4 ms·

I think you nailed it. This isn't about ads; Facebook is an ad business and it's 6x twitter. This is warrens vs plazas. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are a

by sigil 10y ago

I think you nailed it. This isn't about ads; Facebook is an ad business and it's 6x twitter. This is warrens vs plazas. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are all warrens. Twitter is a plaza. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the-edge-of-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the... Even 5 years ago it wasn't clear whether warrens or plazas would win. They were betting human behavior would change under different constraints -- maybe we'd move beyond our tiny friend networks, come out of our warrens, and have a global party in the plaza. It looks like either we're not ready for that yet, or we'll never be ready for it, because it's suboptimal. That's not to say plazas don't have their place. It's just that right now we prefer to spend most of our time in the comparative safety of the warren.

fnord123 10y ago
The web is setup like a so-called plaza so obviously any time spent in a warren on the web is also in the plaza of the web. >That's not to say plazas don't have their place. It's just that right now we prefer to spend most of our time in the comparative safety of the warren. Reddit (plaza) is 7 on alexa. Well below Facebook's 3rd place ranking, but high enough that I don't think we can say anything meaningful about the warren/plaza distinction outside the simple fact that facebook has implemented user engagement extremely well. Twitter (plaza) is 10th. http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites But note the average time on the site. Reddit outranks Facebook. So I'm not sure that each individual could be said to be spending most of their time in a warren. Of course I think all this doesn't include hits from mobile apps which is probably the majority of the time for all of these sites so you can probably ignore this whole post.
- beaconstudios 10y ago
  reddit is most definitely not a plaza. It's a large website with lots of warrens, each of which is its own echo-chamber.
  - andrewflnr 10y ago
    Reddit most definitely has aspects of both. Some subreddits are niche/echo chambers, but for example the main front page subs have a lot of overlap and fair amount of cross-talk, creating a distinctly plaza-like atmosphere. Heck, a single big public sub probably qualifies as a plaza.
  - fnord123 10y ago
    You don't need permission to join almost any subreddit. You can see anything you want to see. So it's a plaza.
    - beaconstudios 10y ago
      but at the same time, subreddits are generally pretty insular. Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals. There are a few subreddits (generally the defaults) that are more bazaar-like but they are the exception rather than the rule, and are still constrained by a subject and strict rules.
      - fnord123 10y ago
        >Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals. You're mixing metaphors. This discussion is using plaza/warren as defined by GGP's linked block post: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the-edge-of-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the... "A warren is a social environment where no participant can see beyond their little corner of a larger maze... A plaza is an environment where you can easily get to a global/big picture view of the whole thing. " You cannot see any content you would like on facebook; hence it is a warren. You can look at almost any subreddit on Reddit, hence it is a plaza. By the blog post's definition. Cathedral/bazaar is ESR's metaphor for [F]OSS software development happening either behind closed doors or in the open.
        beaconstudios 10y ago
        I'm well aware of that - I was referencing the open/closed concept behind the cathedral/bazaar dichotomy to point to the closed nature of most subreddits - the "warren/plaza" metaphor is pretty crap. Sure, they may be publicly visible, but they're closed in the sense of being a social in-group with norms that require acclimatisation. They're like old-school programmer forums - if you just jump in as a non-member and try to engage you may well be told to GTFO or lurk more.
red_hairing 10y ago
humans are social animals...they need other humans around them that are in the same tribe...it's the global vs nationalism debate (that the media avoids) recapitulated...
cubano 10y ago
I consider myself rather good at vocabulary, but I have no idea what a "warren" is...sure I could look it up but I find it odd that such an opaque reference is used in such a casual way.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  It's a common word? Rabbit warren. Loads of little hidiholes of separate content that are connected by a larger network.
- fnord123 10y ago
  A warren is where rabbits and/or other burrowing creatures live. aka rabbit hole, burrow. It's common enough in children's literature like Watership Down.
- Nilef 10y ago
  A rabbit warren
- richmarr 10y ago
  I was a little surprised by this so looked up how common a word it is. This Google dataset puts it as the 5,109th most frequent word, between cached and slip https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/master/google-10000-english-usa.txt https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/ma... This one from the British National Corpus puts it 7,702nd between "pro" and "frontier" http://www.wordcount.org/main.php http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
  - chrisp_dc 10y ago
    The Google dataset might not be the best for measuring this. Names and abbreviations rank highly. I think Warren Buffet might help contribute to the high ranking of 'warren'.
- dboreham 10y ago
  What?? It's a perfectly ordinary very common English word.

