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15.06.18 Morning Coffee: Your Ideal Snapzu, and Continued Growth

Morning Coffee is a user-created discussion series where Snapzu members can check in with each other in a relaxed environment.
We are experimenting with different formats and ideas, so feedback is very welcome!

Hope everyone's having a good (time-in-your-region)! What's going on in your area today?

The recent influx of new users has sparked all sorts of discussion on the present and future state of Snapzu. So far we've maintained somewhat of a consensus, but there are disagreements here and there. What does your ideal Snapzu look like? What does your nightmare Snapzu look like?

From scouting other areas on the web, I've noticed many are waiting for Snapzu to 'take off' or even 'become more like reddit' before committing. For better or worse, other sites have taken the brunt of that mindset, but we're still very much in the spotlight for now. We will continue to experience the growth we're in need of, but it's clear that we'll have to be patient. We're seeing the effects of bringing good people into this community, so let's all redouble our efforts!

The Steam Sale is still going on. If you want to try out your shiny new game with others, go and join the Snapzu Steam group.

Today's QotD, from /u/90boss: What do you want to live long enough to see?

Remember to check /t/newtribes for places of interest, and share your tribe there if you haven't already.

8 years ago by Moderator with 64 comments

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Conversation 13 comments by 8 users
  • nxthesky (edited 8 years ago)
    +12

    This is my first time posting in the lounge.

    I've been active and posting snaps since I joined about two weeks ago. What i've noticed is that there is a lack of discussion with posts, which overall makes Snapzu less engaging than I would like. However, I do find it understandable since a) small user base and b) I myself am more of a lurker than a poster - but I've started to post replies to comments on my snaps, even though they are few and far between. I'm not really sure how to encourage more discussion related to snaps - there seems to be some interest in them since they're being voted up but not really commented on. Perhaps I'll start posting my own reaction first to get the conversation started?

    As for the idea of an "ideal" Snapzu, I'd just like to say that I like that Snapzu isn't reddit. There's already a reddit for that. Besides the censorship issues that came up recently, reddit has changed over the last few years into more of a giant, anonymous facebook community. And it's great for killing time and feeling a part of a community of people that share your interests, but less for thinking and engagement. I like the potential for snapzu, and I'd like to see less of a drive for a censorship free, "reddit 2.0" and more of growing and shaping snapzu into it's own thing.

    • [Deleted Profile]

      [This comment was removed]

    • Moderator
      +7

      I used to lurk on reddit, hardly ever posting anything. The unlikeliness of my comment even being seen, the likelihood of being downvoted for no reason other than disagreement, and the fact that no one knew or cared who I was were all reasons to just not bother. I'm finding it easier to post here on Snapzu because of the smaller user base, the civility of a culture that promotes intellectual discussion, and the fact that my profile gives me an identity (albeit an anonymous one). I think others probably share my sentiments.

      The lack of discussion is definitely just a lack of users. I've already seen an increase in activity in the short while I've been here, so things are looking up! It's down to users like you and myself to keep things moving.

      I strongly agree that Snapzu is not reddit. I think a lot of us are used to whatever community we came from, and it's hard to imagine anything else, but Snapzu is Snapzu — the beautiful thing is that us users can make it what we want :)

    • drunkenninja
      +6

      Perhaps I'll start posting my own reaction first to get the conversation started?

      This here is the key to engaging more with a small community I think. The problem is with a smaller pool of users it's much harder to find people that share those exact same interests, so even if they read the post, they may not be able to reply since they just don't know enough to start/join the discussion. I think as the snapzu community grows this will drastically improve, that's why it's so damn important to keep spreading the word and getting more and more people involved.

      I like the potential for snapzu, and I'd like to see less of a drive for a censorship free, "reddit 2.0" and more of growing and shaping snapzu into it's own thing.

      Agreed, snapzu needs to be it's own thing with it's own identity. I cringe every time I see people saying it's just another more slick looking reddit, that's bullshit, there is so much more to it and people wont know unless we make the differences clear.

      • nxthesky
        +5

        I think just for an experiment I'll start leaving first comments on the Snaps I post and see what happens. I'll let you know how it goes.

