I was initially very excited about what hubski brought to the table.
I've been around for a little over a month (lurking at first), and I've had some very interesting discussions and seen a lot of thought-provoking material. But the longer I stay here, the more I feel apathetic to the cause.
I'm not sure why that is, but I'll try to explain as best I can. Take it for what it's worth.
I think that hubski shows some real potential, mostly because it allows good content to get to the right people. What I think it does "wrong", or at least not as I would hope is that discussion becomes somewhat of a back-burner part of hubski. (this is my disclaimer - I am mostly referring to new users' experiences) Sure, just like any other website, IRL group or team, sometimes awesome discussions and experiences are had. But the more I look, the less I see it. While I was first impressed by the community aspect of hubski, I now start to question what this really means. The most popular users (thenewgreen, mk, kleinbl00, etc) are almost given a VIP pass to popularity. I think that the way it is set up, the people who are already popular are given a much higher chance at gaining new followers, and rarely because of the actual content they post. If I were to best describe it, hubski is whirlpool where the superusers gain momentum from followers, and continue to suck up all of the users and fill up the userspace, leaving little room for new and less popular users to gain a following. I certainly don't discredit hubski from making gaining popularity possible, but I see it as less and less likely, especially with more users coming in. I might be overstating the problem, but I think it will become more and more apparent as hubski becomes more popular.
Your 2 questions: 1. Why would this hamper discussion? 2. If you don't want to see them, don't follow them. Why is it a big deal?
1. I don't think this inherently hampers discussion. What I do think is that hubski is becoming more "link/content-oriented" versus "discussion-oriented". Now this is where I have to make a disclaimer that I don't do this often enough, but I think that comments should be where hubski is centred around. Without an active dialogue about what you just read, what was the real point in going to hubski in the first place, instead of just going through your RSS feed or something? It might feel better to go on hubski, but eventually that feeling will become dull. Hubski should be a place where you just know that the comments on a post add to the content in a meaningful and insightful way. And I have got to say that it doesn't happen very often. The thing is, it does. But on first glance at my feed, and the global feel while logged out, there are 2 posts with comments that add anything to the content of the submission. I guess this is my call to arms, which includes me, to start commenting more, and with more effort. If you don't have enough time, or don't know enough about the subject, whatever. I'm sure there are enough people at this point to at least have meaningful discussions in every 1/5 to 1/10 posts. It is hubski, so the posts should be interesting enough to have something to say about it. I don't want hubski to turn into a link aggregator, and I don't want it to turn into a wall of 2 sentence witty replies that add nothing. There is a balance to be found.
2. It is a big deal. Powerusers have been proven to wreck websites, look at digg. No matter if the users can ignore them, at some point their backing becomes too strong to avoid their influence on the site. This is a big warning sign, just to say "watch out!", because just by the fact that users have followers, hubski is prone to a big problem of group-think and mob-mentality.
So after writing that, it occurred to me that I've provided very little constructive advice. Complaining doesn't really help. So here are some suggestions, take them with a grain of salt:
For users: - Be careful what you share. Be sure that you are sharing content because you found it interesting and think your followers would too. - If you have something to add to the conversation, please do. It's typically better to comment than share. (do both!) - Instead of spending 2 minutes on 10 posts without adding anything to the discussion, spend 10 minutes on 2 posts and add insight into the discussion. Choose posts that you have an interest in. - Play devil's advocate more.
For admins / powerusers: - Post what you'd like hubski to look like. (interesting articles, insightful opinions, whatever your ideal is) - Understand how many people are affected by your decisions.
One last point that I had (and yes, I am a hypocrite) - hubski promotes posts about hubski a lot. Maybe this is a good thing. And sure, ignore #hubski. But I just find it really interesting that we like posts about our own community so much. Maybe it's pretentious, maybe it's cautious, maybe it's just interesting. I can't really say. Just thought I'd put that out there.
I realized that a lot of #hubski posts are very positive-natured, and rarely is the site criticized for things in its own community. I don't mean to say huski is in any way going in the wrong direction, as a matter of fact I love the place. It is very cool. Just thought we should be cautious about exclaiming that it's perfect and flawless already - there's still work to be done. (and we're all happy to be part of that work) Hopefully this didn't come across as mean or anything of the like, I only want self-improvement. The user base has a lot to do with this. (this is one of the things mk can't do himself :))
Alright, enough rambling, am I off base or no? Any other suggestions to improve?
EDIT: You make some excellent points here. but I guess I'm a social media luddite. And maybe I'm the exception, but I don't understand something: Lately, I have noticed more discussion about what hubski is than discussion about the things shared here. It's like standing around a motorcycle and discussing every nut and bolt instead of getting on and enjoying the open road. I know that mk values this kind of discussion. He started this thing and wants feedback. He wants to address concerns and bugs and enhancements. But I gotta tell you, all of this conversation centered around the site, and the site only, detract from why I come here. I am old, slow, tired, and not well read. I don't have the most interesting things to say. I don't have the most interesting posts to share. I come here to broaden my mind. I come here to widen my perspective and engage in discussion. so much focus on the site mechanics and fears of hubski becoming the next digg or reddit or slashdot or hackernews... don't want to see stuff from kleinbl00 or thenewgreen? ignore them. There's no race here. There's nothing to earn for being a "super user". You know why KB and TNG are popular here? They've been here a while and made solid contributions that people enjoy. They've ruffled feathers. They've pissed people off. But in the end, on balance, they contribute more than they detract. Who cares if you have 1 follower or a thousand. I just don't get it. Come in. enjoy. discuss. contribute.
