

*snert*
I mean...what a handsome young man!

still young, still handsome
You all know who he is. Some of you aspire to be him, some of you aspire to better him, some of you might even grit your teeth in jealousy, clenching your fists, shaking one in the air above your head and crying, "Curse you, Bilokonsky!" He's equally well spoken in discussions on religion and politics as he is on sex, drugs, or rock and roll, he can hold his own in an Arena of Death match or any flame war, and he's done more than his fair share of work to uphold the integrity of this Vine.
Who am I talking about? That's right...Mykola Bilokonsky (yeah, yeah, I know you read the title and that's what got you here, leave me to my build-up already, will ya?).
Mykola gets to interview all the big names on Newsvine, and now I get to interview him.
I first started to really like Newsvine when I realized that the devs were just as excited about their emerging product as we were. It helped that as the months went by I watched the team personally respond to a whole slew of questions and issues from myself and from others. I guess in spite of my cynicism I do really honestly believe in democracy and I sure as hell believe in information and Newsvine struck me from the getgo as a place where democracy and information merged. It's been exciting for me to be a formative member of the community here on Newsvine, because I've watched this community grow into what I'd currently categorize as a sort of awkward adolescence. The site grows and changes every day and the way the devs respond to feedback makes me excited that we may all be helping to shape the emerging adult.
Right now, we have a tremendously diverse, educated userbase that contributes to a whole culture of growth and education. The whole point is that Newsvine isn't just another social networking site - have you ever made real friends on facebook? Learned about the socioeconomic factors at play in the third world on myspace? Newsvine fuses a democratic model with an unlimited informational infrastructure - the result is that it's a great place to go learn.
The site seems to be reaching a larger and larger crowd. A few old faces drifted away here and there, but there are lots of new ones to replace them. It's amusing to see new users post articles like "Poll: Do you vote for your own posts?" and that sort of thing, because it's all stuff that we hashed out in the community over a year ago. It's interesting to me how this sort of merger of old and new users leads to a sort of constantly changing community dynamic - but it's also really cool to see the framework of the community that we forged here during the beta still acting as the skeleton, the framework.
But I'm going off-topic here - my personal goals? I'd like to help steer this ship into the main shipping routes. Look, I'm no dummy - I'd love to make a buck off of this. I'd also like to reach a larger audience with my ideas. To that end, I think we need to shape up and organize a way for the community to break into the internet mainstream. I've got the Blitz project going on, but right now we're like a pack of roving Digg pirates occasionally descending on some treasure. I have another project in the wings, something very small right now and with only a handful of collaborators, that's designed to blow the roof of what Newsvine is capable of.
That brings me to my final answer to this question - I'd like to see Newsvine grow into a site that not only respects but emphasizes individual production. I want groups to be able to publish articles via the group, with author bylines. I want groups to have customizable homepages, down to graphics and layout - think of them less as advanced tags and more as independent magazines working within the internet at large. The base would be Newsvine, as would the initial community - but I want a set of tools from the dev team that'll let the users control what external visitors see. In my mind, it would be a fantastic day for everyone involved if some spinoff group launched a net magazine that got more hits than Newsvine.com itself. That's true empowerment, and it'd be profitable - Newsvine would of course keep a chunk of the ad revenue. So that's the direction I'd like to see us go, eventually.
What a difficult question to answer. Look: I do indeed consider myself pretty successful on Newsvine, and there are a few reasons for that. Number one is simply that I'm a member of the community. I know that if I write something then I'll have friends who come read it and tell me what they think - and that's valuable to me. If I have any popularity on Newsvine, I think a large part of it is due to the fact that in the early beta days I put a lot of thought into how best to organize the community into a cohesive, self-reinforcing organism rather than just a bunch of trolls. A lot of people shared those ideals with me and supported me in my early meta-ravings, so I guess I got kind of a following of interested peers who read my opinions charitably. When I started focusing more on politics or religion or what have you (my interests wander), I was pleased to see that the community support base was still there. We as a community have fostered a sense of growth and enrichment, and now that we have that community I think it's pretty easy to be successful and visible if you just write with sincerity - which is what I try to do.
Right now I like that we have the groups and I think they give us an extra layer of tagging, sort of. It's a little bit more control over how content is organized, and when used intelligently I think they really help users find the content they're looking for. I think there are currently some major problems with groups, though - ask anyone who runs a large group. They're really hard to keep organized - it's hard to make sure your users adhere to the group guidelines, it's hard to make sure the content you want to highlight remains highlighted, and it's a pain in the ass to have to go through and prune content. Some groups do this regularly, and the effort of their admins pays off. Some groups, not so much - my own Community group, for now the largest group on Newsvine, still has a lot of issues in this regard. It's necessary to define what kind of content you want and it's important to communicate that clearly, but we also need better tools for enforcement.
