It'll happen. Its like death. It progresses ever so slowly. The most you can do is postpone it. The only surefire way to avoid eternal september is via a paywall. Then you just get a room full of people with credit cards who feel entitled to everything because they paid a nominal fee for it. Yes I'm a cynic. Realistically we've got quite a few years before Hubski is even at risk.
I'd like to go in a little more depth with JTHipster's idea, because quite frankly I like it. Of course a lot of us here are funding projects, businesses, and research out of our own pockets but I'm sure we would be able to do something for those people, like a non-payment membership whitelist. Definitely something to consider if we begin to feel the pressure of Eternal September... (I feel weird saying that. But the money could go to keeping the site up, charity, and community projects.) Feel free to give me a slap in the face.
I'm confident right now in the site's architecture. We had a sizable influx of shitheads in late December, and they pretty much went away after a few days of nobody noticing them. The point is that pretty much everyone who got one of those boneheads on their feed ignored right away, and the problem was isolated within a few days. A few days of only having their little troll troupe to converse with apparently wasn't interesting so they crawled back under the bridge whence they came never to be heard from again. I think most Huskiers didn't even realize what was happening, which is awesome. Hopefully the same can happen in the future, even on a much larger scale.
That was really encouraging, I agree. One thing that I also found encouraging, that I've mentioned here before is that a number of those people that started off as "trolls" ended up changing their interactions and posted good content and had some great comments. It was as if they came over, saw the culture, and changed accordingly. I think that also bodes well for future growth.
Yeah I completely forgot about that actually. The unfortunate thing is a lot of those people were friends of mine from Reddit, and though they act immature there simply because the websites cesspit, I somewhat expected them to be chill here and partake in some interesting discussions. I was disappointed.
See my comment above, a lot of them did act appropriately after realizing that Hubski isn't Reddit. Some of them are still here, and I went from ignoring them to following them.
I'm just still not convinced that it can't be avoided because of following/unfollowing, ability to completely block users, as well as domains. Plus the filtering controls that do not exist yet but will. The downfall, I think, would have to be comprised of two things. MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE amounts of traffic resulting in an avalanche of new users, along with complexity in the UI design of Hubski's filtering controls such that they are not breathlessly simple and intuitive and apparent enough to the newest users to be functional and useful. If Hubski can nail the UI for filters to the point where the newest users are aware of them and can use them effectively, then I think it'll be pretty good. The last great threat will be in the comments section of threads where, due to popularity, a massive horizontal influx of comments of low quality show up in numbers where it is too hard to block that many users (or the comments aren't bad enough to warrant blocking someone you don't know, but they are collectively 'meh' and uninspiring or otherwise not great).
I wonder what might cause an influx like that. On reddit I sometimes see people blame it on /r/gonewild, but I'd be surprised if that were the only reason. Somehow I can't see a hubskigonewild happening. Hubski: ass, cash or badge. No one rides free. Except everyone.
. The last great threat will be in the comments section of threads where, due to popularity, a massive horizontal influx of comments of low quality show up in numbers where it is too hard to block that many users (or the comments aren't bad enough to warrant blocking someone you don't know, but they are collectively 'meh' and uninspiring or otherwise not great).
What if you had the ability to see only the comments made by people that you follow? I don't see a need for this right now, but if Hubski had the sort of traffic you're alluding to, that could be a useful way to maintain the integrity of your experience.
Well, I'd say the majority of insight in comments comes from people you don't know already once a site reaches a massive scale....along with e majority of crap. If you only see who you follow you can't leverage the great many unknown contributors that are often experts in niche areas and minutiae...so I'd personally be wary of this.
I would agree with that, if ever something like this existed it would be best used as a toggle. Something to easily switch on/off. The vast majority of the people I end up following happen after I read a comment of theirs. It's the best kind of discovery IMO.