You've been here two years. The lion's share of users have been here two weeks. Most of their discussions are going to be related to "WTF is this place?". Speaking as someone with 555 followers, it's retarded that anything I post has 10 times the viewership of something joelg236 posts. Rather than foster egality and discovery, it's turned me into a "kingmaker" - a post that sits for a day with zero votes will pop up to the top if I guess correctly that it's worthy. I still feel quite strongly that people who are interested in writing should be able to click "follow #writebetterdammit" and be done with it, rather than type "writebetterdammit" into the search bar, find nothing, click on "community", see it's neither a popular nor a trending tag, and give up in frustration. It's three clicks to even see the tags I'm ignoring. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
Now that looking at content by tag is no longer an easy option, I find myself missing it more and more. The option for following either or both seems better. EDIT: but I like mk's "follow people to connect personally" site model, too. I can't stress that enough. I've made friends on hubski in only two months, which means they're doing something right.It's three clicks to even see the tags I'm ignoring. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
My mind is moving, flagamuffin and kleinbl00. My biggest aversion to tags has always been avoiding the tragedy of the commons. It wasn't clear to me why tags were any different than subreddits, and why they wouldn't follow the same content cycle. Over the last few days I have come to some important conclusions on this front. I'll follow soon.
Tags are different simply by allowing more than one tag per post. I've been hammering at the admins of Reddit to allow cross-posting for going on four years now but the simple fact is their architecture doesn't allow it. Yours? You can do it as an afterthought. You've been awfully cagey about tags, never fully elaborating why you dislike them. I'm curious how tragedy of the commons applies in your mind. Care to share?
I just have a sec before I am supposed to watch the Walking Dead with my wife (It's awful and good). The short version is that a tag gets too many subscribers, and too many posters. Soon #space goes from discussions of volcanism on Titan, to countless Neil deGrasse Tyson love-ins. Everyone is soured by the quality of #space and declares Hubski to be full of mouth-breathers. A few survivors create #realspace, and it begins again.
All right, thanks for that. The short version of my answer is the same as the long version of my answer: If you clutter up my #space feed with Neil deGrasse Tyson love-ins I can ignore you. Subreddit crawl is a problem in that subreddits are one-dimensional. By allowing your users to subscribe to both tags and other users, you create a two-dimensional subscriber space. Granted, if a person posts three lame things and one awesome thing I might miss the awesome thing because I'm ignoring them - but if I see one awesome thing in a miasma of crap I can follow the person who posted the awesome thing without having to worry about the miasma.
Anyways, I think hubski naturally promotes content good for discussion. Since tags can be used by users to mark bad content (ex. #spam or #repost or #loweffort), I think it would be pretty easy for the community to regulate itself, provided that it doesn't get flooded with people who like bad content, in which case almost everything is useless to combat it.
I've been chipping away at the boys on this one. I think that if we impose a character limit in the tag line, it would be difficult to use them as spam, but within that character limit, one should be able to makes as many tags as possible. If tags exist, there isn't really a great reason to limit them to one. I see all or nothing, and everything else is a kind of Obama '09 stimulus package, a nod to the fact that its a good idea, but close to useless in practice.
I couldn't agree with you more! It has always puzzled me why the OP is only allowed one tag per post - I would absolutely love it if that number were increased, even if it were only to three or five... unlimited seems almost too good to be true.I think that if we impose a character limit in the tag line, it would be difficult to use them as spam, but within that character limit, one should be able to makes as many tags as possible. If tags exist, there isn't really a great reason to limit them to one.
As it is now, every person gets to add one tag, presuming they've earned the right to tag. The difficulty with tags is that the taxonomy becomes a bear. At some point #writing and #writebetterdammit need to merge (or at least overlap) in order to make the content parseable. I have no solution for that as of yet. The rest of it seems pretty elemental to me - I mean, Twitter lets you follow tags, and Twitter lets you follow people. They've got a bit more of a userbase.
My only dislike is the lack of community in tags. No sidebars, no wiki, etc. But I am almost interested to see if one tag can be a whole different experience for two groups of people (if it can be pulled off). If it can than this site has FAR outdone what reddit ever will.
Community implies both personal connections and a more general sense of belonging. I think hubski does the first one very well, but communities within hubski just haven't come up yet. I think tags may or may not do that. If tags were implemented, the people who value personal connections more can follow users, and the people who value community more can follow tags. It seems like a good balance.
That is half the point though. People chose to follow you, and your posts won't go higher on the... But they will... Actually that is an interesting point. I think, maybe, that only badges should count when a user comments on or shares a post of someone that they follow.
I think there is a balance to be made between stuff and people. There is value in following a person because you find them particularly interesting, but there is also value in finding content through your interests. I don't see nearly as much #programming as I'd like to in my feed, mostly because the people who post there post a lot of other things, and don't solely focus on programming. It would be ideal to follow #programming for programming specific content, and follow users for more general content that I trust them to share. I'm inclined to be on your side of the tags argument. Let me follow stuff instead of dudes and I'm much more likely to find stuff I'm interested in.
You might be overvaluing how good your feed would look by only following tags, but I see where you're coming from.
