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.