I got into my vision of the future of groups a little bit above - I want to see them as independent publishers working on top of the Newsvine infrastructure. That's a long way off, though - there are a few key features that I think we need before groups can advance any further:
And we'll leave it at that for now. There's a lot that can be done here, I feel like the groups surface hasn't even been scratched.
I am always juggling 15 new ideas, reading 3 books and starting 4 projects at any given moment. As a result, I get bored with things pretty easily; whatever is holding my attention has to be pretty stimulating to hold my attention for long - ask any ex-girlfriend. My greatest shortcoming in my capacity as sort of self-proclaimed Newsvine community guru is that just because I say I'm going to do something there's no reason to necessarily expect me to. Sometimes I lose interest and move on to pursue something else. I am always starting projects and community events, but if I don't get a lot of positive feedback I'm altogether likely to lose interest. In fact, even with positive feedback I sometimes lose interest - I am a very community-oriented writer on the one hand, but on the other hand everything I write and contribute is in some way for me, if that makes sense. Ultimately, I'm here to learn and grow - and if Project X seems boring, it's cuz I started learning from something else and it doesn't make sense to me to keep Project X going. So I guess the lesson is that just because I announce that I'm going to do something or start some new event doesn't mean it's going to happen - I announce events or calls for help or whatever from time to time to gauge the community and figure out if you and I can work together to make something interesting. If either you or I lose interest, I have no problem simply forgetting about it. I suppose if anyone was looking forward to my Fertility Week easter series, sorry about that. ;)
I guess I don't necessarily see that as a problem, though - it can be a strength. I bailed out of Assignment Zero pretty solidly and have no regrets because I stand by my view that it was a poor fit for the community. Sometimes it's useful to just be able to walk away.
That said, my really big projects I don't announce publicly beforehand (at least, not more than the occasional cryptic comment) - I just do them.
Integrity is speaking and acting in a manner that would cause you no embarrassment if you found out after the fact that your grandmother had been watching.
I suspect that this is best achieved through sincerity in word and deed, but I'm not entirely sure. Still working on that. I don't have to have integrity until I have gray hair and look more dignified, right? Besides, sincerity and integrity never won nobody first prize in Survivor. ;)
Mykola, thank you for giving me the opportunity to get to know you better, and by extension, exposing a bit more of yourself (hey, we all had our awkward period, right?) to the rest of Newsvine.
Great interview.
Good, solid in-depth questions. I hope that guy who does all those other interviews was taking notes.
Judge for yourself, I done what I could.
Are you allowed to link during Survivor? Or post to groups? Just asking.
In this case yes, because it's a series, we're allowed to link to each other.
And this challenge allows groups.
No wonder you look so calm. Those glasses you wore as a kid look so strong you could see into the future with them. Good interview.
Enjoyed this very much. Nice to peek into the mind of an evil genius. I mean that in the nicest way, of course. :)
Which one?
Not the vodka-soaked babbler
It's up! It's up! Go read it! And what makes you think an evil genius would give honest answers? I'm obviously just trying to keep everyone off my scent...
Good interview. I feel like I've known him for years.
Oh. Right...
Great stuff. For the record though, I would never yell out, "Curse you, Bilokonsky!". Not because that's not how I feel...of COURSE I feel like cursing his name...I'm only human...but I would butcher his name, and that just wouldn't be nice. Better to go with a nice safe "Curse you, jackass" so something classy about his mother's bodily functions..you know, high-brow humour.
I really like those group ideas. I'd also like the ability to get an RSS feed for Newsvine tags. Watchlisting I find mostly tedious, although the e-mail alerts has been helpful.
That was a great interview, Viki, and it's good to know more about Mykola - interesting guy, and an asset to Newsvine.
Nicely done. The tables have turned, finally, and so interesting to hear Mykola's views on Newsvine and his thoughts on how it could develop. He nailed it, in saying that it's the NV team's responsiveness and the site's evolutionary change that sets it apart. Good ideas on his brainchild, the groups, although I admit I have grave reservations about tiered membership of groups.
Could have done with more personal info - I heard a rumour he has siblings, for example.
Viki, I really loved your detachment in asking questions ("It can't be merely your charm, wit, and dashing good looks"). LOL.
I think Myk best be careful. Yuriy's gunning for his spot.
Ha ha ha...there's more to filling my shoes than being young and arrogant, ya know.
Hey Viki, Mykola, great job. It's great to see that folks here can have an effect on the overall development of the site. I dunno about the photo though, Myk... ; )
You got something against Cross Country?
Nooo.... it's the only kind of skiing I managed to learn in Switzerland... ; )
(is that the kind of cross country you're referring to?)