Conversation 13 comments by 5 users
  • i208khonsu
    +3

    My ideal Snapzu is one that just continues to grow and fine tune the experience. for the past 18-24 months reddit seems to be complacent to how their website functions and insists that they have an enforcement problem and an image problem. The fact of the mater is both users and volunteer moderators of the Internet's largest discussion board lack the basic tools that are available on a platform like vBulletin. Instead they rely on third party tools like automod (again produced by kind hearted volunteers) to give their website the basic tools needed to function. Out of all the reddit alternatives out there I see Snapzu is best suited to creating a robust and refined approach to discussion boards.

    One gripe I'll note right now is [Shift]+[Enter] inserts two return characters instead of one. This is annoying because I'm use to using in Facebook and Skype to insert a new line as well as in Word to ignore double spacing. Please just ignore me using [Shift]+[Enter] or correct it's use to be more consistent with other popular applications.

    Another thing I've recently noticed is that viewing a page with only snaps and text posts of tribes that you've joined (the reddit/voat experience) is a bit harder than what I prefer. Personally I subscribe to tribes to receive content that I want just as much as to avoid content and communities that I don't want to be engaged in. Forcing me to see "default tribes" when I first sign on is undesirable. I just looked for an option in preferences, but could find anything. It is pretty easy just to switch to your own tribes in the right sidebar, but honestly it took a couple weeks before I noticed this.

    Somewhat related, I appreciate how you can post a snap to multiple tribes and have all tribes engaged in the same discussion. It's great especially with how young and small Snapzu still is. However I ran into an issue with my first snap that checked /t/technology to see if it was already posted before I submitted, but Snapzu also felt t...

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    • Splitfish
      +5

      This is no auto follow on reply and never has been as far as I remember. What do you mean by that?

      • i208khonsu
        +3

        That's weird. I cleared out about a dozen a few days ago. Don't remember clicking follow on anyone (maybe I just forgot), but I did notice they were all people that I had chatted with before. Is there some kind of default follow list?

        • Splitfish
          +5

          New accounts auto-join 15 relevant tribes (based on what they selected during signup), and follow the top member of each tribe (over a time span I'm unsure of). This caters relevant content right off the bat and introduces the users to those functions. It's also a good incentive to stay active, neeed more followers!

          • drunkenninja
            +4

            I will also add that the top people that are being followed are based on how active they are on snapzu at the time. This functionality makes sure that those members you do auto follow are active and contributing part of the platform.

          • i208khonsu
            +2

            Ooooh, this makes a bit of sense. Personally I un-followed all of them as I wasn't interested in all the replies they were making; seemed a little creepy too. It's a bit better now that Gladsdotter pointed out the gearbox on the homepage so I could just filter that by default. Personally the signal to noise ratio on everyone's comments really downs out seeing any Snaps on the Homepage with those dozen or so users I was automatically following.

            • Splitfish
              +3

              Yeah everyone's got different preferences. Just need to tune them for your liking.

            • [Deleted Profile]

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            • drunkenninja
              +4
              @ -

              Yep, the customizability of the feed is practically endless.

    • AdelleChattre
      +3

      While I agree that Reddit, the company and the code base, are fossilizing, to be fair they have brought Automoderator in-house recently, which is why it’s gotten so buggy. It was a skanky hack to begin with, and that’s not going to change. It is official rubbish, now though, so they’ve got that going for them. Wouldn’t be surprised if they absorbed Moderator Toolbox as well, if they haven’t already.

      Quitting default tribes is easy enough, just like unsubscribing from the default subreddits. Profile picture in the upper right, Tribe Memberships, spin through the Quit buttons, done.

      Duplicate detection could stand some attention. Exactly matching main links and snap titles could be caught programmatically, eliminating the often-repeated after-publishing chore of checking of related snaps listed at the bottom of the snap for dupes. There’s something Snapfu'd up about exact URL match reposts, and I don’t think it’s just a race condition with multiple draft snaps.

      Hadn’t noticed the auto-follow on replies. Seems like a sharp-eyed catch, that.

      • i208khonsu
        +3

        Sorry, wasn't referencing quitting tribes, I was saying that the Snapzu front page defaults to "All Tribes" instead of "My Tribes" and couldn't find a way to change that default option. However now that @Gladsdotter pointed out the gearbox on your homepage I can configure that to exactly the filters I want by default there instead of the front page.

        Also @Splitfish pointed out that there is no auto-follow on replies. Not sure how I was following so many people; don't remember following anyone, probably just forgot.

