I think the problem, and problem might be too strong a word so we can go with sticking point, comes down to explicit vs implicit moderation. Hubski is small and there aren't really a large number or a diverse selection of cliques, which seems especially true when a user is new. If that user lurks they meet the common cast and you fall near the top of the bill as the lovable asshole, a good but prickly role that doesn't have the most line but certainly has the most memorable dialogue. In this way you become a figurehead to the community. This means your personal moderation is often seen for the implicit effects. Explicitly, you (or anyone using mod tools) are only controlling what you see. Implicitly, I think it feels as though you're shunning a person from the "in" crowd. This, of course, is a hunch based on my thoughts, but the logic is pretty simple - the moderation system is just different enough to not be understood. When a person sees that they are muted, they might assume that blocks them from a much larger portion of the site, similar to being banned on a message board. They might also assume that their mute is a scarlet letter of sorts, something other users can see (which, to be honest, I'm not really sure that they can) and make judgement against. Even outside of those theories, there's how the implicit moderation effects the person internally. If they do associate you to the in crowd as a public face and you shun them, no matter how privately, the likelihood of implying a feeling of alienation and spreading that to the larger perceived "in" group seems very high. I would be very interested to see the analytics of a user's first 90 to 120 days, to see who those people gravitate too and to find out if there is any perceived controlling group. I know it's a complaint I've heard about hubski before, and I think understanding it could go a long way in changing how the system is explained. Or I'm just rambling, work is boring this time of year.
There is definitely, definitely a controlling group. It is scary sometimes. I kinda feel a bit like a kid around here, both as a new(ish) user and as a relatively young person (am I? I have no idea how old anyone is around here). As a result, I put a lot of thought into my comments. Most of the time, I don't post them at all, generally for fear of looking inexperienced. On the other hand, it makes me much more thoughtful about what I do say, because I know you guys aren't just random strangers who disappear into the depths of the Internet. You will read it and think about it and then I'll see you on another post. It is kind of like talking to classmates, or people you see regularly but don't need to interact with. You don't want to fuck it up, because you're going to see them again, but you'd rather you could talk to them because it just makes the environment a little more welcoming. Just chiming in with my two cents.
I think this is a large part of it - the capital of "good conversation" looms over everyone. It's preached pretty heavily in every place that talks about hubski - it's a place with good conversation. I want to explore that idea. The people who don't care, don't care. If they have heard this is the new reddit, then they are going to try what they did on the old reddit. If they were trolls they'll troll, if they were contributors they'll contribute. What ever they did there, they'll do here, and they'll do it without apology. The above essay is testimony and they are either accepted or rejected for who they are. The second, and likely larger group, are the insecure. The people who do not know themselves with certainty and who use the anonymity of the internet as a method for testing the viability of their potential selves. Which is a troubling goal on the internet, it doesn't have the vast and immediate feedback that's baked into our in person lives, and so people can swing much further when testing personalities than they ever would in person, because the feedback is so much slower to arrive (and is more subtle on arrival). These individuals, the insecure, lurk momentarily then try on a hat they think might fit. If they feel outcast after trying on that hat, as we've discussed they may above, the immediate reaction would be indignation ("That's not even who I really am") or immense regret ("I've taken a gamble and lost and now I will never have a second chance.") This is what concerns me. I understand that the desire is to make hubski a mature destination for intelligent conversation, but the underlying architecture has so much more promise than that. It facilitates that desired community very well exactly because a crude community of immaturity could exist on the same site and not touch their conversation. But that crude community is never given the chance. The elite community exists and is dominant and if anyone is culturally different they don't have the followers and they don't have the digital dopamine to keep them coming back to propel the adoption by the masses. This theory has a few notable ramifications. The first being - maybe this is what hubski wants (the site as an organism). The site hasn't seen an influx of waste in its gutters because not enough people are there to dump things in. Or, the desire for an elite site is so strong that no one dare breach the taboo. Either way, it might just be in the culture for people to not cross that line. The second is, maybe this is just the work of a strong personality. Klein is a strong personality. I have a hunch he would be the first person to tell you that. If that's true, there might just be a case of "this town's not big enough for the two of us" and instead of trying to create a different atmosphere, new cowboys just move on to greener pastures. The third, and much more personal, is that I should do something about it. This isn't quite interesting enough for me to write about at length, but if you said "yeah" then the question applies to you as well. The fourth, fifth, sixth, sixtieth, and so on all revolve around what's wanted by the community. What do the individuals who make up the content of the site "hubski" want to see on the site "hubski". Do they want a lofty idea that's worthy of looking and lurking and trying to understand until you build the confidence to join the conversation? Or do they want a safe place where people can try on many hats, offend and be offended, and not find themselves cut off from the community? The end dynamic will be no where near as simple, but I feel that's the question that needs to be addressed if things are to move from where they are.
