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.