I think we likely made a mistake with respect to openness, but it’s not obvious when/how. Probably the biggest problem is that we couldn’t settle on what we wanted the users to do once they were on the platform.
I notice that you tell people to come to Arbital, but it is still invite-only.
we couldn’t settle on what we wanted the users to do once they were on the platform
″...the street finds its own uses for things”—William Gibson
Have you considered letting users play freely and then learning from them instead of trying to construct an optimal-by-some-criteria maze that mice surely will joyfully choose to run through?
How is it invite only? Are you talking about the comment section?
Originally the plan was to do exactly that if we couldn’t figure how to build a “joyful maze”: just throw open the doors and see what people do with it. Unfortunately there is still a significant amount of work left to do that well, and right now I’m more optimistic about the new platform than I am about scavenging the current version.
The last time I tried making an Arbital account, it failed. Does it require human approval? Then it’s still invite-only. Is it broken? Then that’s why no-one signed up.
Not someone with sufficient authority, just the blog owner. That seems fair though. You can create you own blog and then you would be in charge of which comments to approve.
I am sure you are well aware of how default-approve (=blacklisting) and default-deny (=whitelisting) policies affect the popularity and usage of publishing platforms.
See this comment: http://lesswrong.com/lw/otq/whats_up_with_arbital/dq9h
I think we likely made a mistake with respect to openness, but it’s not obvious when/how. Probably the biggest problem is that we couldn’t settle on what we wanted the users to do once they were on the platform.
Any. Fucking. Time.
I notice that you tell people to come to Arbital, but it is still invite-only.
″...the street finds its own uses for things”—William Gibson
Have you considered letting users play freely and then learning from them instead of trying to construct an optimal-by-some-criteria maze that mice surely will joyfully choose to run through?
How is it invite only? Are you talking about the comment section?
Originally the plan was to do exactly that if we couldn’t figure how to build a “joyful maze”: just throw open the doors and see what people do with it. Unfortunately there is still a significant amount of work left to do that well, and right now I’m more optimistic about the new platform than I am about scavenging the current version.
The last time I tried making an Arbital account, it failed. Does it require human approval? Then it’s still invite-only. Is it broken? Then that’s why no-one signed up.
I’m not sure when you tried. It works right now.
Didn’t you say
which is an explicit whitelisting system?
Yes, but that’s not “invite-only”.
You can knock on the door. But you have to be invited (=whitelisted) by someone with sufficient authority in order to enter.
Not someone with sufficient authority, just the blog owner. That seems fair though. You can create you own blog and then you would be in charge of which comments to approve.
I am sure you are well aware of how default-approve (=blacklisting) and default-deny (=whitelisting) policies affect the popularity and usage of publishing platforms.
That doesn’t seem the default way most blogs work. Most blogs simply allow you to leave a comment (or they don’t have comment sections at all).