I am thinking about making all Hubski posts only visible to those with accounts.
I realize that this might negatively affect adoption, but it will also make spamming Hubski pretty much a waste of time.
Thoughts?
I mean, how many jobs do you want? Seems to me that you're pretty busy delivering immortality to the masses and that spam is still something you have to deal with by hand. FL puts food on your family; Hubski don't. Do the thing that preserves the community as we've come to appreciate it without robbing from your little girl.
I'd say the idea is worth the experiment, with one condition. There should be a tool that allows Hubski users to share comment threads and individual comments with non-Hubski users. I have three different friends that I regularly share Hubski threads with who are non-Hubski users, to the point where I probably e-mail or text a thread about once every two weeks.
We're not a community that is interested in growth at the expense of community anyways. So, if it slows down community growth a bit, but preserves what we have. Do it.Do the thing that preserves the community as we've come to appreciate it without robbing from your little girl.
This.
What is the problem you are trying to solve? If it is only spamming, how about a probation period before new accounts can post? No further hurdles than that. The most recent post is from 40 minutes ago, posted by a 42-minute-old account. For a spammer, having to create an account with a password and store those credentials and come back a week later to post is far more troublesome than the current instant gratification.
Surprising we don't have that yet. If we add this - which sounds like a great idea - there should be a landing page for the newcomers saying something like this:Hey, look, nobody likes spammers, so we added a waiting period. You can still browse, just not post or comment for this long. After that, you're welcome to introduce yourself to the hubskifolk! Just use #newtohubski as one of your tags!
It may negatively affect adoption, but I rarely ever check the global feed due to spam. Hubski is awesome because it is not casually accessible. As is any substantive conversation. In order to participate in a thoughtful dialogue, one has to listen, and observe. Hubski is quality over quantity. It's accessible to all that will invest the time to create an account.
I am worthless, this is a given, but I would not have joined hubski under the proposed system. How would I? I hear tell of a great website elsewhere, click the link and see nothing, so I leave. A use case you have not considered, probably because it doesn't matter: I scan hubski from my phone occasionally, but I don't have my login on my phone and I have no idea what my password is. So I will never be able to do that again.
1) rd95's idea is a good one. Being able to share posts as an individual is a good thing. If we go behind a wall, users who have gained the ability to set community tags should be able to generate temporary share links for friends. 2) If you aren't logged in, the site shouldn't be blank. Instead, show only the badged content. That is what the community has vetted and feels is valuable. Make that our public face. There are multiple ways you could tweak this to react to gaming by spammers, but that's the gist of it.
I like this part, spammers or no spammers. It would add the representation function to badging.2) If you aren't logged in, the site shouldn't be blank. Instead, show only the badged content. That is what the community has vetted and feels is valuable. Make that our public face.
Aren't most spammers just spamming to increase SEO hits? I don't think that people are getting enough hits off Hubski to make the traffic generated here worth the time, it's just the fact that it increases their web presence maybe? I'm no expert at web promotion, hell I'm not even an amateur but I don't think Hubski is driving traffic.
You could remove all posts with less than one wheel from search index generated pages, that would defeat what spammers are trying to do but im assuming they arent making special spam bots for hubski, hubski is just getting caught in net. I would propose that new users not be allowed to post new topics until they get a certain number dots in their wheel (and that dots given out by new accounts dont count until the wheel is full at least once) . My criteria for post showing up on global are: Any post with 2 wheel dots: Any post by a user who has earned at least a wheel: Only users who have earned a full wheel can give wheel points that count: Only topics above are generated to search engine spiders In fact i would probably raise the dot threshold to 3 or 4 for search engines.
Doesn't sound to me like this is something for Hubski. The forum doesn't have enough reputation to attract users on its own: I've never heard of this place from outside again after I've settled here. Not that it will kill spammers' effort, either: Hubski would still have users who'd view it, and that's... audience enough?
Thanks for all the feedback. I think flagamuffin, rd95, and others are right that it could unnecessarily hurt the ability to share, and could be annoying for some current users on some devices. Here's what I want to test: All posts from users without a hubwheel are invisible (everywhere) until someone with a hubwheel circledots one of that user's posts. Only users with a hubwheel can see these probationary posts (they will appear in global), and only if they can choose to see them. The author of the probationary post will be able to see it, of course. There will probably be some small tag or something indicating that the user is probationary.
