[pg]

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is.

One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations. Beyond that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and traffic is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging founders to figure out more details, in this case I've advised Dustin to let this grow and see what it turns into.

I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what this turns into. And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you want to keep hating. Though this was not a deliberate strategy by Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt by all the hate), being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.

[beefman]

I haven't followed the Dustin-drama. In fact I don't know anything about it, but that something happened one day and he changed his tag line from "hero" to "villain".

But I've followed more than a few links from Hacker News to articles on Svbtle over the past months and came away with the strong sense that they're of unusually low quality. Maybe I'm just not the target audience, but the articles I've seen have been vacuous without exception. I went to the home page just now and scrolled down and found more of the same. Having been the editor of a print magazine in a past life, I'm a fan of the curated approach, and I like much of the front-page content on Hacker News, so this surprised me.

It looks like saved stories aren't public here, so I can't use them as a constructive example of content I think is good. But I use reddit for similar purposes

http://www.reddit.com/user/clumma/liked/

and here are my Google +1s (from Reader)

https://plus.google.com/115045287509032322837/plusones

If I had to describe the Svbtle content direction, I'd say it's like somebody is randomly scraping longer comments off of TechCrunch articles and putting them into a blogging system.

[ImprovedSilence]

>> came away with the strong sense that they're of unusually low quality

I couldn't agree more. I guess I'm out of the loop of the drama involved, but every article I've read seems very light/thin, and had no real substance, outside of the standard SV gossip. I actually kinda go out of my way to avoid reading them when I see a svtle link on HN...

[bpatrianakos]

That sounds like a wonderful idea until you take a step back and realize it's not all that profound or even interesting. I get it but at the same time it doesn't make sense. What I see is a guy who is playing kingmaker by "giving people the tools" to blog and all writing under the same banner. There's nothing to this and it basically already exists in every other blog network ever. It seems we're somehow to believe the minimalist theme and the fact that it's SV-in-crowd Dustin Curtis orchestrating this thing with fellow SV-in-crowd pals makes this something other than an ordinary blog network.

On one level I get it. It's not about what it actually is, it's about the feeling, the aura, this attitude about it that makes it feel special. On the other hand, it's just another blog network. To me, I see it as the difference between Newsweek and the New Yorker. It's all about the public sentiment. Or maybe I missed the mark completely but when I hear things along the lines of "well people are haters and it's kinda hard to get but you'll see" they seem kind of like cop-outs to me.

There's nothing wrong with Suvbtle at all though. No one should have a problem with the basic idea. What I, and I think others, have a problem with is the sneaky feeling that this is just another blog network and we're being told it's somehow more and special. Like we're being served hamburger but someone's calling it filet mignon. I've eaten my share of beef and I've read the Svbtle network blogs and I know when I'm being fed ground beef.

[tomkin]

I think most people separate Svbtle from Dustin, although I don't think Dustin necessary is advocating for this separation himself. You can see this in the comments. When people are being critical, it generally leans towards Dustin and not the product. When people are boasting Svtble, they rarely mention Dustin. There's a reason for that.

It was clear to most that Dustin was expecting adoration and when that didn't happen, the conversation changed.

I don't know how many tweets, posts and "thoughts" I read where Dustin was "abandoning HN" or laying claim to "the downfall of HN"[2], only to end up back here posting some other ego-laden[3] dribble.

"You're welcome", I believe is what used to be on the footer of Svtble. Really gets me thinking about how modest he is.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3749035

[2] https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/182986897444966402

[3] https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/183394426914217984

[notatoad]

I don't see how anybody can separate Svbtle from Dustin. The whole selling point is that it is curated by him. It's a collection of blogs from authors that he likes. The product here is Dustin Curtis's opinion, not the content or the platform. Blog posts and blogging platforms are a dime a dozen, the only differentiating factor of Svbtle is Dustin Curtis's curation.

[tomkin]

> The whole selling point is that it is curated by him.

I disagree. I doubt Subtle is getting funded because of Dustin Curtis' audience. For funding, the conversation of "market" had to come up and if the answer to "market" was "Dustin Curtis' fanbase", the investors would have had to be nuts to proceed. How big is the "Dustin Curtis" following? Hundred? Several hundred? A few thousand?

I don't think so.

[jm3]

At least 40,000 if Twitter followers are anything to judge by: https://twitter.com/dcurtis

[tomkin]

You're kidding, right?