I will say that this post has a lot of shares and has a lot of comments and not one "power user" has shared it. So, I don't think its as big of an "impact" as one might think.And maybe I'm the exception, but I don't understand something: Lately, I have noticed more discussion about what hubski is than discussion about the things shared here. It's like standing around a motorcycle and discussing every nut and bolt instead of getting on and enjoying the open road.
Well said steve, I think the motorcycle metaphor is spot on. All of the feedback has been really interesting and as ecib mentioned here, people really are having an impact on how the site functions etc. It's wonderful, but the "will hubski be the next...." isn't all that helpful. As for "power users", honestly, I could care less how many "followers" I have and have stated before that nothing would make me happier than if there were thousands of users with more followers than me. I think once Hubski has a larger user base, this will likely be diluted greatly. But you are right about why kb, mk and myself have a lot of followers, we have all been on the site a long time and we contribute quite a bit of content by way of comments, original essays, podcasts etc. Once users like littlebirdie, flagamuffin and others have been on the site a while I would be shocked if they didn't surpass me in followers. Why? Because they post/create cool and original content.
I will say that this post has a lot of shares and has a lot of comments and not one "power user" has shared it. So, I don't think its as big of an "impact" as one might think.
That was something I was wondering about when writing the post. I know a few powerusers follow me and was curious whether or not one of them would need to share it before it broke the "viral" barrier of hubski. I know thundara provided an initial boost, but I see what you mean here. It's certainly possible to do it, I just think it's harder than it should be.
I guess I really believe that if something is worth while it will spread across the feeds. Just because kleinbl00 shares something doesn't mean it will get another share if it sucks. It may hit 600 feeds and go no further. Good content will spread, with or without a share from KB, mk or myself, I really believe that. It may take longer but it will happen. I do think it is important that new users are getting exposure to users other than the ones with the most followers. We are working towards this end. I do think eventually you will be able carve out your own experience here and if you'd prefer that to not include kleibl00, mk or myself it shouldn't really matter. I use twitter a bit and I don't really know who the "power users" there are? I get my information pushed to me by people I follow and my experience seems relatively unscathed by what a "power user" shares or doesn't share. I really think that as Hubski get's bigger it will not matter much. We shall see. aside: Did you see the update?
I don't think anyone would disagree with you. There hasn't been much hubski discussion in the last week though. And if you aren't interested in hubski discussion, just ignore #hubski. I just wanted to get my opinion out there and see what other people think.
Here's an idea: why don't we take away the incentive to be a power user? I think that it is counterproductive that when I click on someone's profile, one of the first things I see is how many people are following their content. Who cares? It only serves to reinforce that group mentality that's so rabid on other aggregate websites. When new users see someone with 1000 followers, they say 'this person must post interesting content. I have no idea where to begin, I might as well follow the power user!'. This is a big negative. Users should be following people based on the merits of posts they've experienced first-hand. IMO, if Hubski is going to be about the conversation, we have to take away the incentive for knee-jerk, follow-the-leader behavior. The best way to do this is to quantify merit on a post-by-post basis. I'm not saying to do away with followers, just don't make the number of followers public. Some constructive advice: instead of showing followers, and perhaps even instead of showing all of the links submitted outright, I think that the links of articles a user has posted in should be displayed, followed by a 1st tier comment by the user. This will truly encourage conversation, and give anyone scoping out their profile an idea of whether or not they will enjoy the content that's the user is pedaling. I would do links in a drop-down/expandable text.
This doesn't actually solve the power user problem, it solves the "I wanna be a power user" problem. But there will still be mk, thenewgreen, and kleinbl00 who will turn up on feeds way, way more often than anyone else. That said, I think it's a good idea on the whole. I think being able to see who someone is following makes sense, because if I'm following you and we seem to like the same stuff then I'd like to know who you're following. kleinbl00's not gonna lose any followers just because no one can see how many followers he has.
Blow it up and start over?! I wonder how things would reorganize. Or I wonder if it matters. You and I don't follow each other, but we seemingly have no hindrance to interacting. I think there's no such thing as "an incentive to become a power user". I think there are people who post good content, and others appreciate it or don't. I can see an argument for why the community may not want to know how many followers user X has, but don't blame user X for having lots of followers. Maybe we should call them "subscribers". Would that alter perceptions, you think? StephenBuckley is a good example of someone who has gained a lot of followers rapidly. Dude posts good shit. Why penalize that?
I disagree. If that is the case now, it is only because Hubski is relatively small. As soon as Hubski is big enough to matter in the larger internet community sense, there will be gain to be had from power users. Influence over a network can by parlayed into a lot of different "currencies" if you will. Just like with old Myspace, Twitter, Facebook brand pages, your Outlook mailbox at your business, etc, the value is in your network, and there are people out there who's only goal is to extract maximum value. No power users on Hubski is like no viruses on a Mac. It's all about market share, -not the design of the system itself imo. I'm not saying power users are good, bad, or inconsequential mind you, -just sayin.I think there's no such thing as "an incentive to become a power user".