I have no problem with the experiment. It could work or it could not but it's worth a shot. I do like rd's idea of individual sharing.
Spamming is already pretty difficult, what with the numerous ways you can choose how you view things.
1) Does it truly create an echo chamber? Based on my experience, I'm not inclined to believe that if we closed the population of Hubski today, I'd be surrounded by individuals who generally agree with me and shore up my pre-existing opinions - 2) If it does create an echo chamber, can an argument be made that echo chambers have their time and space? In other words, to argue all echo chambers are bad is to argue that we should never surround ourselves with those we agree with, but only constantly (exhaustingly) challenge ourselves with the company of those who hold firmly vastly different views; 3) What is the positivity you are hoping to bring to "the situation" aka I guess Hubski which is absent in a closed community? What are the benefits of new users? 4) Great. Now let's compare the benefits to the cons. Does an open community really bring significantly more net positive to Hubski than a closed one, considering the hefty drawbacks? 5) ultimately, I think the answer to this sort of questioning, and where mk will find his decision, is to ask (yet another question): What is the intent of Hubski? If the intent of Hubski is to foster intelligent discussion among a group of people who have casually grown to know each other and could, in a closed community and given interest and time, become very tight-knit indeed, then close it. If the intent of Hubski is to provide artists and original content creators a place to showcase their work, well, closing the community's really going to fuck that goal apart. Previously, Hubski expressed an interest in the latter, obviously through features like DVH, less obviously in a sort of expressed ethos of the founding team. However, I'm not convinced that in the great previously, the founding team had necessarily an articulated, deliberate, basically planned and conscious role which they wanted to play - I think more that they got together, threw shit together, thought of things they thought would be cool, and loaded them all in there. Over time that did cause the website to develop in a certain direction but that doesn't mean that's how it should've developed, how the website may be best used or appreciated, etc, etc, etc. If Hubski is a place to hang out and talk with friends, an internet "3rd space," then I quite see the rationale and support closing it down to at least some extent. If Hubski is trying to build its share of the internet (an approach I do not support), they should keep 'em wide-wide open. If Hubski's trying to create a digital community of artists, there needs to be a middle ground at least, maybe where you can see pages if you are not logged in but you cannot interact, or etc. ON THE OTHER HAND, ABOUT THAT ARTISTIC ANGLE: Closing the community does relieve some pressure of sharing unpublished/draft/in progress or similar works with Hubski - I can't submit anything for publication basically anywhere if a version of it exists and is publicly accessible on the internet. It's a thing that's prevented me from sharing OC before. If Hubski closes borders, ironically, it could open up people's willingness to share their creations. Less chance of someone else trying to steal your work if only known, trusted users can see it, too. Just some thots yo just some thots
All closed systems settle. Restrict a room of air flow, and you'll find all dust on the floor. Restrict a crowd from mind flow, and you'll find all persons in bonds with each other. You may not end up with perfect clones of each other's mindset, but Hubski is already quite leaning to certain sides of things. Aiming to restrict oneself from outside opinions that might hurt one's worldview is poisonous, since there would be no one to question your behavior. In such an environment, thrive bitterness, anger and spite; nothing more. Take it from a guy who's spent his whole adolescence in self-isolation. This is not what we should aim at if we want to preserve what makes Hubski different from most other Internet forums. It bothers me to see you being intentionally obtuse as you claim the following: I suspect you would hold a grudge if I were to call you a social justice warrior while you were trying to fight for someone's rights, yet there's nothing wrong with doing so on its own. An echo chamber is prejudice confirmation ex nimia, not per se. Hubski doesn't see high tides of newcomers that often, and in such a community, fresh blood must be welcome. Those who don't accept the new things, stagnate. The irony of me refusing to accept the proposed new order of things is not lost on me. However, the tolerant can't tolerate intolerance, lest they desire to stand against their own principles. (while researching Hubski's popularity on the web, I discovered that my nickname is right there on the screenshot of Hubski's main page from a while ago) Point is: for a social creature, a closed system is a mind-killer. Take a gander at /r/The_Donald if you want to see what echo-chambering ad maximum looks like. Hubski's not likely to ever reach that point, given no etherial personage to get behind and worship, but it still experiences the effect of social entropy like any other community. The first step of preventing a condition is not aiming for environment that would allow it.to argue all echo chambers are bad is to argue that we should never surround ourselves with those we agree with, but only constantly (exhaustingly) challenge ourselves with the company of those who hold firmly vastly different views