  • drunkenninja
    +9

    First of all, I love these morning coffee episodes, I feel like I'm on some talk show or something, which is great!

    Hope everyone's having a good (time-in-your-region)! What's going on in your area today?

    The birds are chirping, I'm enjoying a dark-roast french pressed coffee with a little milk, and generally catching up by reading what I missed over night on snapzu (a lot more has been happening, so it takes more time to digest my feed!).

    The recent influx of new users has sparked all sorts of discussion on the present and future state of Snapzu. So far we've maintained somewhat of a consensus, but there are disagreements here and there. What does your ideal Snapzu look like? What does your nightmare Snapzu look like?

    I'm really enjoying a busier snapzu and look forward to seeing enough users post to be able to laser focus my feed so that I see the stuff that I enjoy and feel comfortable discussing without feeling like I am out of my depth. I don't mind the disagreements, they drive discussion and with good discussion comes learning and realizing other point of views and ideas, this is super healthy and as long as it's done with the rules in mind I don't see this being negative in anyway. My ideal snapzu is a site that exchanges ideas, discusses them, dissects them and learns from them so that at the end of the day the people involved can extract knowledge and insight.

    From scouting other areas on the web, I've noticed many are waiting for Snapzu to 'take off' or even 'become more like reddit' before committing. For better or worse, other sites have taken the brunt of that mindset, but we're still very much in the spotlight for now. We will continue to experience the growth we're in need of, but it's clear that we'll have to be patient. We're seeing the effects of bringing good people into this community, so let's all redouble our efforts!

    Definitely a pleasant sight to see snapzu being mentioned and recommended! I think those of us who are d...

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  • Tawsix
    +8

    My ideal Snapzu has a lot of users, a lot of new content generated in addition to being aggregated, and a continued respect for the downvote button (ie users aren't spamming it as a "disagree" button.)

    I'd like to live long enough to see space travel become viable for your average American citizen. A bit of a long-shot, I think, but that's what I'm hoping for.

    Also, it appears that the Snapzu team has gotten my issues with connecting to the website fixed, so that's nice I guess!

    • Moderator (edited 8 years ago)
      +5

      Team Snapzu is very responsive, indeed. I suppose it helps that the community is still small :)

  • [Deleted Profile]

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  • spaceghoti
    +7

    My ideal Snapzu is an open market of ideas and open discussion. We're not always going to agree, but we're not going to punish each other for it.

    My nightmare Snapzu is a free-for-all with cliques and trolls running rampant suppressing any speech they don't like or just saying anything to get a reaction.

  • pixelboot
    +7

    I am a new member of snapzu and so far I love it! I love how the community is smaller, and the option of following each other. I also really like the way we can imbed content directly in to snaps and I hope that people take advantage of this feature to share more original content. I would also like to see more community involvement, but not a lot more (if that makes sense). I want snapzu to maintain its small community feel, there's a reason why I prefer it so strongly over the more popular sites! I also really love the interface and overall look of the site. It's so polished and well organized! I would also really love to see a mobile app in the future.

    I want to live long enough to see something historically noteworthy. I'm young enough that I JUST missed the invention of the Internet. I'd love to witness another world-changing technology like that develop.

    • Gozzin
      +3

      I feel the same way. The bigger it gets,the more impersonal it gets,which I don't care for.Oh,and welcome.

  • Crator
    +6

    Right now I am working on finally starting making a comic series and starting up my art blog. Been trying to get myself to do it for a while but I just don't feel my skill is there yet.

    My ideal would be a site with high quality content, some made by the users themselves and good discussion. Also no one downvoting unpopular opinions into oblivion.

    My nightmare one would be what Reddit is right now. Some obscure smaller subs are still ok, but you would need to dig pretty far to find them if you were new. I just personally feel having to many people on a site always turns it bad. I imagine I will be running from eternal September forever.

    • Moderator
      +5

      This is the first time I've heard of Eternal September, but I've been fearing it myself since I got here! I'd like to think the invite system, incentive to post quality content, and sheer effort on the site's part would prevent such a deterioration, but who knows?

      I hope you see your comic series when it's ready. Please let us all know where we can read it :)

      • Crator
        +6

        It eventually happens to every site that gets popular, sadly. The average person just doesn't want to spend time reading a long article and then discussing it or creating content themselves. They view the internet as a place to look at funny pictures. The good news is this format of creating smaller groups helps keep it at bay. Why Reddit lasted longer then digg and others that came before it. Because people can spread out. The invite system here makes it even better, because it requires at least a little effort to even get in. Keeps low effort people away.