[kami8845]

I think a lot of the initial dislike stems from the svbtle/obtvse thing, where Dustin went into all-out-rage because someone cloned what amounted to not-much-more than a Wordpress theme.

That and the air of superiority within the announcement: svbtle would only be used by people who are "intelligent and witty" implying that everyone who couldn't, wasn't.

[nchlswu]

It definitely stems from both factors you mentioned. No one really knows who Dustin is and he's established a brand as a person who aspires for the best and is very opinionated. For better or for worse, most commenters only really know that about him. His response to the Svbtle clones on top of the personality he added to the Svbtle announement really acted as a tipping point for most peoples' perceptions about him.

Unfortunately, like you allude to, most people also saw his reaction simply to being a stolen theme, and don't appreciate that it was intended to be much more than that.

The network's introduction introduced Dustin's concept and site. If you ever visited his blog before that, it's clear he was building the site before. Part of the introduction was sharing a novel approach to the blogging workflow and get a glimpse of the CMS. If it's "just a theme," you'd imagine that people would steal some of the more interesting things, like his approach to editing, or build on it. Instead, people insisted on duplicating the theme -- some just to spite Dustin.

Dustin was explicit about his goals in the beginning - to create a great publishing/blogging network. If yoiu look at how it's panned out, people are making Svbtle their personal blogs and the theme is the differentiator. writers were willing to forego a complete branding of their website and demonstrated they were willing to accept this brand. When you're working to build a brand and key piece is plagiarized (and subsequently insulted by people who don't understand the work that goes behind it), the reaction is a bit more understandable.

I'm being polite. I recognize that it interpretations may differ

[nchlswu]

I've exceeded my editing time window, but asterisks are located before and after the italicized text.

They were intended as footnotes, but I forgot I was writing in markdown

[oinksoft]

Can we all agree to stop calling critics "haters"?

[pg]

I think not. Haters are distinctive enough that it would make the language less expressive to discard the word and merge it into "critic."

I'm slow to adopt new words, but I think "hater" is a useful addition to the language, and not simply a pejorative version of "critic." The difference is that a critic is what you're called as a byproduct of being critical in a particular instance, whereas being a hater is an ongoing state of mind. So for example it is reasonable to say "he was sometimes a critic of the administration's policy" but not to say "he was sometimes a hater of the administration's policy."

"Hater" is not a pejorative version of "critic" so much as a negative version of "fan." In fact the distinctive thing about a hater is how uncritical his responses are.

[waterlesscloud]

Then isn't the word "haters" misapplied here?

What I've seen in this thread is that people have reasons for disliking Dustin, some of which directly relate to Svbtle. To the extent that they don't directly relate, though, people are quite explicitly saying they evaluate Svbtle separate from Dustin.

And by far the most common reaction expressed is a lack of understanding any valid business model for the network, which in your op you say is quite understandable.

What I don't see in this thread is any willful misconstruing of the project. Which seems to be the requirement for a "hater".

[pg]

HN users are sophisticated enough not to simply post comments saying "I hate Dustin Curtis." Here they resort to something more akin to concern trolling.

The way you can tell something is amiss is the volume of commenters who seem worried about e.g. how Dustin is going to make money. If most startups issued such a bland funding announcement, it would sink beneath the surface of HN with barely a ripple of comment.

[lmm]

I hate Dustin Curtis.

[tptacek]

Man I have never wanted to see a company succeed more than I want to see Curtis' thing succeed now. What a bunch of wangs you all are.

If this is some kind of genius nerd underdog sympathy marketing ploy, I've never seen it done better.

[jspthrowaway2]

Really? Wondering how to monetize a blogazine is concern trolling driven by hating Dustin Curtis?

I worry that moderating this community has jaded you. (That's concern trolling.) It's a valid question, and one I'd ask of any blogazine that received funding; do you stick ads on it? Charge a subscription fee? Sell user data?

[pg]

Not all of it, no, but some of it. (The whole point of concern trolling is that the two are indistinguishable, so you only notice something's amiss when you see odd patterns.)

[oh_sigh]

You are correct with your definition of hater. The problem is that your original post doesn't leave any room for critics who comprehend the svbtles game plan, but still find it unappealing. The implication from your post is that 1) a community misunderstanding exists, and 2) that misunderstanding is caused by either people not being intelligent enough to see what svbtle is doing, or people having a personal vendetta against Dustin.