That's the thing, though. Hubski isn't supposed to be a single community. It may still be (sort of) one now, but that's because it's very, very small compared to the social media giants such as Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, etc. There are only so many commenters and posters that participate on a daily basis and those regulars pretty much all interact with each other because most of them know each other very well by now. I think of the current hubski as a small town where everyone knows everyone else by name... but eventually, small towns grow into cities. As good as hubski is now, I think it's really going to get an opportunity to shine when it is several times larger, when there is a more diverse amount of content being submitted, and there are so many power users that it's virtually impossible to interact with all of them. The more active users, the more content being submitted, the more discussion about that content... then if you take all of that and add an emphasis on heavy filters and ignoring anything you don't like... I think it will be absolutely amazing! I really dislike the term "power user" - or at least I dislike the stigma that comes with that term. What is a power user, anyway, besides an active user? Aren't active users the ones who drive a community? I've been called a power user, but I just check hubski a couple times a day, submit a few interesting things from google news or my articles-only reddit account, perhaps leave a comment or two, and that's it. I just do it reliably, almost every single day, once on my lunch break and then again later that night after my daughter goes to sleep. I'm a creature of habit, and I've integrated it into my daily routine. Granted, I did get a large boost of subscribers during the recent reddit migration, but I mean, I was the one who made the /r/TheoryOfReddit post that hit the front page, and I have a lot of followers who made an account that day, subscribed to me and a few other names they recognized from reddit, and then never came back. So my subscriber count is probably a little inflated in terms of my actual 'influence' on hubski (if that's what you want to call it). Power users" don't necessarily have to be a bad thing here like a lot of them are on reddit or digg. There are no "knights of new," there is no /r/all/top/?sort=top&t=hour page that karmawhores can use to farm comment karma all day long, not least of all because there is no such thing as karma at all. You can't downvote or bury other posts, because there is no negative vote, either. "Power users" can't even rely on everything they share being seen - I've seen submissions by mk and kleinbl00 go without a single share for days, and I've seen submissions from brand new users get something like 10 shares in the first 2 hours and none of them were from "power users" until it had already become widely successful (like this very post, iirc). My point is, yes, I have a large amount of followers, and I have been called a power user, but it's not hard to get subscribers if you submit things every day and participate in a discussion or two. If you submit a few things every day, it's likely that one or two of them will take off and get a lot of shares & comments, and then your name is being seen by a lot of people and you will get followers. It's very simple, anyone can do it, and in fact that is what hubski is built around - cliques of users who are connected by their love of knowledge & discussion, who become friends through interaction over time. Hubski is all about the single user experience - we shouldn't have to think of hubski as a whole, as a single entity, because it's designed to be a collection of smaller entities that overlap. You as a user ignore anything you find boring or offensive, and follow people you like and have similar interests with, and the more you do this, the better tailored your individual feed will become, and the more subscribers you will gain at the same time. It's really a nice change of pace from reddit. Over there, I was a moderator, constantly thinking about the communities I was responsible for, identifying potential problems and coming up with solutions that would benefit the entire community. Over here, it's all about customizing my own experience, and I don't need to think about anyone else's experience, because that's the way hubski is designed. Individual filtering instead of collective moderation. I love it.
The problem is that if you put a score on something, scores will be compared. That's human nature. Likewise, those with a higher score than yours will either be admired or denigrated by you, depending on how you regard them. User X is going to be blamed no matter what.
I think that would change perceptions, and there are a lot of interesting solutions for changing perceptions, but so far no one but kleinbl00 and I seem concerned about the fact that power users now are going to experience more and more snowball as the site's lifetime goes on. This is not a perception issue. This is a math and architecture issue, plain and simple. You can call them "barnacles on the ass of __username__" and Hubski would still have a problem with how to control information flow and stem power users.
I think it would be more interesting/useful to impose a follower cap as a percentage of the website. And I think throwing in support for editing your followers would be pretty good.
And I don't necessarily want him to. At this point, I think that many of the users with a lot of followers deserve them. People use Hubski because it juggles thoughtful conversation and socialization tactfully. There is an emphasis on information. Most, if not all, of the users with high follower numbers here currently embrace that, and if their posts are thought-provoking, why shouldn't they have an audience? My point is that follower counts have no purpose here. If Hubski is about intelligent back-and-forth, it doesn't matter that a user has 10 or 2000 followers-- the concern should be on the content they're putting out there. Let me go into a 'without follower counts' thought experiment/hypothetical. In this scenario, let's say kleinbl00 was a lolcat spammer on Reddit. When he made the public switch to Hubski, a country full of lolcat-loving Redditors joined Hubski too, and followed kleinb00, since they love his lolcats so much. They leave the next day, because they find that kleinbl00 is the only good lolcats guy at Hubski, and the rest of the users don't really like memes. In this scenario, due to the lack of lolcats, kleinbl00's perceived clout is nonexistent. New users are not compelled to follow him based on anything but his posts. It's hypothetical, but I feel as though, if a user sees a profile full of memes at odds with what's on the top global page and general feel of the website, they're less likely to follow that user than if the same profile has a high follower count-- leading them to believe that that sort of thing is popular here at Hubski. edits: sentence structure, wording.
Posts are shared by two things: number of people who see it, and percentage of those people who think it's a good idea to share it. Let's say I have 10 followers who each have 10 followers, and I post something that 50% of people will think is worth sharing (which would be an absolutely insane popularity level). The same level of popularity holds true for each level of sharing. I will have:
1 original poster
5 first sharers
25 second sharers.
