There was a time, call it '92 to 2000, when it was considered the newbiest, most assholish thing in the world to join a new forum and start posting without lurking for a month or more first. Then AOL happened and the world became HEY GUISE WATS NEW HERE. Diaspora (RIP) gave everyone a #newhere tag when they started up their accounts. You followed it until you figured out how to unfollow it. Note that I don't blame the new blood for flooding the fuck out of #askhubski because there's no search, features were curtailed and you had no idea what the hell else to do. But I think it's an important lesson for insomniasexx and thenewgreen and mk and the rest of the posse that I'm forgetting that Hubski needs a failSAFE mode, not a failFRIVOLOUS mode. You should have been put in a nice, friendly, nerfed-out, training-wheels place where you can explore, poke around, figure shit out and NOT upset what was already here.As one of the recent new members, I feel like I should be super careful now what I submit to not eventually scrape off the flair of the veterans here and get scolded by them :/
I still thing it's wrong to join any community before spending some time lurking. I spent a good week or so reading through Hubski posts before I did anything "real" with it. I did the same when I joined Reddit or any other community I've been a part of. I'll even do it when I find a new subreddit that I like. I think it's important to understand the community that you want to become part of. You have to test the water to make sure you actually like it. If you do like it, you like it for what it is. Jumping in and disturbing the water will change the nature of the community that you wanted to become part of.
Thanks for the little bit of background info and history, I wasn't aware of everything you mentioned. And yes, as I agreed with the other comment, some restrictions for new users wouldn't be too crazy in my eyes, maybe there will be a solution acceptable for all.
I wouldn't even see them as restrictions - after all, if you're smart enough to figure out how to disable them, they aren't restrictions. Just as most video games don't throw you into expert mode on day 1, Hubski (and Reddit) ought to set you up in such a way that you don't piss people off on day 1. It's a fight I've had with the admins since Alexis was actually doing work: why the fuck do you have default subreddits at all? The answer, of course, is "because traffic." Since Hubski doesn't think like that, we've more of a chance.
Oh yes, when I talked about restrictions I meant things like "no posting until you get a badge with comments" or something like that. Something like those default settings which you have to find out yourself would be perfect, although I couldn't come up spontaneously with ideas how to realize them.
And just to add to what kleinbl00 said: we're always open to suggestions on how to make the site better. "Because traffic" will never hold water around here (although, of course we want more traffic, just the right kind of traffic). If in the future you have any ideas, feel free to let us know. Some people use the #bugski tag, even though that was set up for actual bugs. I wonder if we should have like #suggestionbox or something. That might work.
I wonder if we should have like #suggestionbox or something. That might work.
-Good idea.