[wmf]

We don't know what Svbtle's game plan is. We don't even know the set of all possible Svbtle business models (as some people are criticizing), because there are business models that haven't been invented yet.

[oh_sigh]

You are correct. But if that is the standard you hold critics to, as opposed to making statements based on all information available at a given time, then no critics would exist, because it is always possible for any group to enter unknown territory.

[jerrya]

My problem with the word hater, seeing how it's used at other sites, is that it stops any dialogue and dismisses even valid argument with a permanent label.

So earlier, I posted how I would like to know more about their business plan, because well, it seems hard to understand how they plan to make money. Now I have to worry my comments will be seen as critical and I will be lumped in as a "hater".

Because that's the behavior at other sites. "Hater" allows and encourages polarization.

(Also, I am not sure if on the spectrum hater is related to fan so much as it is related to fanboy.)

[diminish]

but 'hater' smells like a categorical ad hominem attack which may kill any critical thinking against someone 'you' like. neither 'i hate', nore 'you are hater' belong to a mindful discussion where experiences and reasonings collide, imho.

edit: despite saying that, i am indeed a curious follower of dustin curtis, which i learned during recent discussions, he was fiercely and mostly wrongly criticized. (namely, i have personal positive impression in my limbic system for him).

[graue]

Paul, I'm disappointed to see this from you. Calling someone a “hater”, no matter how carefully and eruditely you define the term, is still an ad hominem attack intended to dismiss their opinion. It's a DH1 on your disagreement hierarchy.

I visit Hacker News because, while not perfect, it does the best job of any internet forum I know of minimizing that kind of cheap attack. It worries me to see the person who created that forum publicly setting a bad example like this. You're basically saying, “ur all just haters, forget u guyz!!1” even if, superficially, the words you use seem smarter and more reasonable. And beyond being an unconvincing argument, I don't think it reflects well on you to be stooping so low (and flat-out insulting so many people) to defend your investment.

[nkohari]

Not to be pedantic, but the word "hater" typically refers to a person who dislikes someone out of jealousy.

I think a lot of people dislike Dustin Curtis not because they're jealous of his notoriety, but rather because of his attitude -- or at least the personality he projects on the internet.

[sachingulaya]

Although I disagree with pg's usage of 'hater'(it's arrogantly dismissive in this context) I thought I would provide the surprisingly poignant urbandictionary.com definition:

" A person that simply cannot be happy for another person's success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.

Hating, the result of being a hater, is not exactly jealousy. The hater doesnt really want to be the person he or she hates, rather the hater wants to knock somelse down a notch."

[kmfrk]

It's just baffling to see a public response so low on the taxonomic scale of debate. I couldn't agree more.

It reminds me of pg's response to the Airbnb case.

[lobster_johnson]

I must have missed that, what as "the Airbnb case"?

[kmfrk]

I'm away from my desktop computer (and Opera's bookmark sync doesn't work on my MacBook Air, the PoS), but these two articles seem to capture the imbroglio well enough:

- http://www.pehub.com/114113/what-not-to-do-in-a-crisis-%E2%8...

- http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fau...

[lobster_johnson]

Thanks!

[glomph]

Especially when many of them are making quite long and thought out points. Haters seems appropriate to me only when applied to the most vacuous of comments. Real points deserve real responses or at least the respect of being called comments or criticisms not hate.

[nchlswu]

That's fair, but I feel like the majority of comments I've read through appear that the poster cannot separate the prospects of Svbtle with their perception of Dustin and his brand. Those aren't critics. They're haters.

[Avshalom]

The prospects of Svbtle are directly related to the brand of the people involved though.

[nchlswu]

If I understand you correctly, you're saying Dustin's reputation can negatively affect the prospects of Svbtle.

While Dustin's brand own brand spills over into Svbtle's, I think the network's prospects can be sufficiently differentiated from Dustin's brand.

Seems to me that the network is becoming large enough where the "tech blog" echo chamber opinion (about one individual) is inconsequential to Svbtle's fate

[alexqgb]

That also suggests that if Svbtle were to find its way into something good, Curtis may not be seen as essential to ongoing success, whatever that may be. It's founder as catalyst, rather than architect, making it more like Twitter, less like Apple.

