If yes, it's because you guys see it as something it's not. And that may be inevitable, because it resembles Facebook friending. But it's totally and completely just a way to determine what links get onto what feeds. The list of people I have in aquamarine on hubski is not an exclusive list of the only people on this website I can tolerate. It's an exclusive list of the people who I've judged to submit a high enough percentage of things I enjoy that I need to be following their activity. It's not perfect, and to be honest I could unfollow half my group and still see the exact same links because hubski is still a comparatively small place. So in that sense my link-filtering efforts are a bit pointless, but I anticipate that they won't be in the future. I think you all get this on an abstract level but in a lot of cases it's still just a friendship button, or an agreement-with-comments button, to address tacocat's point. I don't see why. Following someone is not how you control whether you see their comments.Do you think that Hubski's following mechanic is deleterious?
In many ways that addresses my own discontent. Our intentions are far less important than the effect. Here's a question: How would you feel if chatter simply showed you the comments of those you followed, but your feed was a result of the tags and domains you followed? My followed list rarely changes. At this point it might work to prevent me from seeing content rather than ensuring that I do.And that may be inevitable, because it resembles Facebook friending.
It's not perfect, and to be honest I could unfollow half my group and still see the exact same links because hubski is still a comparatively small place
Perhaps the intent should be made more clear, then. Instead of saying "follow mk," you should say "subcribe to mk's content." If I could only follow tags, I may as well be subcribing to a sub-Reddit. And I have no desire to do that again. So, I don't follow tags, and, honestly, I think the ability to do so only confuses new users, who will decide Hubski is just like Reddit, but with updots instead of upvotes. Just try to make it clear how the site was designed to be used, and only add features that enhance that use.it resembles Facebook friending.
In many ways that addresses my own discontent. Our intentions are far less important than the effect.
I think that would improve chatter -- or at least make the following mechanism more relevant. But chatter is not a feature I often use. As for feeds, I have been thinking for a while on unfollowing people and sticking to domains and tags. I have decided I'll never do it, for two reasons: one, I use hubski to discover new domains and can't do this well without following users; two, tags are too heterogeneous for me to ignore all the new interesting ones that crop up, which I would never run across if again I didn't follow actual users. [A profile toggle allowing us to change our feeds to just domains/tags is however a Good Idea.] I really doubt it. You follow 50 people, including at least 10 who are "prolific sharers." There's probably no way to put a hard number on this, but I bet at least 90 percent of all hubski posts (that get shared at all) are "eligible" for your feed, either through direct following or indirect sharing. That's just a function of the current community size. EDIT: at some point I would love a post from you summarizing your experience to-date running a content aggregator. Did you anticipate the amount of thought you'd have to put into every single feature decision? It's fascinating that the dilemma isn't whether people will use tags or how difficult the programming will be, but rather what each small change does to the site's unique dynamic. EDIT2: sorry this is getting long, I genuinely think it's all worth reading. Having now read kleinbl00's comment -- the next conversation hubski needs to have is about tag compartmentalization and homogenization. Having six different tags that all vaguely mean 'news' isn't stable. The solution isn't a dropdown menu where you can only pick one of ten things, but also the longterm solution isn't the current "anything goes." Like said above, content is too hard to find.My followed list rarely changes. At this point it might work to prevent me from seeing content rather than ensuring that I do.