I'm going to correct a few of your misconceptions. 1) "It facilitates that desired community very well exactly because a crude community of immaturity could exist on the same site and not touch their conversation. But that crude community is never given the chance." This is simply not true. Let's be honest: There's a core of maybe 50 people that essentially keep the lights on in here. This page shows the community, essentially. A lot of it is old. Some of it is new. We all remember when nowaypablo showed up because suddenly he was everywhere and he added a lot. Existentialist, on the other hand, has been here less than a month and is already contributing lots of content. Who remembers when the CIRCLEJERKERS showed up? Nobody... because they left. Who remembers when Laurelei showed up? Nobody... because the Circlebroke posse left, too. There's a large percentage of Reddit that thinks Hubski was founded by Syncretic, because he bailed on Reddit, flashed around here for a week, then went back to Reddit... but he left essentially no mark here. 2) "The site hasn't seen an influx of waste in its gutters because not enough people are there to dump things in." Au contraire. All one needs to do is wait for Reddit to get mad. As I recall, you were here for one wave, forgot your username, then came back and were annoyed that the username you wanted was already taken (by you). We've had plenty of "waste in our gutters." The thing is, the community that sticks around here is self-reinforcing and self-refreshing while the other communities that attempt to exploit what Hubski offers... aren't. I'm not willing to say the hubski crew has built a bomb-proof site, but it really does seem that the architecture and interface of the site supports the community we all want and doesn't support the community we don't. 3) "The second is, maybe this is just the work of a strong personality. Klein is a strong personality. I have a hunch he would be the first person to tell you that. If that's true, there might just be a case of "this town's not big enough for the two of us" and instead of trying to create a different atmosphere, new cowboys just move on to greener pastures." Certainly. However, as I've said, me and _wage worked out just fine, despite the fact that we really didn't get along. theadvancedapes and I are civil, despite the fact that we are about 100% diametrically opposed on most things. yellowoftops likes to snark at me but he's still here and has been. My interactions with insom are pretty much archetypal: strong people interact, conflict, grow, accept and cherish. We aren't all gonna be bosom buddies but if we all have something to add, we all have reason to stick around. People do get pushed out. We've lost a lot of good ones (and I include _wage in that list, despite the fact that I wouldn't trust her as far as I could spit). But the community maintains an attractive level of discourse that persists. You have a lot of theories. We have a lot of practice. What you see is what we've built. Not me, not mk, not thenewgreen, not anybody, but everybody. We're invested in it, so it reflects what we like. That's essentially what defines a community.
I don't think I conveyed myself correctly but, yes, this is all about what I'm trying to say. The thing I was really trying to ask was, if another devoted set of 50 people came to the site, could they exist in the same place but as a different circle? If yes (and the site seems to be set up to allow it) is there a way for that community to grow, and do the first 50 really want a dark hubski to grow or do they use their implicit moderation to force it out? I'm not really looking for answers to this, and it's not really about hubski. It's an interesting plateau problem that every area of congregation should naturally reach at some point in its growth. It's particularly interesting for me because my fiance's church is running into the same situation, so this gives me an opportunity to reword the problem and maybe get some new insights.
Hard to say if two separate circles could exist, it has been part of the aspirational goals from time to time. There are lots of little circles mixing it up in a crazy Hubski ven diagram. I'm surprised sometimes to wander into a discussion or relationship here that is obviously long standing but which I've never noticed before.
nowaypablo had a similar question that also deserves answering, even though he deleted it. Let's inspect this notion, as well as the compartmentalization of Hubski, to put a handle on it. These discussions usually have me as the target. It can be argued, then, that the tone reflects what I want because I'm the strongest personality. I say as much: Nobody wants to tangle with that. Nobody, that is, except the folx who drove me off Reddit. So theoretically, Hubski's content is what it is ONLY until those muthafuckas come and kick my ass out of here and drag this place down to /r/circlejerk or worse, right? Also theoretically, when I showed up I should have driven off a whole bunch of people and changed Hubski from what it was to what I want it to be. Therefore, a pre-kleinbl00 Hubski should be radically different from a post-kleinbl00 Hubski. Practically, however, the arguments don't hold water. For one thing, the asshole-in-chief beat me here by eight days. Whatever attracted violentacrez to Hubski, it didn't attract him enough to interact with it. On the other hand, I pretty much found a new home. For another thing, the very guys who drove me off Reddit followed me here. The most important thing to consider, though, is if I'm the strong personality, and Hubski didn't originally match what I wanted, who won that battle? It's worth noting that Reddit made me the bare-knuckle brawler I am. There was no forum that rewarded invective and rhetorical WMD quite like Reddit. I was active on a few other forums at the time and I absolutely had to switch gears to interact there; what flies on Reddit is shitcamel behavior everywhere else. It's also worth noting that when I came here, I did that very downshifting. The culture that was here was the one I wanted to interact with, so I accommodated it. Not always, not all the time, and there were fireworks to be sure... but the fireworks drove me away for the most part. And it's not like I didn't have my full rhetorical fire available: That's the last time _wage and I interacted, yet she lasted another two years after that. It took an asshole like grendl to drive her away. Meanwhile, my interactions on Hubski have mellowed me a bunch. I mute as much as I do because I've entirely lost my appetite for flame wars. 200 days after the above, I had this discussion: Can you spot the difference? To me, the first was a backhanded pseudo-insult to which I set phasers on annihilate while the second was a full-frontal character assassination to which I gave it a gentle ear-boxing. To me, the evidence suggests that Hubski's social structure actually fosters politeness. If true, that's FUCKING AMAZING because it means that the virulent hatred that places like Twitter and Reddit engender disintegrates once it makes its way here. If you read the posts from the CIRCLEJERKERS they aren't even particularly mean... yet these are the guys behind /r/coontown and /r/rapingwomen and /r/picsofdeadkids and worse. That growth point you hypothesize? I think we've reached it a half-dozen times and pushed through, and the community that remains is this one.Is it possible that the 'strong personalities' like yourself mght be controlling the expressed desires of the community? Perhaps Hubski is due for a shift in tone or content focus, but once old users notice new ones trying to kick things up they load a clip of mute buttons and fire away.
