tag was a suggested community tag.Today we are rolling things back to the original functionality.Once again, the author can add up to two tags to a post. A third tag can then be added (and changed) by the community.To make a personal tag, simply add an @ to the end of the tag. For example, for veen, "technology@" will create the tag #technology.veen.I'd be happy to explain our reasoning behind the reversion below.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/209341https://hubski.com/pub/209341It's been too long since we've had a Hubski Update.Today, we are rolling out drafts.Now when you add text to a post or a comment, you are given the option to save it as a draft, rather than posting it right away.A few things about drafts:-A draft remains only visible to you until you publish it. To do so, toggle the draft selection to 'no' when editing the post or comment.-Shoutouts and reply alerts are only sent when a draft is published.-Posts and comments that have been posted cannot be reverted to a draft.-You can find a link to all your current drafts in your profile.You can thank insomniasexx for this one.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/197803https://hubski.com/pub/197803This is the fourth State of Hubski post. We are 28 in dog years.I have no defined intentions for this place beyond enabling thoughtful interaction. However, something else has transpired. Whether it was the IRCs, the meetups, #grubski, 103 #weeklymusicthreads, #pubski, or just a critical mass of comments and posts, many of us interact in ways that transcend Hubski itself.We remain a small, yet uniquely vibrant corner of the internet. I’ve met many of you face to face, and each time, the conversation felt too short.There is a spirit to Hubski.There were less Hubski Updates this year. That was not due to a lack of activity. forwardslash and insomniasexx have been toiling away at a complete rewrite of the site. For our "second job" team, the task has been a heavy one. However, there now exists an alternate version of Hubski, and it is written in Scala and Node.js. Expect an invite to test and break it in the month of January.It was a difficult decision to channel so much of our limited resources into a rewrite. We have a number of Hubski Updates in the queue, and it has been painful to delay them. I am very excited about one update in particular, and I am glad that 2015 will see its implementation.*We are also excited about the robust API that the new Hubski features.On a call a few weeks ago, the Hubski team started talking about new stickers. We had an idea, and immediately contacted sounds_sound, as we agreed that he could pull it off best. The next Hubski sticker aligns well with my thoughts and feelings regarding Hubski of 2014.The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2014. Thank you for being a part of it.Happy New Year, Hubski!It has nothing to do with tags.****Ok. Those might be changed too.https://hubski.com/pub/186985https://hubski.com/pub/186985Some time ago, we had the notion that new users might benefit from a welcome video.steve helped us make that happen.Now, when new users arrive at their empty feed, this video is there to greet them.It can also be found on the Hubski primer page.Thank you, steve.In other news, we are making good progress into a complete rewrite of the entire site. Soon, our humble Arc news.arc derivative will be replaced with a Scala backend API serving a Node.js frontend. It is our goal to open the new site to beta testing between Thanksgiving and Christmas.insomniasexx, forwardslash and myself would be happy to discuss the details below.https://hubski.com/pub/164794https://hubski.com/pub/164794Today begins a fairly significant experiment. doesntgolf recently commented that he would like to be able to follow tags in a user-specifc way, regardless of whether or not that user had created a personal tag for a post. That is, he could follow #music.mk to get just my posts with the #music tag.We thought this was a very interesting idea, and the conversations that ensued led us to this update.Starting today, whenever you tag a post, a corresponding personal tag will be created for it. These tags can be followed or filtered just as any other tag.Here are some details:1. The personal tag is automatically generated based on the post's tag.2. Posts no longer carry a normal second tag.3. The author may now make the first community tag suggestion on their post. This replaces the second tag.4. In your profile, you can find a link to a page with all of your personal tags.5. If you have follower-alerts turned on, you will get emailed when someone follows one of your personal tags.There are a number of reasons why we thought this experiment was worthwhile, and I will be happy to discuss them below. However, not all of functionality that will likely accompany this change is in place. For example, it is likely that when you visit a tag, you will also be able to see the most popular personal tags under that tag.Of course, this is an