Yeah but for new people it can be very demotivating. When I ran an indoor football club I was always very diligent to make sure the new players had a great experience.
One thing Marc could do is just add an additional option to hide it from the UI while still providing your "seen" data to help others stay motivated.
If you scroll down a chronological feed, the view count will be the same for all posts you scroll past.
The only scenario where a view count would make a difference, is for algorithmic feeds. But the network is not large enough for that, and then you get into the realm of dark patterns, which is the reason behind social media addiction.
Encouraging people is a valid point, but I think a better way to solve that is through community culture. Such as creating a better experience for welcoming new members.
What you are talking about with your football club example is coaching.
You could divide motivation on WIP into two categories:
- Indirect: Likes and comments
- Direct: Mentorship
If someone needs more hands-on help with their startup, a new feature could be a mentorship page, where members can subscribe to calls with successful makers.
It's like playing football with friends or strangers, vs. hiring a coach.
But then you have to weigh that against what sort of community you want to make. If people then get more reluctant to help others without getting paid.
Encouraging people is a valid point, but I think a better way to solve that is through community culture.
I think this disagreement is an empirical question that we won't be able to resolve through written debate. The only way to know who is correct would be to run an A/B experiment that measured the effect on people, especially new members. I'd be willing to bet it'll make people more likely to stick around, although I also suspect the effect will probably be minimal unless other things are done to encourage interaction with new members. For example, Facebook suggests that FB Group admins create "Welcome!" posts tagging new members and encouraging others to say Hi.
What you are talking about with your football club example is coaching.
It was a very casual co-ed club that met once a week for an hour or two to play, there wasn't any coaching involved. But I saw firsthand how important it is for new people to have a great first experience to keep them coming back.
Yeah but for new people it can be very demotivating. When I ran an indoor football club I was always very diligent to make sure the new players had a great experience.
One thing Marc could do is just add an additional option to hide it from the UI while still providing your "seen" data to help others stay motivated.
If you scroll down a chronological feed, the view count will be the same for all posts you scroll past.
The only scenario where a view count would make a difference, is for algorithmic feeds. But the network is not large enough for that, and then you get into the realm of dark patterns, which is the reason behind social media addiction.
Encouraging people is a valid point, but I think a better way to solve that is through community culture. Such as creating a better experience for welcoming new members.
What you are talking about with your football club example is coaching.
You could divide motivation on WIP into two categories:
- Indirect: Likes and comments
- Direct: Mentorship
If someone needs more hands-on help with their startup, a new feature could be a mentorship page, where members can subscribe to calls with successful makers.
It's like playing football with friends or strangers, vs. hiring a coach.
But then you have to weigh that against what sort of community you want to make. If people then get more reluctant to help others without getting paid.
I think this disagreement is an empirical question that we won't be able to resolve through written debate. The only way to know who is correct would be to run an A/B experiment that measured the effect on people, especially new members. I'd be willing to bet it'll make people more likely to stick around, although I also suspect the effect will probably be minimal unless other things are done to encourage interaction with new members. For example, Facebook suggests that FB Group admins create "Welcome!" posts tagging new members and encouraging others to say Hi.
It was a very casual co-ed club that met once a week for an hour or two to play, there wasn't any coaching involved. But I saw firsthand how important it is for new people to have a great first experience to keep them coming back.