by sigil 10y ago

fnord123 10y ago

The web is setup like a so-called plaza so obviously any time spent in a warren on the web is also in the plaza of the web. >That's not to say plazas don't have their place. It's just that right now we prefer to spend most of our time in the comparative safety of the warren. Reddit (plaza) is 7 on alexa. Well below Facebook's 3rd place ranking, but high enough that I don't think we can say anything meaningful about the warren/plaza distinction outside the simple fact that facebook has implemented user engagement extremely well. Twitter (plaza) is 10th. http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites But note the average time on the site. Reddit outranks Facebook. So I'm not sure that each individual could be said to be spending most of their time in a warren. Of course I think all this doesn't include hits from mobile apps which is probably the majority of the time for all of these sites so you can probably ignore this whole post.

beaconstudios 10y ago
reddit is most definitely not a plaza. It's a large website with lots of warrens, each of which is its own echo-chamber.
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  Reddit most definitely has aspects of both. Some subreddits are niche/echo chambers, but for example the main front page subs have a lot of overlap and fair amount of cross-talk, creating a distinctly plaza-like atmosphere. Heck, a single big public sub probably qualifies as a plaza.
- fnord123 10y ago
  You don't need permission to join almost any subreddit. You can see anything you want to see. So it's a plaza.
  - beaconstudios 10y ago
    but at the same time, subreddits are generally pretty insular. Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals. There are a few subreddits (generally the defaults) that are more bazaar-like but they are the exception rather than the rule, and are still constrained by a subject and strict rules.
    - fnord123 10y ago
      >Reddit isn't a flat bazaar like twitter, it's a series of cathedrals. You're mixing metaphors. This discussion is using plaza/warren as defined by GGP's linked block post: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the-edge-of-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the... "A warren is a social environment where no participant can see beyond their little corner of a larger maze... A plaza is an environment where you can easily get to a global/big picture view of the whole thing. " You cannot see any content you would like on facebook; hence it is a warren. You can look at almost any subreddit on Reddit, hence it is a plaza. By the blog post's definition. Cathedral/bazaar is ESR's metaphor for [F]OSS software development happening either behind closed doors or in the open.
      - beaconstudios 10y ago
        I'm well aware of that - I was referencing the open/closed concept behind the cathedral/bazaar dichotomy to point to the closed nature of most subreddits - the "warren/plaza" metaphor is pretty crap. Sure, they may be publicly visible, but they're closed in the sense of being a social in-group with norms that require acclimatisation. They're like old-school programmer forums - if you just jump in as a non-member and try to engage you may well be told to GTFO or lurk more.

red_hairing 10y ago

humans are social animals...they need other humans around them that are in the same tribe...it's the global vs nationalism debate (that the media avoids) recapitulated...

cubano 10y ago

I consider myself rather good at vocabulary, but I have no idea what a "warren" is...sure I could look it up but I find it odd that such an opaque reference is used in such a casual way.

mattmanser 10y ago
It's a common word? Rabbit warren. Loads of little hidiholes of separate content that are connected by a larger network.
fnord123 10y ago
A warren is where rabbits and/or other burrowing creatures live. aka rabbit hole, burrow. It's common enough in children's literature like Watership Down.
Nilef 10y ago
A rabbit warren
richmarr 10y ago
I was a little surprised by this so looked up how common a word it is. This Google dataset puts it as the 5,109th most frequent word, between cached and slip https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/master/google-10000-english-usa.txt https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/ma... This one from the British National Corpus puts it 7,702nd between "pro" and "frontier" http://www.wordcount.org/main.php http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
- chrisp_dc 10y ago
  The Google dataset might not be the best for measuring this. Names and abbreviations rank highly. I think Warren Buffet might help contribute to the high ranking of 'warren'.
dboreham 10y ago
What?? It's a perfectly ordinary very common English word.