[readymade]

Perhaps instead of treating "haters" as a pejorative term one should feel inclined to stand by it. I don't see what's so odious about wanting to see assholes fail. If there's any justice or karma in the world, I'd expect it.

[geuis]

@teej No, but it makes you into one too.

[jerrya]

Congratulations to Svtble for their funding.

I am curious as to what their business plan is, especially for a blog network that strives to minimalism, having an ad presence would seem anathema.

And to that end, I am curious why anyone would fund them -- what is it that they offer in terms of being able to generate income that makes them more viable than say, any old "webring" that uses the same CSS?

Or makes them different from various other focused blogging sites: science 2.0, freethoughtblogs, pjmedia, etc., none of which seem to be doing especially well as far as I know.

My problem with svbtle is that unlike Salon/The Atlantic/ArsTechnica/JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE/ since there is no masthead, or links from one svtble writer to another, so at this moment, I don't see a real difference between svbtle the company, and svtble the CSS design sheet. So I don't see how they build up brand, or how they build on top of network effects since they don't link from one author to another. (And should ads be added and mastheads and footers added well will social toolbars and unother unsubtle widgets be far behind?)

And while I read svbtle when I come across it, I find their content not much better, not much worse than anyone elses.

(I will say, I am much less put off by svtble writers once I had adblock plus block their 0-click kudos.)

[bpatrianakos]

My thoughts exactly. But now you're a hater and you just don't get it. It's okay though because I'm there with you. In the end a lot of us will be searching for the answer to the question "why is this so special" and the reason we're so baffled is because we assume that the simplest answer can't be right. But I think it is! THe answer is that this is nothing more than a regular blog network with a minimalist theme and a well known SV insider. It's about the feeling and not what it actually is. Simple as that.

But you know, there's really nothing wrong with that! The problem I have is that so many want to pass this off like it's something new and special when really it's the same old shit with a new name. Maybe if someone would just say "yeah, DCurtis is creating a blog network and it's cool because of who he is, who he knows, and the stylesheet" then I'd be happy and say "cool, I'll read it".

[sharkweek]

I can appreciate an organic ecosystem, and the exclusivity of writing for Svbtle sure has an appeal, but monetization on something like this seems incredibly difficult. Do they take it a full WordPress direction with hosting, etc? Or does it fully flesh out into a reputable online magazine with ads and the like. Maybe I'm not creative enough to see another viable option, but either way, I still think it's a cool project.

shrug

[_b8r0]

How does Svbtle distinguish itself from any of the other blogging networks that emerged towards the end of the last decade?

Looking at the front page and at Ethan Kaplan's posts in an unscientific way it appears as though everyones posts on Svbtle make the front page (although I could be wrong and if so please say so - I didn't take a particularly large sample). I'm not sure where the curation is.

It seems that anyone can apply to join svbtle, but it's not clear why they'd choose to versus hosting their own blog or writing online for traditional print outlets.

Is there an editorial process for posts on Svbtle?

I ask this because I want to get my head around what makes it special compared to other blog networks. I don't really care who Dustin is (one of the benefits of not being in the valley I guess) or what he's done/not done.

[huhtenberg]

> hate

I suspect that a good chunk of hate comes from that Kudos widget not having an Undo. It comes across as cocky, hence the backlash.

[hornbaker]

It has an undo, but it could be more discoverable. Click and hold on the Kudos button for a couple of seconds, then release, and the count will go back down. Works on Chrome and iOS Safari for me.

[pclark]

Hacker News doesn't have an undo button for upvotes and no one seems to care.

[thristian]

I've seen a few social media sites before, and HN's upvote button looks how I expect an upvote button to look, and it's positioned where I expect an upvote button to be (next to a corresponding downvote button). Most importantly, it only activates with a mouse-click, which is the conventional way for a user to request some kind of state-change on the web.

By contrast, the kudos widget looks like nothing in particular, its location doesn't correspond to any convention I'm aware of, and mild curiosity (mouseover) is taken to mean enthusiastic support.

To me, the kudos widget makes me feel like somebody took advantage of me in an unguarded moment and stole a dollar. It's not much, in the grand scheme of things, but rubs me the wrong way.

[DanBC]

I don't know if this makes you a hater, or someone who just can't appreciate great design, or something else.

[jerrya]

Yeah, but

1) there's no down-kudo, and 2) kudos are mysterious, what's a kudo, and then SURPRISE, it's a 0-click rollover vote.

