Can you explain the loss of quality or demise of other social networking sites?

Fluther rocks, and the people who spend time here, as well as our Overlords, have figured out a game plan that actually works. Moderation is what any successful social site needs, because without rules and people to enforce them, you have chaos. Chaos sucks.

If you ask me, MetaFilter is better.Yes, you have to pay. But I think it’s worth it for a higher quality of answer. I ask real questions there, throw away stuff here.

@evelyns_pet_zebra
but that is socialism!

Well, Metafilter is a one time fee of five dollars. I spend that on booze before lunch. But it does help keep the spammers away.

wis.dm was a great site, not sure why it failed.

Social websites are businesses and usually fail because due to poor business decisions.

Wis.dm failed because they gave up.

I was on Askville. There is “moderation” but it’s extremely rare. Obscenities, name calling, threats, harassment, trolling and, God knows, the fighting could go for days and days without being removed. People left by the tons. The only people who stayed pretty much were/are long timers who, because of the lack of moderation, seem to be doing anything they want to the dismay of even MORE people who left because of that. That site has changed for the worse over the last few years in my opinion and the opinion of the people that left. And probably YOURS too, @daloon.

One noticeable difference in the Askville vs. Fluther communities is that the Fluther people don’t “live” on Fluther. This is a good thing. The site expertise is constantly changing and getting refreshed. On Askville, the people there now seem to “live” there.

In my opinion, moderation is a good thing, but only if it’s done right. Moderators have to be impartial – they can’t participate and befriend other users as well as moderate because, people being people, some have a difficult time being impartial and objective when that happens. Likewise, mods have to be consistent and, for that, you need guidelines and a moderator manager who makes sure the mods adhere to the guidelines and, more importantly, make sure all mods apply the guidelines to ALL users equally. Finally, I think the ideal mods would be paid mods, and who would be scheduled 24/7 and who would be terminated for a job poorly done.

PLEASE note that I am NOT saying these are changes Fluther should implement. I’m giving my opinions on moderating and its impact on a site and how a lack of moderation can ruin a site.

What I like about Fluther. (Though in the beginning I did wonder.)

Is we can totally speak our minds.

Sometimes it is not about a “right” answer. It is about truly understanding the collective.

Even if our idea or ideals differ. We are still part of the same machine and we can get an understanding as to how and why it runs the way it does.

When I first came here. I was caught off guard with the few that want to make it a “club”.
You know, think the way I/we do or you are not welcome. Someone actually im’d me and said I should start over with a new profile.

Once you get past that, you realize that is also part of Fluther. People being real. If there is a place you can be straight up it is here.

I never have a problem with “conflict” it is all good. What good would Fluther be if you denied me being ME.

There have been sites that delete your post after time. Or just refuse to not post because it does not lean towards their agenda or opinion.

Fluther is not a place to convince the world you are right, it is a place to understand that the world you are in, no matter what is going on, is what it is.

That making it right.

I too am an Askville refugee. You can’t say “shit” or any other “bad words” on Askville, which is ridiculous, since it doesn’t stop people from being vicious or offensive in the least. Their question scoring system has perverse incentives that make it too competitive and personal. The only thing I miss about it it’s relative stability. You could have a long, leisurely conversation that went on for weeks, if not months, before the thread went cold. It is through such conversations, for example, I became friends with daloon.

The attention span on Fluther seems shorter by far. Topics go cold in a couple of days, but it is much more civil. And you don’t have evangelicals proselytizing you.

Step 1: Make social networking site.
Step 2: ...
Step 3: Profit!

@MontyZuma, “And you don’t have evangelicals proselytizing you”, AMEN for that!

“Topics go cold in a couple of days”, I agree and I think part of the reason is that Askville had “bumping”, i.e., when someone put a comment on a question, that moved the question to the top of the activity boards.

The bad side of that is some people would bump their own questions a lot.

@ragingloli funny how everyone calls the things they don’t agree with socialism. ;^)

Askville, in the relatively short time that I have known it, has slid so far down the tubes that its almost unrecognizable. I don’t know where the site is heading, but I would imagine that its circling the drain in some kind of way. You can’t have a conversation over there without the stalkers and the political thugs and, yuck, the evangelical propheseying and the “God is real and I have proof!” and all that crap. I can’t imagine, that with so few people actually answering questions, that they’re really making any kind of money out of it, even with the almost free advertising that mturk does.

I feel that websites that have some kind of fee to access the content (not too high, but equivalent to a beer) cause I am so glad to pay for it and not regret it.

Askville was set up as an amenity for Amazon users and it did draw a more mature crowd/ It was supposed to be supported by ad revenue and users were encouraged to recommend Amazon products thus increasing Amazon sales.

Then the PTB got greedy. First the Amazon customer service questions (How can I find a good biography of Mark Twain?) appeared as Askville questions. Part of the point system required there to be at least 3 answer generated and the asker of the question had to respond. Well that wan;t going to happen. Amazon saves on customer service costs and ⅓ of Askville questions were phony,

Then they came up with Bogus (Bonus) questions. These were artificially generated based on internet stories. They were so poorly worded, I thought they were computer generated, but was informed it was a plug the word in site that paid a penny/question. So if there was a story about a tornado in Podunk PA, 5 or more questions like what where is Podunk, what was the radio station in Podunk, who was the emergency director in Podunk, whose barn was damaged. It got to the point where the ratio of cust service and bogus questions to real questions was running 15 to 1 which got to be very annoying. Of course the reason was that the more activity generated, the more Amazon could charge for ad links.