experiment. If we find that this isn't an improvement, we will modify it, or roll things back to where we were before.As always, feedback is much appreciated!p.s. For previous posts, if there wasn't a community tag (which was >90% of those posts), the second tag was promoted to the community tag. However, the author of the post can still suggest a different community tag for their previous posts.UPDATE: Based on the feedback we received here regarding the repetitiveness of the two tags, we have since formatted them in a way that combines them.https://hubski.com/pub/162182https://hubski.com/pub/162182Today we have three modest changes to share:1) We renamed the 'ignore' function to 'filter'.In short, we feel that ‘ignore’ has negative connotations that misrepresent the purpose of the function. The intention of the function is to exclude posts from your feed based on the post’s domain, user, or tag. Of course, filter can be used to omit posts from users that you personally dislike; however, it can and should also be used to omit content that you are simply not interested in.After much discussion, we agreed that there is not a perfect word that describes the filter function. However, we do feel that the name of the function had influenced its use, and the perception of its intent. For that reason, we have opted for a more neutral term.2) We have removed the multiple editor function on posts. Simply put, users almost never added editors to their posts, and when a user did add editors, the editors did not use the function.We feel there are ways that we can better support collaboration on Hubski, and it is a goal that we are actively working on (expect a post about this soon). However, multiple post editors didn't address a current need, and if we do revive the function, it will likely be in the context of another.3) If you have created a personal tag, you can now see a count of the personal tags that you have created in your profile. This personal tag count links to a page with a summary of the personal tags that you have used. Personally, I had forgotten which personal tags I had created, and I am sure that I am not alone.Of course, feedback is always appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/146278https://hubski.com/pub/146278Today we are updating our Privacy Policy.The substantive changes to our Privacy Policy reflect one thing: We do not want to know anything about you beyond your username, your email, and what you choose to post on the site.The Hubski application and servers do not log your IP, and our Piwik analytics software (which we run on our server) masks the last three bytes (nine digits) of your IP.In addition, as your activity on Hubski (the pages you visit, the times you visit them, the browser you use, etc.) could be used to identify you, user-specific activity is deleted from our Piwik logs every 24 hours.We will not share any user-specific information (including emails, IP addresses, partial IP addresses, or user-activity) with third parties. We don't only feel that privacy is important, we believe that it adds value to the Hubski experience.As always, feedback is much appreciated.p.s. In an upcoming and related update, we will more specifically address our approach to moderation on Hubski.https://hubski.com/pub/146000https://hubski.com/pub/146000It has been a long time coming, and considering the heartbleed bug, it may have been worth the wait.When you log in to Hubski, you will now be directed to https://hubski.com.Thanks for your patience!In related matters, we will soon be updating our Privacy Policy. In short, we don't want to know anything about you beyond your username and email. We will make that clear.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/143760https://hubski.com/pub/143760Several weeks ago, we updated the notification functionality. Previous to that, the center of your hubwheel was orange if you had any undismissed notifications, viewed or not. Following the change, your hubwheel was orange only when you had notifications that had not yet been viewed.After a few weeks, some people still preferred the old scheme, whereas some liked the new.briandmyers and minimum_wage suggested a solution that might satisfy both camps. We decided to try it out.Starting today, the color of the center of your hubwheel is determined by the following: Gray: You have no notifications. Blue: You have notifications, but have viewed them all. Orange: You have unviewed notifications. It might seem a bit more complicated at first, however, in testing, it feels right to me.