Thinking out loud: How does Visual Grid View influence our engagement behavior?

TL;DR — How Visual Grid View influence our engagement behavior?

Visual Grid View launched, and I’m super excited about it! I like how it looks on Desktop especially. But I haven’t applied it to communities I manage, like , yet.

Even though the community has a lot of images, I’ve been waffling on the consequences of turning it on. So I’ve been waiting to observe how it might affect community behavior by paying close attention to others who have applied it as default.

I’ve mostly kept my thoughts to myself until poking my head back in minutes ago made this question louder in my head. So here I am writing stuff down. I don’t have any clear answers to these questions, so I figure it will be interesting to see what either Digg or the community at large has to say.

In that community, started posting some awesome illustrations to get it started. They are really cool and I like all of them! Then I noticed the most recent post in there by , which I found to be really well done, too! The polish is immaculate. The grid looks 10/10. No notes!

Then (and this may say more about me, but I still think its worth sharing out loud because surely I can’t be the only one?!), looking at the grid my immediate thought was, oh… all these posts are REALLY good—I’m not sure I’d fit in or there’d be room for sharing my super novice digital illustrations. I’m still learning, practicing. I’m a total amateur haha.

But let me also say and acknowledge: The community is still new, and yes of course I’m not so naive as to believe others would actually say any unkind things. People on here have been very nice overall, in my experience. So of course I’d feel welcomed. But I remain curious about the kind of impact small tweaks like this can have on the platform as a whole. I think it’s good to ponder those things!

I also remembered coming across another community with a default grid view. I think it was , a community which I also think is really cool and worth checking out!

I recall post from a user in that community the other day where a discussion was being had, and it was said that the post would only stay up for an additional 24 hours. Then the user or manager would remove it, because it breaks the “vibe” or flow of the community. It values flow of visual content, so I can understand the justification. I think that’s also why this post (now pinned) in the community now exists.

Though I just checked and as of this writing, I think it has changed back to list layout view. (I can’t confirm my memory if it was grid in the first place though)

Anyway, this is absolutely not intended to be a negative criticism of those places, or even Grid View. I think both communities are neat and cool, and I love that they exist. They are doing a great job running them. Digg is growing, and it’s great to see! :)

It’s just that, thinking about this momentary feeling earlier I had reminded me of something I’ve seen or experienced in the past. So better to say it now than later when it feels impossible to talk address.

It made me think of the intersection of curation and authenticity. It made me think of public Pinterest boards, how people used to use Instagram to curate a personal brand through filters or stylized posts (before the big push into endless video), and even a bunch of discussions that have been had in about how creativity is explored online when it’s ok for the internet to be seen as a place for experimentation.

It made me think of “vibes” and what that means in terms of not just how communities are curated, but also how we curate ourselves in digital spaces and through online personas. (Maybe this one’s a deeper question best left to my uni days in essays exploring culture, art, and technology, but I digress)

I don’t have fully formed opinions on any of these thoughts. In fact, I have even more questions without answers I’m continuing to think about, that I just wanted to share with the community at large:

What are the intended and unintended consequences of Visual Grid View, if any?
What was Digg’s desired outcome / metric for success with this view mode?
Does this format make the end user feel like more of a passive consumer or feel more encouraged to be an active poster?
Should we give consideration to how this might make a community feel more or less inviting or uninviting, welcoming or unwelcoming?
Does removing posts that break the “vibe” of a community influence its historical record?
Should I make Visual Grid View the default for ? Would that deter text posts, which I also value?

Side note:

I’m sorry. I knowwww I went on way longer than I intended. Maybe also these longer form thoughts or questions are better reserved for a blog post or something. I hesitate to share bits like this in the open out of a feeling of insecurity, mostly because I often see the internet today easily devolve into a place where posts longer than a paragraph or two get responses like “it’s not that deep, bro” or “you care way too much.”

To which I respectfully respond:

But I don’t want Digg to be that kind of place. I personally think caring is a good thing. Caring about stuff is a good thing. I think Digg can be pretty special, and I care about helping cultivate nicer spaces.

Digg is still early, and I really want to steer thoughtful discussion if I can help it. I tire of spaces where everything gets reduced to shallow remarks, and I’m still willing to bet we as individuals at this level have more influence than we think, however loud people or our inner thoughts are.