So a total of 31 shares. Cool! Now, I'm sure you can imagine where this will go if I have 2000 people following me, so let's use a real number. mk has 676 followers, and for the sake of simplicity we'll say that each of his followers have 10 followers. If I knew the average I would use that. Let's say mk posts something which only 10% of people will like- it should be obvious that this is "lower quality" than the 50% shared thing that I posted. If only 10% shares at each level, then mk will have:
1 original sharer
67 first sharers
67 secondary sharers
For a total of 135 shares. Wow. So, in this example mk posted something which is strictly less popular and less likely to be enjoyed/shareable than what I did, and came out way ahead. In fact, even though he made something which was 1/5 as likable, he got 5 times the number of shares! The kleinbl00 scenario you describe is, I think we can agree, much more of an edge case than what I'm saying. Sure, if we want to continue this to an arbitrary number of users I will overtake mk. But I think that we can both see that having something 50% of people will share is just not going to happen, and I am much more likely to get my 4-5 shares and be happy for it. And how many of the algorithms on this site are based on popularity? The feed is a combination of popularity and time; the popular posts/comments, obviously; the order of comments in a thread seems to be based on popularity. And there's even more happening here- because as I get more followers, the percentage of followers who think that something is badgeworthy stays the same. If I had 2000 followers, and 500 of them followed me to this point, and then 6 of them thought that this comment was well thought out, I would instantly reach the top 5 of all badged people in Hubski. This would be listed as the most badged content in the site's history (to the best of my knowledge). Even if, percentage wise, the same number of people would badge this as would badge one of the posts in the global unshared page. Do I want people to have arbitrary scores that they're keeping track of? Not really, no. We're after the same thing. But having a high follower count is not just having a high score- it is a self-fueling love-machine which can overstep community bounds, interest bounds, and drastically change the user experience for everyone on the site. Short of ignoring them, I cannot actually escape the incredible pull of TNG, kbl00 and mk. I like hubski, but I don't want people to think that it automatically is balanced and perfect. The superusers pose a huge problem to the rest of the site's architecture, and in fact go against the design by their nature. They push too hard and in too many places at the moment, and they cannot be caught up to using traditional 'post good content' means. Even if one of them never posted again, and only shared other people's content, it would take a whole hell of a lot to get ahead of them by putting up good links or good comments.follower counts have no purpose here. If Hubski is about intelligent back-and-forth, it doesn't matter that a user has 10 or 2000 followers-- the concern should be on the content they're putting out there.
'Follower count' isn't a meaningless score, like Karma or something, where we can say, "You have 2000? Not gonna affect anything." High numbers of followers drastically change how information spreads in Hubski.
That edge case is much more common than you think, though - Hubski has an exponential effect. As users show up they're exposed to people who are exposed to me and my influence increases much more rapidly than yours because of my head start. I'm on the steep end of the curve, you're on the shallow. Apropos of nothing, pretty goofy to call me out for a reply when you've got me set to ignore.
Our ignore feature isn't that great how it is structured. It will be changed soon to have two different functions: 1) this user's posts don't enter my feed. 2) This users is banned from commenting on/following/being involved in my hubski in any way. Currently, one control does both, but we know that ain't right.
I meant the edge case that woranj described, in which I was just wondering if I could escape you. I don't actually mind you or your posts. But of you, mk and tng I follow you the least, so you're the guinea pig of the 'escape the top 3' experiment. Which, you know, doesn't actually explain why I would summon you. But I do like talking to you.New users are not compelled to follow him based on anything but his posts.
I think that's partially true, but misses the fact that your okay posts are neon skylights and my okay posts are fliers in the backs of coffee shops.
A serious and real problem, I agree. Considering it is a social site, making those follows time-limited (or prone to expire without opting in) would level the playing field quite a bit. Frankly, if you had me set to "ignore" but had the tags we mutually found interesting set to "follow" it would cease to be an issue. As it is, I'm tempted to start posting things with the tag #stuffkleinbl00thinksyoushouldignore for things that I'd really rather have a lesser audience for but it's probably too long a hashtag.I think that's partially true, but misses the fact that your okay posts are neon skylights and my okay posts are fliers in the backs of coffee shops.
Hmm. I think that would be extremely effective as long as you didn't mess up the spelling.
since 8 shares gets nearly 90% coverage it hardly matters.
I'm fairly certain this only applies if your post gets shared by a "hub." Do I have that right? Am I missing something?
it is like 4 degrees of Kevin bacon you always have a hub with-in a coupla shares. take you you are followed by thenewgreen huge hub and firehose you are also followed by me not as impressive but I am followed by newgreen and mk I have not analyzed the full graph as I do not have it but I suspect that no one is farther than 4 steps from mk.
Right, but my shares don't automatically get shared by the hubs. If thenewgreen sees but never shares me, then it won't reach everyone.
I guess my point is this; just because people see something doesn't mean they "share it". Here is a shot I took the other day of my posts: I can "share" something you post and it won't mean a damn thing if the posts aren't interesting to people. If I don't share it but it is good content, the chances are it will spread through the community anyways. Also, you've been on the site for less than a month and already have close to 100 followers. That's a lot, quickly (you post/share good stuff). I think that with time and as we change the architecture of the site and how people "discover" users, there will be more of an equilibrium.
Wow. That is a pretty convincing list of failed posts.
I don't know if thenewgreen has ever not shared something. :)
Check out my feed right now: I've only shared 5 out of the 14 posts shown. That's about 35%. If you look closely, you'll notice that I didn't share some that are extremely popular too. So there.
Who else is going to light the spark and fan the flames of the next great art movement?.... Napkin art.
