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StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

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Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#51

Post by jadedhacker »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #20
jclos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

Hate to be that guy, but while people being somewhat shittier anonymously is a real thing, there are whole cadres of incredibly horrible people that will post horrible stuff under their real names and be proud of it. Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society.

I think our online personas are just a reflection of our culture. Our culture sucks, so our online personas suck.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#52

Post by godzillabrennus »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #26

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago. So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it. One of the guy…

My brother... that is not even remotely embarrassing...

IMHO you should go do some dumb stuff and live a little.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#53

Post by philipkglass »

egfx wrote: post #22
dmschulman wrote: post #2

StumbleUpon was one of the first web services I came across that actually provided a new and exciting way to traverse the internet. I'll never forget the sense of discovery and wonder and amusement it provided, my only other sources for cool and interesting content were things my friends would share with me or sites I would find via an article/web page. StumbleUpon took me out of my "filter bubble" if you will and in…

Yep. Stumble Upon was great for that. Using it was like pressing buttons on a slot machine. I think Stumble Upon lost it's way soon after they dropped the Firefox toolbar in favor of the integrated iFrame. Only Yahoo! when it first came out, made me feel the way SU did.

StumbleUpon had a Firefox extension up until the last, but the original toolbar was a victim of Firefox's removal of XUL/XPCOM extensions in newer versions. Firefox has made a lot of improvements lately but I still miss the broader, more powerful variety of extensions that Firefox used to support.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#54

Post by krapp »

jadedhacker wrote: post #51
tacostakohashi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

Hate to be that guy, but while people being somewhat shittier anonymously is a real thing, there are whole cadres of incredibly horrible people that will post horrible stuff under their real names and be proud of it. Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society. I think our online personas are just a reflect…

> Losing anonymity means losing protections for actually vulnerable people. The shittiest people are often the ones with the most secure positions in society.

Case in point - Google forcibly merging Google+ comments into Youtube comments.

It didn't end trolling or harassment on the platform at all... people were are are perfectly willing to be vile under their real names, but it did expose a lot of people's personal information and real names to that cesspool against their will.

Also, Usenet. A lot of people posted with headers including their real name or an email containing their real name, yet it wasn't exactly a bastion of civility because of it.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#55

Post by rndgermandude »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #26

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago. So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it. One of the guy…

My most embarrassing moment in my life so far included underage me, alcohol, a fjord, nudity, and a group of Norwegian strangers...

What would I give to swap that for "I recommended SU to a literal surfer" :D

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#56

Post by [deleted] »

overkalix wrote: post #28
simonbarker87 wrote: post #26

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago. So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it. One of the guy…

This is the most embarrassing moment of your life? You amateur.

[deleted]

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#57

Post by haggy »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #26

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago. So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it. One of the guy…

My most embarrassing moment included myself, an extreme amount of alcohol, and me running backwards up a one way street with my pants down resulting in me mooning a cop driving up the street toward me.... so yea like others said, you gotta get out more.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#58

Post by jandrese »

dghughes wrote: post #27
tacostakohashi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

YouTube is as bad or worse as reddit. The more you look at one topic the more it is shown to you. You end up in a feedback loop the same thing.

Youtube's suggestion system filters you towards the most extremist videos. It's a big problem and one that they don't seem interested at all in solving.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#59

Post by jandrese »

ythn wrote: post #49
tacostakohashi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

Just unsubscribe all subreddits, and only opt-in to interesting, niche communities. My feed got 10000x less toxic after I unsubbed from /r/politics, /r/news, and the like

That's the opposite of solving the filter bubble problem though.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#60

Post by brownbat »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #37
jclos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a comment section kind of ruins it since I am not disciplined enough to ignore it. As to fixing reddit, I agree with your changes, but you'd run into the same issue all candidates for remplacement ran into: reddit delivers value through the network effect. You ne…

Oh, right, another radical thought of mine - something that users would pay for. Even if it were just $1/month, one account per credit card only, it would serve as another little barrier to all the right people, and prevent throwaways and constant account deletion. Obviously for a commercial, advertiser-funded operation, it is all about more and more users and traffic and the quality of the content isn't a priority,…

There used to be a mashup of random YouTube comments on one side, and random metafilter comments on the other testing, really validating, this theory.

The difference was pretty stark. I could only find breadcrumbs:

https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs...

An example might be archived somewhere...

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