Over the summer of 2008 a battle raged, There were the people who lived on Askville and answered the non-questions in 10 seconds to build up points and there was another group who protested the loss of legitimate questions. By August the protesters were getting kind of insulting toward Askville management. These guys were not moderators but dealt with complaints behind the scene. I never knew I was targetted until I was suspended. My sin was not angry or insulting posts but I started making fun of the bogus questions. One day their were several questions about Salman Rushdie and I posted a story about a salmon named Rushdie and his problem getting up stream. Evidently those little daily stories like the travails of an amateur women’s hockey team offended some people. Of course I didn’t leave. I interpreted the rule of only one account as only one active account at a time. After the 17 were banned there was a Stalinistic (not kidding!) attempt to blame us for the problems of the site. In the end the haters ruled. And I was shocked at people who returned but Askville PTB dealt with some of the complaints about the non-questions. In the end, Askville isn;t as lively and interesting anymore (I’ve checked in 5 times in the last year) It has definitely become more right wing, uberchristian. and yes, cliquy with coordinated attacks.

That reminds me, I better get on the ball and start mining my old Askville questions for stuff to put on my blogs (<—pardon my shameless self-promotion). I did write my heart out when I was there and many of those essays could stand on their own.

The first Q&A website I was ever on was called WHquestion. It failed because they gave up on it, which is a shame, because it really was an awesome site.

After that, there were some in between that never compared.

The last one that I was on and actually liked to bother with (before Fluther) was called BrainFuse/Cerescape. That failed because people started having flame wars near the very end, and probably also because the owner of the site was in college and he just didn’t have enough to time to maintain it.

WikiAnswers is still going strong, but I spend my time here because that site it too difficult to move around, and the social aspect is separate from the questions and answers.

@galileogirl There is acutally no rule anywhere on the site about a lot of things that people take for granted as “rules.” The problem with Askville has always been that they make things up as they go along, like the rule about not coming back after being banned (doesn’t exist). In addition, there’s a lot assumed about the one account idea that doesn’t actually exist anywhere in the official rules of the site. I think that the “team” are one of the most unprofessional and underqualified group of people when it comes to running more than just the technical aspects of the site that may have ever existed.

My reference was to Askville rules that one could have only one identity which I broke AFTER suspension. There was no rule about challenging management or writing silly answers to nonquestions. Of course thae made rules up,

The acutal wording is “Using multiple accounts to participate on Askville is a violation of our Conditions of Use…”

But that leaves it open to interpertation. If you’re only using one account to participate, you’re technically in the clear.

Again, making it up as they go along. Idiots.

Social media is exploding too fast. Right now it’s facebook or twitter. But in time you will see the further development of social networking sites that have “limited” access to only certain privileged people.

Society itself has different sections to it and social networking which is quickly becoming the normal for which interaction, business, and play are done. Social networking sites will be no different from the real world as there will be separate networks for different types of people.

If twitter weren’t such a new thing then it certainly would not get the buzz that it does. But with facebook acquiring friendfeed and looking to update its real time search features it all just leads us to the question… What is next?

I blog about a lot of things like this so if you’re interested check it out http://socialcidal.net

There are other social sites?

@bennihan There is already a lot of limited access sites, such as Multiply, where we can choose who is allowed to visit our site, or most of the special interest “Yahoo Groups” and “Google Groups” and many others.

Like others I am an Askville refugee. Also like others I am here instead of there because of the lack of consistent moderation, the flame wars and the general intolerance.

I am also involved in two Yahoo Groups, but both of those seem to be well-policed and everyone is there because we all share common problems as parents of kids with psychiatric diagnoses.

Previously I was involved in several different sites that were primarily intended to ask and answer questions about book selling. The one on Alibris got down to only a very few participants so it was boring. The one on ABE is still going strong as far as I can tell, but the software that runs it has defeated my ability to readily find threads I find interesting. And then there is the one on Amazon where it is recommended that all users obtain and wear a flame-proof suit before posting anything at all.

You would think Amazon would have learned something from that site that they would have applied to Askville, but I guess not.

I have also done some stuff on Facebook but I find it is not very intellectually stimulating to just post notes on each other’s walls.

@Darwin I’ve found that the Amazon site has a much higher academic caliber than anywhere else I’ve been. These are grad student’s avoiding their dissertations and professors dishing it out in their best “you’ll never get tenure in my department” style. When they do flame you, it is usually with art and panache, to say nothing of devastatingly accurate criticism.

@MontyZuma – I don’t agree that they use art, panache or devastatingly accurate anything. I do find that they get upset if anyone writes in another language or disagrees with them in any way. I also find that folks spread completely baseless rumors about other users and that the moderation is irregular and sketchy when it happens at all.

@Darwin Are we talking about the same forum?

Not at all. I was referring to this one and to this one. Both are Amazon forums, one is for booksellers and the other is Askville.

@MontyZuma While Askville definitely was an older and generally more educated group than others but they had gangs of old ladies who mugged anyone who disagreed with them. They also had more entertaining religious zealots. I was regularly charged with heresy. And there was a political group to the righi of Atilla the Hun. One guy actually threatened my life because I agreed with Al Gore that using a clothes line would save energy lol

On the other hand there were no ‘How can I tell if he likes me? questions

@galileogirl Oh, but there are! There was one question on AV when I peeked in today about “Which girl should I choose.” And there are FAR more “can u get prego if u did it onc witout a condom? pls help, can u make ur peroid cum faster?”

@avvooooooo Maybe some refugees from wis.dm who got on the wrong bus? < ; )

@galileogirl I know, I used to mug them back.

Ah, those were the days….
‘Course, I was crazy then, too. I wonder if anyone liked me better crazy. Leaving that place was part of my effort to get better.

Do I have to be the one to say-maybe just better crazy.

@galileogirl Not if you can’t back it up with good reasoning and examples. ;-)

Wis.dm failed because of bad software design related to dynamic web pages. Less would have been more. A site that can handle an increasing load backed by a viable business model is doomed to fail.