Let me know when (if) you make it back out here. I want to have you participate in one of these. Think you'd be game?
sure although you know I have the voice of a dissipated Kermit the frog
I think an important stat to bring up is that 4-5 shares is pretty much full saturation.
Nope! The second doesn't deal with super users that already exist, which is a real problem.
...I'm pretty sure it's a big deal. And the fact that it can happen means it will happen if the site grows.
Your idea is interesting... Imagine for a minute the pressure a poor "power-user" must feel to share other people's posts. They are painfully aware that they have a responsibility to share. They think, "Shit, how can I take a vacation. If I don't share x's post, no one will find it."
I would go as far as saying the "incentive" for others to follow you is a powerful disincentive for people with lots of followers. I can no longer put something up that I think is goofy or mildly entertaining because five hundred fricking people are going to see it.
Idea: Maybe hubski could have the option to post a submission without having it put on your followers' feeds. Make it a "global" post option, allowing it to be discovered naturally through the global posts feed. It would give users an incentive to go on global on unshared, thus making less visible content more visible. mk?
Hey joelg236. First, thanks for the insight. I agree that lack of diversity is a bad thing for Hubski. For starters, I removed the 'popular users' list from the community page. That might help reduce the number of new users that default to following the most popular users. However, I can see how that might not be enough, as the current disparity in follower numbers might be reinforced by sharing alone. I'm willing to go farther to reduce the influence of the number of followers a user has. I want to think on this, and discuss it some more. Another thing that we implemented today is that comment activity plays a role in the feed algorithm now. Hopefully, that will give conversation more attention as opposed to shares alone.
1) Bring back tags. 2) Give users the option to set their "follows' to expire. Maybe you think I'm awesome. That's cool. Maybe two weeks later you're sick of me but unfollowing someone is more effort than it's worth. Have an opt-in that says "follow forever" and have it default to two weeks. 3) Bring back tags. 4) Give users the option to reject followers - rather than have it automatic, make it more like Facebook or LinkedIn. 5) Bring back tags.
Idea #2 is particularly interesting. I think it won't work as is because it's exhausting to be on a treadmill of constantly refollowing people. Some people may welcome the opportunity to revisit decisions and shop around, but I suspect it might be going too far for many people. (I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise; chime in in responses if you feel strongly one way or another.) The problem you're trying to address is that people rarely cull their followers. Every new medium gets users excited, but they end up following too much over time, swamping themselves, getting jaded, and leaving. I think about this every now and then; I even wrote about it 4 years ago: http://akkartik.name/blog/2009-05-19-21-30-46-soc The solution I came up with was to measure time in votes. I built a site that looked like reddit but was a feedreader under the hood. Users need know nothing about RSS or XML, they would just upvote and downvote the stories they saw. As they upvoted stories they were subscribed to the corresponding sites, but subscription wasn't a binary activity, you could be 'partially subscribed' to a site, and the extent affected how many stories from it you saw on your frontpage. When I built this, I saw something interesting. I observed many sites go through a common life cycle with their users. There'd be an initial honeymoon period where most articles were upvoted, and the site was close to 100% 'subscribed'. Then interest plateaued for a while at some lower level, then they lost interest, and a few downvotes brought it down to 0% subscribed, and they never came back. It might be worth reconstructing this life cycle here somehow. Just an idea to throw out there. To reiterate, I agree with the problem. I'd like to make hubski a site that doesn't fail from too much success, that can handle lots of people, or people subscribing to lots of people.
How 'bout "every time you vote on a link provided by someone you follow, that 'follow' is extended a set increment of time." Set "follow" for 2 months. If you share content that you follow, the clock gets reset as if you'd just chosen to follow that person. If you don't share content the clock counts down. No shares in two months? You no longer follow that person. 1 share after 59 days? You still follow that person for another 60 days.
'K, set it to "number of posts" rather than "time." If alpha0 shares 20 links and you vote on none of them, you no longer follow alpha0. If alpha0 shares 19 links and you vote on the 19th, you'll follow alpha0 - no matter what - until his 39th post. Certainly incentivizes you to only share quality content, rather than shotgunning every single Reddit link you find.
I have some thought about this that I'll try to make an interesting post about tonight.
Then how am I supposed to know if I am winning?
Haha. Ask mk how many feature requests he gets in a day! I don't think anyone would argue that this site isn't a work in progress. Thanks for the suggestions and critiques; they're always appreciated.Just thought we should be cautious about exclaiming that it's perfect and flawless already - there's still work to be done.
Hi Joel - lots to respond to over the days. I like your open questioning position and you are right that complaints are best taken with suggestions that you yourself are commited to following.
hubski promotes posts about hubski a lot
yes, of course. If I'm going to vacation on an island, I want to know who the other inhabitants are, whether I feel safe rubbing up against them, what the island looks like, and how it works. #hubski posts are very positive-natured, and rarely is the site criticized for things in its own community
It seems to me that the site often criticizes itself, but like your post, it criticizes in such a positive-natured way and the criticism is accepted non-defensively (disclosure, my specialty) that it might not seem like criticism. This way of conducting discourse might seem like a foreign language to some people.
Finally for the moment - I think it would be good for anyone reading your post and this discussion to consider which psychological needs the website is fulfilling in different ways for different participants and if it is fair to expect those needs to be fulfilled here (i.e. popularity, love, community, self-esteem, others) - needs that used to be met in other pre-internet ways. Perhaps you've heard of Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Also, one more thing: I think the title "Apathy" is not what your post is about. You seem anything but apathetic.
