There is Something Curious About Today's "Hub Of the Day"

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   God shetposted 9 years ago

   As you all know, today's HOD is : "Celebrating Book Lovers Day". When I look at this hub from (the right-hand side of my) 'News Feed' - it says that '308' people are 'following' this hub.
   
   But when I go to the actual hub - it says that only '10' people are following it. The hub contains total 12 comments so far.
   
   
   Is that a system error?

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      Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      The hub in question did not say 305 followers.
      
      After the photo is the title, then the name of the hubber to the left, and on the right is the same green follow button that every profile page on HP has. On the button it says "Follow 305" the way it would on all profiles.
      
      That green button has always represented the followers of hubbers and has never represented the followers of a hub. So I am curious how many people actually misunderstand that particular feature as it represents on HOTD.

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         God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         "That green button has always represented the followers of hubbers and has never represented the followers of a hub."
         
         
         
         ~ Seems like you've become quite conditioned to it.

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            Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I don't think I was "conditioned" to anything (sounds too much like brainwash).

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               God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               'Conditioning' (from Dictionary):  "A learning process in which a person's behavior becomes dependent on the occurrence of a stimulus in his/her environment."

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                  Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Same thing, brainwash...lol.

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                  Sed-meposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  It never ceases to amaze me; the things that ppl choose to make issues of.
                  There are so many things in life that really matter, I can't imagine this is one of them.
                  But I guess we're all different.

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      Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Very cerebral thread, GS. You make some good points.
      
      
      Cardisa is a serious pro and has been writing on HP and elsewhere for many, many years.
      
      
      And lastly, my dictionary has " the process of training to become physically fit by a regimen of exercise, diet, and rest" as the number one meaning for conditioning.

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         Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Alastar.
         
         Maybe HP should consider removing that Button or making it more definable. I think that maybe a lot of people are mistaking it for "follow this hub" link rather than the purpose it was intended.

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            Alastar Packerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Your most welcome, Carol Lee. Sometimes I forget what a learning process HP was in the beginning. GS brought up a good topic and perhaps a change could be made without too much trouble from an engineering aspect?

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               Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I hope a moderator is following this thread. He has brought up a good point. In any case a follow button is never needed for the feed page. I am sure HP would not like to encourage arbitrary following (something they have discouraged before), nor would it be productive to follow a hub you haven't read; so then the follow button serves no read purpose there.
               
               If HP wishes to show how many followers a hubber has they could use a similar feature like the Topics pages, where it shows in brackets beside the hubber's name the amount pf followers.

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   rebekahELLEposted 9 years ago

   The '305' refers to the number of followers for the author.

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      God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It's a very misleading way to 'advertise' a hub. It seems as if 305 people are 'following' that hub. It never attracted my attention, mostly because I do not take the HOD feature too seriously. My eye just went there today, and after spending a few seconds of 'conscious' attention, I was surprised to find that the actual hub contains 12 comments and are followed by only 10 people.
      
      The 'error' is a serious distortion of the reality of that hub's popularity.
      
      
      (That number was '308' just a while ago.)

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   rebekahELLEposted 9 years ago

   The number possibly decreased after a few people thought they were clicking to follow the hub and it went to her profile page.

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      God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      It might've been that they decided to 'unfollow', after realizing that.

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   Jayne Lancerposted 9 years ago

   To be honest, I'd never taken any notice of that number as it appears on my feed, but now you mention it, I see how it could easily be misunderstood. It could pertain to followers of the hub or the hubber.

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      God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That what I've been saying over here.

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   Cardisaposted 9 years ago

   The other point is this and maybe its a matter of me being brainwashed...lol
   
   In order to follow a hub you must first have had some activity on the hub, by clicking the vote buttons or commenting. Hubpages does not have a feature for you to follow a hub you haven't yet read, so it would be counterproductive for HP to have the "follow this hub" button on the feed page. This would not encourage people to actually read the HOTD. Just saying.........

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      Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      That's very true, but wouldn't it be senseless to follow a hubber whose profile you've never seen and whose hubs you've never read? Should you follow a hubber just because one of their hubs was selected HOTD? I'd think the button is there to indicate popularity, but what if the hubber has only a few followers? So, I wonder why the button is there.

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         God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         That 'button' attracts the eye - doesn't it?

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            Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I'd never actually noticed it before, but I don't take much notice of the HOTD feature, anyway.
            
            I think what's strange about having it there is that we're encouraged to follow fellow hubbers discriminately.

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               God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I too never took it very seriously. But the 'numbers' have always kind of attracted my eyes. "306 followers" - now that's something always worthwhile to check out.

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                  Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Yes, that number indicates popularity. But what if it were a newish hubber with only a few followers? What good would the number do then?

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                     God shetposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     In that case, that button would simply 'encourage' us to visit the 'Hub of the Day'. It's better to have some 'numbers' than no number at all. Do you understand what is meant by that?

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                        Jayne Lancerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Yes, I think that's what it is.

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         Cardisaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with that Jayne. It is senseless to follow hubbers without actually having read their hubs.

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