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/139655https://hubski.com/pub/139655Today we've rolled out some new search functions that should help you find what you are looking for.Search within a tag:tag:space spacex searches all posts tagged with #space that contain the term spacex in the title or text.Search comments only:comments:buddhism searches all comments for the term buddhism.Search posts only:posts:nakamoto searches all posts for the term nakamoto.You can view all of the search options by following the "search tips" link under the search bar.Hubski search doesn't perform as well as it should, and it remains a work in progress. Over the weekend, briandmyers rightfully pointed out that Google's site search usually outperforms our own. It's our goal to change that.As always feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/127889https://hubski.com/pub/127889I recently posted about making comment sorting user-specific.Post I, Post IIThanks to your feedback, we settled upon one idea which will begin the experiment of custom comment sorting on Hubski.Starting today, you can select to 'hush' another user. Hushing a user will sort that user's comments to the bottom of a thread that you are viewing. In essence, a hushed user's comments fall more quickly to the bottom of a thread.Hushing is anonymous. No one knows who has hushed them. Hushing only affects comment threads viewed by you. Your hushing does not affect other users. You can hush a user on their profile page. You can view the users you hush in your settings page.The hush function is an experiment. Let us know how it works out for you.The second part of today's update regards account inactivation. I occasionally get requests for account deletion. Oddly, most of these requests come from users with little or no data.At the bottom of your settings page, you will now find a link for account inactivation. Inactivating your account is permanent. When you inactivate your account, your profile can no longer be viewed, and in posts and comments, your username is replaced with the text 'user-inactivated'. Your email is also removed from our data when you inactivate.Posts and comments are not deleted by account activation, only your attribution is removed. If you want to remove a specific post or comment from Hubski, please do so before inactivating your account. We do not have bulk deletion of posts or comments, however there is no timeout for their deletion.You cannot retrieve an inactivated username. Previously used usernames are no longer available. Only inactivate if you are certain that you want to. It's a one-way trip.As always feedback is much appreciated!https://hubski.com/pub/125341https://hubski.com/pub/125341This is the third time I have written this post. Here are the two previous: SoH11 SoH12Going by pub ids, the first State of Husbki was after 12431 posts, and the second was after 41509 more posts. As this post's id is 125341, we've had 83832 posts since the last. If our growth rate holds, that suggests the next State of Hubski post should be around id 295000.But, whether the SoH14 post id is 150000 or 1500000, I'll be here writing it.Back in 2011, when I downloaded news.arc and booted up a clone of Hacker News, it was not my intention to build the next big thing. I had two goals: 1) to teach myself a language other than FORTRAN, and 2) to create a place that I wanted to exist. The first goal was for my benefit, the second goal had something to do with you.Hubski is not about being a better aggregator. Contrary to popular opinion, Hubski is not about getting right what Reddit gets wrong. Hubski is not the next generation of social media.Hubski is about good conversations over thought-provoking content.We do not lack for information. However, despite the technical possibilities, we do suffer from a paucity of places where intelligent people can get together and synthesize this world about us. There is no reason we should only watch and listen.Most of you that have found your way here know why Hubski exists.In our effort to adapt and improve the site, we don't always get things right. However, we know what our goal is. That will not change.This year has been a good one. We have gained many new members that have had a positive influence on the site, and are still graced by many of the old cast that continue to make Hubski the unique place it is. I count many of you as my friends. We had a couple of really great Hubski meetups in 2013, and plans are being made for more in 2014. (BTW b_b and I will likely be in Rotterdam in early May.)This year forwardslash and insomniasexx joined the Hubski team! It might not be readily apparent, but running this site takes a significant amount of time and effort. Not only have forwardslash and insomniasexx brought invaluable energy and ability to Hubski, but the fact that they 'get it' goes a long way to ensure that we continue to work towards our goal. (They are also extremely fun to be around.) I must also say that we all should thank thenewgreen. The energy and passion that he has given to Hubski has more to do with where are now than any other factor.We have some interesting things planned for this coming year, some of which we will start discussing soon.Thanks for being part of Hubski in 2013. The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2013.Happy New Year, Hubski!p.s. I initially drafted this post with a bunch of shout-outs, but it started getting ridiculous. Happy New Year to each and every