I agree! Positivity! Mutual feelings! We're all part of one big family! But seriously, I think you're right that superusers are the weight behind the whirlpool that spins Hubski. I think a few neat little features would be great to implement: 1) If a user you're following is inactive for X days, you should get an alert of some kind when you visit hubski that prompts you to unfollow them. You should be urged to.
2) If you haven't commented on or shared a user you're following's posts in X days, then you get a prompt to stop following them. Because clearly you don't care about them that much.
2.5) It occurs to me that if someone is inactive you will see both alerts, so I guess I would put something in so you only see the inactive one.
3) Seriously consider the ramifications of having a "follower limit." So only a certain number of people can follow you at once (say, 5% of the site's total users at absolute most). I like this because it will weirdly encourage a lot of things- following people who follow people, more use of the global and chatter pages if you want to follow big users. And I think, very importantly, if this is implemented, then users should have the ability to edit their followers. This way you can cull your following as well as who's following you. I don't recommend that #3 happen without some modelling and forethought beforehand, but I'm fairly certain it would prevent any serious super-user problems. I don't know whether or not this already exists, but a Hubski account should also probably have a point at which it's automatically deactivated- has no followers/following, and only the base hub and badges remain of it. I mean, after, say, a year or so of inactivity. Obviously not much of a problem yet.
1) So let's say I go on vacation. I come back to no followers. 2) I read most of the articles that I see in my feed but I share only a few of them, not because I didn't like them or do not care about the poster, I just share the really good ones and the under-shared ones. BUT, that's just me. 2.5) Honestly, you know who you don't want to follow more than Hubski would. 3) I'm lost here. Sounds like a giant messy web of trying to follow whoever follows that guy so that you can see another guy's post. I guess I just don't understand why inactivity is a problem, nor how it relates to the whirlpool of superusers. Interesting ideas nonetheless!
1) Yup! Fuck you indeed. It's not like it's a mandatory "You cannot follow this person any more." Just a message that prompts you to unfollow the person who's taking a break or not coming back. If someone really likes you, they'll stick to it, and if you come back, people will follow you again. 2) Again, if you want to keep following someone who's posts you're not sharing or commenting on, that's your business. You should just be reminded of it. 3) Right now, unfollowing mk and kleibl00 does nothing- I still see them everywhere because almost everyone follows them, and they pull in so many shares and comments taht it's hard to avoid them. Limiting the number of followers a user can get prevents us having a situation where the pond doesn't have room for little fish because there are 3-5 whales wandering around. Yeah, you'd follow someone who followed someone else, but I'd put hard, cold cash that all users are withing 2 degrees of one of Hubski's Holy Trinity.
I feel that while I am sometimes participating in the discussions, I am more worried about gaining followers so that I can get closer to the "goal" (not my goal necessarily), of being a superuser/just having a lot of followers. However, I do NOT appeal to the masses. I ONLY post things that I'm interested in. Sometimes I'll read the whole article and then share, sometimes I'll be halfway through, share it, and then finish it. Rarely do I share without reading, and if I do, I have it ready for me to read later on Instapaper. One thing that I have noticed that is contrary to the idea that the superusers automatically have all this popularity is that sometimes their posts just don't get shared. This is kind of rare, but it still happens. Another note: I watch who shares my posts. I know that if a superuser shares it, I'm going to be watching my hubwheel go up at least a dot. I am aware that this is not the point of the site, but like karma, I still want it. My question to the Hubski creators and maintainers: who can we prevent the superusers from sucking up all of the users? While I'm here I would like to say that I love how no one knows that you've edited a post. I HATE the "EDIT: Hurr I think I'm on Reddit." (Yes I edited this comment and thought I would add this.)
I think one thing that should be fixed is how earned wheels work. Like you say:I know that if a superuser shares it, I'm going to be watching my hubwheel go up at least a dot. I am aware that this is not the point of the site, but like karma, I still want it.
And I think that the site encourages you to want it by treating "Wheels Earned" as more important than "Badges Left". I think that the number next to your hubwheel should not be the number of times you've filled it up, but the number of badges you've earned minus the number of badges you've given out. I think treating it as idea currency is more valuable than just "how big am I?"
The only problem with currency is that new users would get credits without being able to debit. littlebirdie (hope you're healing, btw, we miss you), for example, has earned 9 badges, and only the ability to give out one, which she has done. I suppose maybe she's an extreme example, however, and that doesn't happen too often.
That's fine- it's not a bartering currency. It's a reward currency. littlebirdie is a great, extreme example. If she has 9 badges before she ever finishes a hubwheel, that's awesome- and she will probably finish hubwheels much faster than most people will. But if there's something she really wants to badge then she has to earn that wheel. I don't think that:
badges gained + wheels filled - badges given
is what should be next to your hubwheel. I think that:
wheels filled - badges given
should be. And your badge wheel should count badges earned, as it always has. Right now the Hubwheel is two things- an indicator of how long until you're able to badge again next to a vanity counter of how many spins you've gone through. I think that it's a problem that I want to get to a 3 on my hubweel for no reason. I would rather only look up there when I see a post I really want to be able to badge, to check how many badges I can give out and how close I am to earning another one.
Interesting. We have discussed recently, a "Zen" option, where the users will have a toggle in their controls that when "on" the majority of statistics currently displayed will be hidden. What do you think about that?I think that it's a problem that I want to get to a 3 on my hubweel for no reason.
