by thenewgreen

.....but I commented on a reddit post that mentioned Hubski.

Team Hubski has a pretty strict rule to not engage on reddit when someone mentions Hubski. We prefer to leave that in all of your capable hands, but mk was on vacation and well.... I was bored.

It turned out that someone with the handle OutbreakMonkey asked some good questions and they seem sincere in their curiosity. Therefore, I'm going to post their last comment below and answer it to the best of my ability, calling on forwardslash and insomniasexx to jump in regarding more specific privacy concerns etc. I welcome b_b to jump in too.

Here is the last comment:

Hi, me again. I've had a look, generally like what I see. A few more questions if I may. I understand you follow individuals and what not. Fine for big topics and controversial issues (I get what you're saying about reducing the circle jerk). I do however Frequent some if the niche subs with specific interest. How would you emulate that? Do users have to know all of the hashtags likely to be used for an interest? Edit: I read your privacy policy which is pretty "boiler plate". But if leaves some questions. Second , you've got my email with my login. How are you going to guarantee me you won't abuse it OR worse, lose it like so very many "secure" big sites. How about logging, is read history stored or just post history? Edit: Deleting IP address details doesn't particularly anonymise data or access if it's tied to a username. How about account deletion. What is deleted when I leave ? Can I take EVERYTHING with me and vanish? Finally, how is your financial backing? Obviously end goal is to sell your product and IP, but what is the current arrangement and big players with a decent chunk? When you do sell refer to previous question about deleting my data. I like the partial anonymity that reddit provides, not that I say anything controversial or particularly care. Just one less thing for users to think about, and one less vector for spam or identity leakage. Still interesting site. Edit: I'm not trying to bash you. Just want to know your position on these things. Like I said. Nice site. Edits mobile phone auto corrects.

My response

Hey OutbreakMonkey, You write:

I understand you follow individuals and what not. Fine for big topics and controversial issues (I get what you're saying about reducing the circle jerk). I do however Frequent some if the niche subs with specific interest. How would you emulate that?

Right now you can follow tags to attempt to get a specific experience around a singular topic, however the reality is that unless it's a tag like #science, #music, #technology or any of the other most active tags its not likely to be terribly robust. What we find is that by following a mix of people and tags you get a varied, and interesting array of content. -Try it out.

My guess is that the people in our community don't use Hubski exclusively but use reddit, HN and any number of other aggregators, all for different reasons. I always say that I don't eat at just one restaurant, why would I visit just one aggregator/site?

As for privacy, we aren't interested in capturing your data for the purposes of capitalizing on it. In fact, we take steps to guarantee we have a bare minimum. forwardslash -can you speak to this? As for you giving us your email, that's your choice. You can literally put [email protected] and create an account here. Should you share your actual email address, you will receive emails for comment notifications etc, but you can easily opt out in your settings. We never send unsolicited emails though. Not our style, not our intent... which leads to:

Finally, how is your financial backing? Obviously end goal is to sell your product and IP, but what is the current arrangement and big players with a decent chunk?

-NO, NO, NO. This is not the end game. We would rather burn the place down than compromise its integrity for money, page views etc. -This is not some ploy, this is at the very core of what/why we are doing this. The goal is to foster a place for the thoughtful exchange of ideas. Period. We actually don't refer to Hubski as a "startup" because of the connotations that come with that. We are a boot-strapped "project" with no outside money interests involved. -We've been at this for a while now

Don't get me wrong, if we could figure out a way that Hubski could pull in revenue while not compromising the integrity of the site/community, we would be foolish not to do so. The community here often asks if they can help support the site financially, which is a pretty great compliment.

I like the partial anonymity that reddit provides, not that I say anything controversial or particularly care. Just one less thing for users to think about, and one less vector for spam or identity leakage.

-You can have anonymity on Hubski as well. However, once you start using the site, interacting with the community and participating in discussions you better be careful....before you know it, you'll start recognizing usernames and then you'll realize that the site is comprised of people, people you actually begin to care about. -It's the damnedest thing.

Thank you for the questions OutbreakMonkey, I hope to continue our discussion here.

Cheers!