one of you!p.p.s. If you haven't already, check out the Best of Hubski: 2013.https://hubski.com/pub/121048https://hubski.com/pub/121048minimum_wage recently posted a link to a post about link discovery and the ranking algorithm on Hacker News.That led us to today's update.Today's update does two notable things:1. The global feeds have been consolidated into one global feed.2. Your feed and the global feed can be sorted by 'activity' or 'time'.Sorting a feed by 'activity' employs Hubski's ranking alogrithm, and sorting by 'time' simply sorts by the age of the post.In making this change, we dropped the global chat feeds. They were very rarely used.We think this new setup improves content discovery, and removes unnecessary complexity. Let us know if that's true for you.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/111255https://hubski.com/pub/111255One thing that we are always trying to improve on Hubski is content discovery.To that that end, today we are introducing global chatter.If you go to your chatter page, you will now see links to global chatter in the upper right. Clicking these links enables you to browse all conversations happening across Hubski, sorted by popularity.The global feeds are now presented in a similar format in your feed page.As always, feedback is much appreciated.https://hubski.com/pub/109530https://hubski.com/pub/109530This update solves a few problems, and opens up a few possibilities.You can now create tags unique to yourself. As an example, you can see the #blog.hubski tag above.To create a personal tag, simply add an @ symbol to the end of a tag. For example, if your username is oscar, blog@ will convert to #blog.oscar upon submission.Personal tags can be followed and ignored just like other tags. Community tags cannot be personalized.As always, feedback is much appreciated!https://hubski.com/pub/53940https://hubski.com/pub/53940It's Hubski's second New Year, and I am happy to say that I don't have a fever this time.It has been another good year.The community has continued to grow, and so has the diversity of ideas and conversation. One thing that tells me that we are doing something right is that despite time and changes, many faces are still with us. I can still look forward to social critiques and perspectives from NotPhil, new music and strong opinions from cgod, and a sprinkling of art, ideas, and Blondie from alpha0.insomniasexx has learned to code, and forwardslash created our first plugin. kleinbl00 and I still disagree on functionality, caio still supplies math and poetry, and thenewgreen started giving us #tngpodcast.Of course, these are just a small slice of the personalities that have continued to make this an interesting place to be.Just as important as those that remain are the good people that have come aboard this past year. cliffelam has been a refreshing counter to my political beliefs, thundara has brought some of the most varied and quality content, and theadvancedapes, lil, and JakobVirgil have reinforced my belief that people sharing their own writing on Hubski is a good thing.I didn’t intend this to be a folksy shout-out, but that is how I feel about this past year. It has been a good time hanging out with these people in a small but growing space. It is possible that such a personal retrospective won’t make as much sense in future State of Hubski posts. However, I do hope that everyone’s individual experience can be as personal and rewarding if they seek it. In fact, that’s my goal.Thanks to everyone that’s made this second year a good one.In what felt like a Holiday surprise, syncretic (whether intentionally or not) opened the tap on a flow of new users this week. Welcome to all of you. This shake up has helped us to identify some things that we are doing well, and some things that we could do better.It’s clear to me that everyone wants something just a little different from Hubski. I don’t expect that to change. However, when you take away the differences, I believe we have much in common when it comes to the type of experience we are looking for. Our goal for Hubski remains to be a place where people can have fruitful conversations over thought-provoking content.As many of you know, thenewgreen has been an invaluable part of team Hubski for some time. Over this past year, b_b has also stepped into a planning and community outreach position. We have no payroll, but if we did, there are others that I feel like could be on it based on what they’ve given to Hubski. sounds_sound in particular has devoted a lot of time and consideration to our development.In related news, we have another programmer coming on board! A proper announcement is forthcoming, but someone that has been close to Hubski from the beginning is going to join in the development team, which will double in size! There has been recent talk about an API, and because of these extra hands and expertise, one will be built this year.The State of Hubski is good this New Years Eve of 2012. Thanks for being a part of that!Happy New Year!