        I'll be sure to post it here when I get some made. Problem is between my full time job and just being my own worst enemy/critic I have a hard time making it. I've made stuff in the past but, couldn't get myself to post it cause I just didn't find it up to snuff. This time I am just gonna post what is made. I've come to realize I will probably never be good enough for myself. The life of an artist. shrugs

        • drunkenninja (edited 8 years ago)
          +4

          I am actually looking forward to checking out your work, don't be your own worst enemy, let me do that part for ya :) j/k

          • Crator
            +4

            I'll try not to be, thanks.

        • Moderator
          +3

          I totally understand. I'm a musician and my music is never good enough for my own ears. You're right that you should just post what you have, otherwise you'll never get anywhere. I think any feedback you receive, whether compliments or constructive criticism, can only help you grow as an artist.

          • Crator
            +3

            I have posted some figure drawings on various education boards to help improve. Somehow it feels different putting a comic out there but, I know that ridiculous. This time I will defiantly just put it out there. Thanks.

      • caelreth
        +4

        Agreed - would love to see the series :)

  • bogdan (edited 8 years ago)
    +6

    I take it that the "Morning Coffee" will forever be "Late Afternoon Coffee" for me :)

    On to the question:

    -------------

    I'm going to be criticized to hell for saying this, but I can't help it. This site reminds me of early Digg. And it's not a bad thing.

    Early Digg was a place where people were being nice and active, trying to get acknowledged and encouraging discussion through whatever means possible. It quickly became something nobody expected. Because of it, they didn't know what to do with it. From what I recall, they had way too much hired staff so their finances were on the low, which is why they had to try to find ways to monetize - their approach was to try and appease the corporations.

    This is why when I came here I asked how are the admins going to try to cope with the large influx of users. I feel like the internet has matured a lot since the early Digg age and I really wish to see what this style of community can produce with people that have already gone through good and bad in the online environment and are fully capable of building upon it.

    I love the fact that I came here while this place is growing and I think it's really important that we take our responsibility seriously - the way we shape this place is the way newcomers are going to see it.

    ------------

    How do I want to see it? (radical ideals incoming - they are just ideas)

    1. I wish the downvote button would be abolished. I see no point in it. If you like something, you just do. If you don't, you should go past it and ignore it, or report it if you find it offensive.

    2. I wish discussions would have more priority over articles. I want this community to be driven by the ideas of others more than corporate articles (I know I'm a hypocrite for posting from my news feed, I'll work on fixing this - it just feels like I'm spamming if I start 20 conversations at once).

    3. I would like the Tribes to have a democratic system where if a certain number of people vote on the demotion of one o...

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    • Splitfish
      +6

      I think down votes are essential for the community to self moderate as a whole against spammers and trolls... if used correctly. I doubt the down votes are going anywhere especially since the admins even took the time to improve on those by adding the down vote reason selection functionality not too long ago.

      • drunkenninja (edited 8 years ago)
        +8

        I think down votes are essential for the community to self moderate as a whole against spammers and trolls... if used correctly. I doubt the down votes are going anywhere especially since the admins even took the time to improve on those by adding the down vote reason selection functionality not too long ago.

        In addition, considering the complexity of the comments in a multi-tribe setting for discussion, down votes become ever more essential for the community to self govern from spammers and trolls. I guess the question we should ask ourselves is. How does one moderate a snap that has been posted into multiple tribes? Which chief and set of moderators should be assigned to the task? Should it be the teams from all tribes? Should it be the content poster? Or should it be the community? This is definitely a topic I feel is worthy of discussion.

      • Cobbydaler
        +5

        I agree, but I do think that they should not affect someone's rep if no reason is given. This may help with downvotes just given for disagreeing with a person's position.

        • [Deleted Profile]

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        • Moderator
          +3

          Good idea.

      • spaceghoti
        +4

        I'm seeing downvotes starting to be used as "I disagree" rather than "this is a bad submission or comment." Do we just live with it?

        • drunkenninja
          +4

          No system is perfect. Luckily the underlaying functionality was built to mitigate this type of behaviour.

          • spaceghoti
            +1

            So we just live with it for now. All right. :)

    • Moderator
      +4

      Great points.