I find kudos deceptive for both those reasons. That's not what subtle should mean.

[jspthrowaway2]

Every now and then someone will complain about it, usually after fat fingering on an iPhone.

[nodesocket]

> being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.

Very true. I am sure Dustin has a vision which obviously we don't fully see yet. Still, it seems a bit absurd for a blog to raise. But hey, let's all wait and see what comes. After all, the investment was probably in Dustin and team, and not necessary in Svbtle.

[oh_sigh]

So it is huffington post with a focus on tech/startups?

[jspthrowaway2]

I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same; there's been discussion about this recently linked elsewhere in the thread that I won't rehash here. If he's genuinely confused by the hate, that'd be surprising to me. I'm willing to be corrected on my opinion and come around, for what it's worth.

That said, I couldn't care less about Svbtle, frankly, though I certainly understand what it is. Good luck with Y Combinator's investment is my sole commentary on this news: I'm smart enough to divide between Dustin Curtis and Svbtle and realize that my thoughts on and the trajectory of one don't necessarily impact the other.

[w1ntermute]

> I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same

I'm guessing that pg's comment was at least partially in response to my own below[0], and you've exactly stated my issue with Curtis and the Svbtle network. There's nothing horribly wrong with the general concept behind Svbtle - perhaps it'll work, perhaps not. It's definitely legitimate enough that it's worth a shot.

But the way dcurtis went about it - the way he worded his initial post on Svbtle, his responses to the Svbtle theme being cloned, and so on, were very off-putting, to say the least. Moreover, the fact that he was so fixated on people copying the theme suggests that he was placing value in the wrong things in Svbtle.

To use a newspaper analogy, is it the layout of the NYTimes that gives it prestige and distinguishes it from your average tabloid rag? Is it the font? Is it the type of paper they use, or the size of the paper? No, it's the content, and the people who create it.

By stirring up such an enormous shitstorm over some people copying the Svbtle theme and creating RoR[1] or WP[2] clones, dcurtis gave up his reputation (which is actually important for running something like Svbtle) in a futile attempt to preserve the uniqueness of the Svbtle theme (which isn't all that important). His best hope now is to spread Svbtle outside the tech community, to people who aren't familiar with him, and thus don't have any impression of him at all yet.

0: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027577

1: https://github.com/NateW/obtvse

2: https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle

[bravura]

I've only been following Svbtle with passive interest, so I cannot recall or comment on how his responses may have been off-putting.

I would like to explain my hypothesis as to why he jumped on the fact that people copied the theme.

Consider pg's statement: "it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations"

If you are building brand around a loose confederation of writers, decentralized between domain boundaries, then brand recognition (and, conversely, brand dilution) is an important issue.

Just to dig into your example a little further: Yes, the value in the NYTimes is the content. But if you can't tell whether the content is from the NYTimes or a knock-off competitor, then you don't get the value of recognition when you see something that resembles the NYTimes before you consume the content. So brand differentiation is important for value-creation.

As I said, I don't know how he addressed this question of brand dilution. Nor do I know exactly what the right way to preserve the brand of a loosely federated organization on the wild wild web. Perhaps a trademarked seal for all participating sites?

[batgaijin]

I think he's a bit of a d too, but I never heard about the AA story and just looked it up[1]. I assumed someone got fired because he was whining, but it seems AA fired someone for breaking their NDA to talk about why the website was so crappy. So, to me the story is more AA being the asshole in that story.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6531610/America...

[jspthrowaway2]

When classifying assholes, there's no rule that states only one party can come out the asshole. Nobody won in that situation.

[lucisferre]

I'm not sure how anything Dustin did there would classify him as an asshole. Maybe I'm missing something.

He blogged about not liking the aesthetics of a website, sparked a discussion with on of the designers of that site and then AA fired the guy and Dustin said that he was "horrified" that it happened.

What's missing?

[Confusion]

Why do you feel the need to post this? Most here don't know you, don't know Dustin Curtis and couldn't care less about what you think of him personally. Your comment doesn't add any information to this discussion.

[rdl]

I would really draw a distinction between "as a person" and professional persona. I don't like a lot of things people say on the Internet, but I'd generally trust even those people to be reasonable people in other contexts. And there are people I respect professionally who turn out to be utterly obnoxious in real life or one on one social settings.

[FredBrach]

What is the (unique) feature of Svbtel?