I'm the biggest asshole there is. I can crush you like a bug. When it comes to in-the-mud combat, the only guy I ever ran across that was better than me was violentacrez, and that's because he wanted it more. Think about that for a minute: the guys that can beat me in a bar-room brawl are the guys that will happily go on Anderson Cooper just to be told what subhuman scum they are.
I'm really confused because I can't tell if you're casting yourself as the gatekeeper or not and, for either side, what's being argued? I think I swooped in on some drama when I was killing time at work and don't have full context, so there are some side points that I don't quite get. As for pushing through the growth points, I don't doubt that hubski has hit them, but if that group of 50 has been roughly the same group for months or years, then I'd have to argue that you haven't moved through it since there's been no growth, just lateral movements to new social problems for similarly sized communities. Lastly, I'm not sure the hubski structure fosters politeness. To me it seems much better at fostering consciousness which, in you and in many, seems to manifest as politeness. The difference being, if new group of 50 came here with the intention of being impolite, they could use the social tools of hubski to create that atmosphere. The catch is that they would have to choose to create that atmosphere with a conscious effort to build that rude community. It would be difficult, but it could be done. It isn't, I would guess, because there's never a large enough conscious effort. Once new individuals become conscious of the current community they seem to feel self consciousness and have to choose to decide how to act - conforming politeness, rebellious trolling, anarchic self direction, or meta. At this point, though, we're using the word hubski for two different things - the platform and the community. All I'm saying is the platform seems more flexible in the face of growth than the community.
The question is: do people change Hubski or does Hubski change people? My argument is that Hubski changed me, I didn't change Hubski... and we can both agree that I'm one of the strongest personalities here. Another argument is the only personalities stronger than mine came here with me, but couldn't bend Hubski to their will so they left. Check the account ages. Some have been here 1500 days. Some less than 30. As mentioned before. And for the third time, they've tried and failed. I think you aren't paying attention. I'm repeating myself.I'm really confused because I can't tell if you're casting yourself as the gatekeeper or not and, for either side, what's being argued?
As for pushing through the growth points, I don't doubt that hubski has hit them, but if that group of 50 has been roughly the same group for months or years, then I'd have to argue that you haven't moved through it since there's been no growth, just lateral movements to new social problems for similarly sized communities.
The difference being, if new group of 50 came here with the intention of being impolite, they could use the social tools of hubski to create that atmosphere.
I think I swooped in on some drama when I was killing time at work and don't have full context, so there are some side points that I don't quite get.
Even in the time I've been here, I've seen a change in how you interact with others. Imagine this conversation on reddit: I like to think I've improved my content since.
First time I remember seeing you, you posted your band's album to the weekly music thread and had to be persuaded to give it its own post rather than hide it there. You started out just fine. I came with one of the bigger migrations, didn't notice when Hubski returned to a much slower pace after it ended, and flooded the place with everything I saw, enjoyed and hadn't seen before for a very long time. In retrospect I'm kind of surprised everyone didn't filter me.
I'd say it doesn't, strictly speaking. 'Hubski tends to foster (or enable?) politeness among those who expect and respect it', is possibly closer to truth.Lastly, I'm not sure the hubski structure fosters politeness.
This thread is strange to me in light of Reddit wanting to view its problems in terms of Eternal September. Eternal September wasn't a problem because there were many new users as such, it was that new users were coming too fast for the existing communities to show new users the ropes, so the existing communities got drowned out. Let's ignore whether Reddit was really all that different before the Digg migration. This whole thread seems to be viewing it as a fault that Hubski handles influxes of users the way Usenet and (implicitly because of the analogy it chooses) Reddit wish they could have. I don't think it is. Hubski's mechanisms might be built to support multiple overlapping communities, but it's the community that exists I stick around for. I like Hubski being the place where every September ends.
I've been here over 2 years. I still do this and I think, as you say, it helps inspire thoughtful content and discourse.As a result, I put a lot of thought into my comments. Most of the time, I don't post them at all, generally for fear of looking inexperienced.