      I think it's vital that Team Snapzu has a vision for the site, along with contingency plans for problems that every successful predecessor has faced. We need to do our best to learn from their mistakes. I agree that early-adopters here have a responsibility to shape the community for the future.

      1. I wonder the same thing about downvotes. I think I will bring that up in tomorrow's Morning Coffee.

      2. Discussions are great, but it's a big ask for users to come up with interesting topics all the time. External content provides something to talk about, and discussion can flourish within the comments. I think that's probably the most natural way, as it's the easiest. Quality discussion posts will be little gems among everything else, and they'll stand out for that reason. Certain tribes will also be more discussion-focused (they may even be limited to such posts), and that's where you and I could hang out.

      3. I agree that there should be a way to handle problematic chiefs and moderators, but do you think voting is the best way?

      • spaceghoti
        +3

        3. I agree that there should be a way to handle problematic chiefs and moderators, but do you think voting is the best way?

        Maybe? Since I have yet to see a forum where there was a reliable mechanism to remove power-mad moderators, I couldn't say if this idea would work or not.

    • Gozzin
      +3

      Perhaps instead of a downvote, a "Report to moderator" instead?

      • spaceghoti
        +3

        I really like this idea. I wish I had more than one upvote to give it.

  • Kysol
    +4

    For me, the Ellen Pao thing wasn't the reason I looked elsewhere, Reddit was getting really stale of recent, so when the FPH ban happened, I saw that this community was slowly growing I decided to jump over. After a week, lets just say that Snapzu occupies a far greater chunk of my browser history than Reddit does.

    My browsing habbits have changed as well, before I was force fed articles hardly ever looking past the front page of Reddit or certain subreddits. Since there's achievements such as Rapid Response, there's a need to hunt down articles via your feeds that are under 30 minutes old. It's frustrating sometimes when articles are slow to pop, but this was a unique action added to my general browsing routine. Never before have I felt a desire to hunt down new articles, I was just happy to have them stuffed down my throat.

    Being the Achievement Farmer (360 GamerScore) that I am, I see the achievements list as a kill list. This is my poison. It's such a simple technique to help encourage users to do more and it's working on me. Here is a thing that I added to a forum that I ran a long time ago. Secret titles. On most forums you have the ability to add a title under your name (if the forum allows), I gave my users the ability to do so at 100 posts. What I did extra was had a list of special numbers that if ever a users post count landed on that number the title was temporarily changed. Certain ones like "42 = The Answer", "123 = Easy as ABC", "314, 3141, 31415 ... = I Like Pi" and so on. The amusing thing was that spammers never caught the titles, but regular users would actually find fun in stumbling over a new title. Sounds stupid, as it was, but it added an extra bit of fun through achieving something new.

    That's another thing that I'm liking about Snapzu at the moment, it feels more like a forum than a fast paced Reddit clone. People are nice, smart, have opinions and are willing to listen and have a civil debate if their opinions differ... unlike Reddit ...

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    • drunkenninja
      +3

      Secret titles. On most forums you have the ability to add a title under your name (if the forum allows), I gave my users the ability to do so at 100 posts. What I did extra was had a list of special numbers that if ever a users post count landed on that number the title was temporarily changed. Certain ones like "42 = The Answer", "123 = Easy as ABC", "314, 3141, 31415 ... = I Like Pi" and so on. The amusing thing was that spammers never caught the titles, but regular users would actually find fun in stumbling over a new title. Sounds stupid, as it was, but it added an extra bit of fun through achieving something new.

      Sounds like a really cool easter egg concept!

      • Kysol
        +3

        It was a fun thing at the time. The way general users are these days (with fast content consumption and aggregation) it would be lost on most. Its still fun to plant easter eggs around the place and let people "stumble" upon them.

  • Cheesemangeur
    +3

    I would like to see more comments from people on snaps. There are quite a few people creating snaps, but it's always a small percentage of users who provide comments. There are a lot of lurkers. It's a very engaging website, and I wish we could discuss more often :) (with the same quality though).

    • drunkenninja
      +3

      Links are tricky, it really depends if the topic is known to a larger number of active users within the currently small community. As snapzu grows there will be many more people that will find the topic comfortable to discuss due to them having knowledge of it. At the moment, niche topics will be quest due to not enough users knowing much about it to warrant a good discussion. This problem will fade with time :)