The start page also direct me to the latest discussions the way the reddit start page does. It’s hard to actually find the discussions.
If I go to a discussion like https://arbital.com/p/requisites_for_personal_growth/, there’s no text field in which I can leave my comment, like there’s on reddit (and here) or blogs that have a comment sections. I can click the button “Propose comment” but that design suggests to me that commenting isn’t supposed to be my default reaction.
Correct. We (somewhat prematurely) worried about trolls, so by default people can only propose comments. And it would be up to Toon to approve them. (If there is sufficient demand, I can add a feature to let users have open commenting. But in general adding features to old Arbital is not high on my priority list.)
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.
Why do you think it’s a better decision to switch strategy to a microblogging platform instead of switching strategy to being as open and as inviting of contribution as possible?
Currently it’s not clear to anyone what Arbital is, what it can do, who it’s for, etc.. It needs to solve a real problem and present itself as solving that clear problem.
The tech we used is now somewhat obsolete. The codebase has accumulated a lot of unnecessary features. Also Google Material UI turned out to be too heavyweight and not as pleasant to design with as I thought initially. (These are all arguments for remaking the platform.)
The blogging platform will be “as open and as inviting of contribution as possible.”
Ok, but when you do create “Arbital 2.0”, the best thing you can do to help it succeed is to have a pre-existing base of users who are interested in using it, especially the smaller number but extremly important “power users” who will be the ones who generate most of your content, and a lot of good content you can move over from your old site.
Anything you can do to encourage people to be more active now at creating content (including comments) and interacting with the site in general probably included your odds of success long-term.
The start page also direct me to the latest discussions the way the reddit start page does. It’s hard to actually find the discussions.
If I go to a discussion like https://arbital.com/p/requisites_for_personal_growth/, there’s no text field in which I can leave my comment, like there’s on reddit (and here) or blogs that have a comment sections. I can click the button “Propose comment” but that design suggests to me that commenting isn’t supposed to be my default reaction.
Correct. We (somewhat prematurely) worried about trolls, so by default people can only propose comments. And it would be up to Toon to approve them. (If there is sufficient demand, I can add a feature to let users have open commenting. But in general adding features to old Arbital is not high on my priority list.)
So, if I understand this correctly, you had a non-promoted invite-only platform which you think failed because not enough people contributed content?
I am confused. Surely it crossed someone’s mind at some point...
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).
Why do you think it’s a better decision to switch strategy to a microblogging platform instead of switching strategy to being as open and as inviting of contribution as possible?
Currently it’s not clear to anyone what Arbital is, what it can do, who it’s for, etc.. It needs to solve a real problem and present itself as solving that clear problem.
The tech we used is now somewhat obsolete. The codebase has accumulated a lot of unnecessary features. Also Google Material UI turned out to be too heavyweight and not as pleasant to design with as I thought initially. (These are all arguments for remaking the platform.)
The blogging platform will be “as open and as inviting of contribution as possible.”
Ok, but when you do create “Arbital 2.0”, the best thing you can do to help it succeed is to have a pre-existing base of users who are interested in using it, especially the smaller number but extremly important “power users” who will be the ones who generate most of your content, and a lot of good content you can move over from your old site.
Anything you can do to encourage people to be more active now at creating content (including comments) and interacting with the site in general probably included your odds of success long-term.