Exit Tribes, Stage Left?

I was quite big on Tribes.net when I first found out about it, elated at a “Friendster without the suck” (which should be the Tribes slogan). Even with the hot new Fleshbot singing its (erotic) praises I can’t shake the urge to get up and split from it. What changed?

Well, maybe it’s what didn’t. Or what doesn’t. Community sites, of the hip social networking variety or otherwise, have a coolness carrying capacity (CCC). Once the CCC is exceeded for a forum, mailing list, IRC channel, group weblog, or a site like Tribes the usefulness and entertainment value of the community both make a halo jump race for zero. The problem is, it’s not that these communities are attracting the wrong people, it’s just that they’re attracting people at all. The larger the group of people, the more stupid/useless/annoying people present. Simple as that. Good communities become victims of their own quality. And oh yeah: the good communities aren’t the elite moderated ones. There’s no way around the CCC.

Tribes breached the CCC sometime in late September. When I signed on it already had a very Left Coast vibe (lots of Burning Man-heads, tribes repping San Francisco, that sort of crap), but at least it wasn’t the total deadbeat/sleazemonger/idiot/whore refuge that Friendster is. That’s started to change as the Fleshbot linkage above demonstrates. I’m as frisky as the next cat, to be sure, but robot sex fetish discussion groups betray at least terminal goofiness in a community. And that’s fine for most people, so that sort of fluff increases exponentially as more people join in.

Maybe I’m a social networking misanthrope or something. At the very least I’ve had no success trying to use Tribes for one its major intended purposes: as a “trusted” classified ads system, Craigslist. Wasn’t able to find a server rack, someone to go out to a jungle/drum-n-bass night with in all of DC/MD/VA, and now not much luck trying to sell my iBook. Since Tribes is pretty much just the classifieds and awkward, limited message boards, I’d say it’s not doing a brilliant job. Maybe I’d have more luck if I was in San Francisco.

I’ll stick around for another week or so, see if anything interesting happens. I’ve been invited to join a lot of Tribes, and have had some interesting people spontaneously request to be in my circle of friends. I like the recipe tribe. But it’s by and large not worth my time to go out and check up on my Tribes anymore. Pity. Social networking would be great if it wasn’t for people.