That'd be something. I'd still like to know if I can badge things, though. Zen mode is a nice idea. I'm not sure how many people (%-wise) will actually use it. I think some will, but points and gamification are very powerful. I can't even honestly say whether or not I'd use it. I do love me some data.
No kidding! Just yesterday I posted something that I thought was very interesting and it has 0 shares. :/ But seriously, it does help everyone when people are discerning about what they share. I'm glad that not everything that I post gets a full hubwheel.One thing that I have noticed that is contrary to the idea that the superusers automatically have all this popularity is that sometimes their posts just don't get shared. This is kind of rare, but it still happens.
For my own part... I guess I've been here a month or so, and am also not quite as excited about it as I once was. I think Hubski's greatest feature is what's holding it back: subscribing to people instead of topics isn't working out as expected (for me). More often than not, the pattern appears to be this: - I'm on a thread about something I find interesting, and PersonX posts something that just blows me away - So I subscribe to PersonX - As it turns out, PersonX spends most of his/her time posting about things that bore me to tears, and the one post I followed him/her for was a rarity I grant there are some times where PersonX might post something great about something I'm not usually interested in, but you know... even a great work can be boring if its about something you don't care about. Never mind any of the other problems. This, and no collapsing comments, are taking Hubski from a "yay" to a "meh" for me.
You'll probably be very interested in this: http://hubski.com/pub?id=60953 As for following users instead of tags, it just takes some trial and error, but I kind of like it now. I find that I am heavily ignoring a lot of tags instead of following, so instead of subscribing to a narrow amount of specific subjects and adding things as I discover them, I am exposed to absolutely everything, and I am slowly cutting away the fat. Sure, I have to ignore new tags a lot, sometimes several times a day, but every time I do my feed gets a little better for the future.This, and no collapsing comments, are taking Hubski from a "yay" to a "meh" for me.
You will probably dig today's update, WorLord. To be perfectly honest, it was a degree of freedom that I began to miss too.
JakobVirgil did a post a while back about follower numbers, which illustrated the disparity at play. It's pretty clear that users with many followers have exponentially more reach than someone with a few. That's what all the arguments in this thread boil down to. The issue is whether or not that's really a problem. The following is my train of thought. If a high follower count disparity is really a problem, then we can agree that it is in Hubski's best interest to fix it, or make an effort to expose users to content in other ways. The way I see it, on a mechanical level, you can remedy that situation either directly or indirectly. Any attempt to fix it directly would be making the system as a whole "more fair" by adding an element of unfairness. Sounds weird, but essentially it's just affirmative action for Hubski users. Do we promote posts from users with only a few followers due to the fact that they have few followers? Or do we try something else, like letting followers expire if the followee doesn't post for a while? I think any fix in this realm would not only add to the complexity of the overall flow, but would be unnatural. Maybe high disparities in follower counts create problems, but I don't think artificially applying controls to modify that is the right approach. On a more indirect level, I think a parallel system for users to be exposed to content would be the logical choice. There were some issues with tags, like people applying synonymous tags, or slightly different ones to a post. Once these issues were fixed, though, a robust tagging system could expose users to content from some other user on a far corner of the site in a much more natural way than what I discussed previously.
Limiting the number of followers to 100 would have hilarious interesting results. Ones "power" would be a function of the quality of your follower.
I think that this is the way Hubski should go, although not with an absolute number. I think a percentage of the site would work. But I wrote a much longer comment about this above, if you're interested.
give us the link so we don't have to wade. I am more interested in an absolute number as it gives raise to a more interesting graph.
I believe he was referencing the number of people who can follow you. On an unrelated note, it looks like new comments do not show up on this page anymore. Is there a limit of how many comments are shown in a thread? It's at 74 right now, I think it started happening around 70.
That's too much to respond to while I'm at work between tasks joelg, but I just wanted to say that the community is new and small right now, so this is absolutely the best time to speak up, criticize, opine, or whatever. Your voice will never be louder than it is now. The positive-natured hubski posts are a function of a small userbase excited by what they have and the potential for what is to come. Honest, thoughtful criticism is not only welcome, it's appreciated. It's much better than too many accolades imho. One thing I can say is that nobody on here has ever declared Hubksi perfect, unflawed, or compete. In fact, I don't think you will find another site in this genre iterating and developing as drastically (as a function of dev team size).
I think you're exactly right about the follower-count problem. Number of followers is the new karma. I guess that isn't necessarily a problem if it incentivizes quality, high-effort content contribution. I admit that I am much more likely to follow someone based on the list of recent posts and follower count that appear in their profile than based on their comments, so I agree that contribution to quality discussion needs to be prioritized more.
Just throwing it out there, but I would like to see a global list of posts sorted by number of comments, which would drive the hub wheel, rather than shares. This would really promote and reward posts which generate discussion. However, it's late, I'm tired. This idea may not be well thought through.
A big problem is apathy. If top posts are influenced by power users, then an 'average joe' user will feel pretty powerless, right? So if you don't believe that your post can get much exposure, why bother posting? I think that sort of feeling can really damage a sense of community. When I go on a website like this, the main thing I want to do is discuss cool shit I see on the Internet with other interested people. So if you have a feeling that your voice is probably going to be drowned out by a thousand other people / power-users then you're not going to care much about the conversation.