Take a look at the picture. Would you wear that shirt skiing?
Cross Country is long distance running, in a competitive manner.
Aaah, well thanks guys! Guess I'm not so good at sports questions. ; )
To be fair, there's cross country - the track event, which is running, and there's also cross country skiing.
Croos country just means off-track.
Thanks, Dennis! I'm definitely not a runner, as you can tell. How about Mykola, to get this back on track? What did he run, and when, and does he still?
I was a runner in high school until I blew out my knee pretty bad my junior year - my shoelace came loose during the last quarter mile of a race and I caught my other foot in it and hyperextended my knee. That really blew, I was running better than I'd ever run - I fell down, screamed for a minute, got up and limped the last 300 meters and finished 2 seconds behind my best time ever. I'll always have that glorious what-if so now I can believe I coulda been great. ;)
Myk,
You're notions about the potential of groups as "mini-publications" given the right set of features is spot on. I've been tooting the same horn in article comments and in emails to the Newsvine crew.
We should put together a detailed, well-thought out "business proposal" that makes the case for this idea. We could drum up support by posting the proposal or even create a group where people would show support by joining.
Game?
This is the first I've read of the Blitz project. Newsvine should add "digg this" and other buttons to articles (perhaps not seeds) right below the Vote button at the bottom of articles. To me any squeamishness of adding logos and links to "competitors" doesn't make sense, especially given relative size and popularity we have more to gain and them more to lose.
how come nobody has mentioned Myk's hair?
(that's what i like [and, interestingly enough, hate] most about him ... he's got nice hair)
did i stumble across some sort of conspiracy here - that there were/are no hair questions in that interview?
i need some answers people.
It must be a militant atheist plot, right tom? Or would that be a militant theist plot?
Those glasses are the theist plot, pretty sure.
The hair is going soon. :)
The hair is going soon. :)
The plot thickens...
Nice, but I prefer
Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
I bared those scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
and kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
and he kissed me 'til the mornin' lightSamson went back to bed
not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention our eyes, not even once...
How about...
Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It's gettin kinda long
I coulda said it wasn't in my way
But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Cause I feel like I owe it to someoneMust be because I had the flu' for Christmas
And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car
But I'm not giving in an inch to fear
Cause I missed myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someoneWhen I finally get myself together
I'm going to get down in that sunny southern weather
And I find a place inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff
I feel like I owe it to someone
here's my favorite...
MY BEARD
My beard grows to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.
shel silverstein
Nice interview Viki, and Myk an interesting take on the lose interest thing. Happens to me all the time, are we learning something or are we just wasting time following up on something that has become mentally passe?
And yes you better watch out for your brother, and if you all live in the same space they must be interesting dinner conversations, but I wonder how one garners the attention of the others. What feats have to be accomplished to take everyone's eyes off their own mental thoughts.
As to groups and such I participate but not much, losing interest sort of thing. Personally I think with the new addition OKs the Local aspect of the site that would be an excellent way for Newsvine to go as not only is there international discourse but local affiliation that can be morphed into active and real actions that may affect outcomes and perceptions.
Anyways, have a good one guys, and Viki,
Forest
No kidding, Forest. With local news like that it would be so easy to make, say, "Newsvine: Columbus" group. The people running it could sell ads to local stores and restaurants, have columbus-specific columnists, advertise all over columbus, etc. But it would need to be able to have a custom layout and we'd have to have access to some more APIs to make our own front-page modules, etc. I think. I'm not a programmer so I dunno how that works, but ya know.
Great stuff, what a cutie pie Myk. Compliments to both of you and to the folks responsible for producing the Bilokonsky Forces. What a phenominal group and the folks who warn to watch your heels, have got that right. What do ya'll eat? :~)
I think it would be funny if it was Twinkies, Kraft Mac and Cheese, and hot dogs.
What do ya'll eat? :~)
Anything that's put in front of them.
Ha, eric knows, he was around when I was growing up...
Yuriy, tho, seems to screen everything he eats. That's why he'll never compete with me. ;)
Wow, Viki. Great job and all the attention is very well earned. Where on Earth did you find that picture?! You don't mean to say Mykola actually volunteered it? Te he he.
Good interview.
Nice job. I'm printing this out to read again later.
I think it was an excellent for you two to do reciprocal interviews.
I've been watching Mykola for as long as I've been on Newsvine. It's always fascinating to see another layer of the entity that is Mykola Bilokonsky revealed. :)
Great job - thanks to both of you.
I don't say "Curse you, Bilokonsky!". but that has more to do with ignorance over how to pronounce it than anything else.
After joining the hardest part was figuring out how to spell the names of some of you people especially the ones I named the B-Boys
Pronounce it like it's an Irish name.
Bill O'Konsky.
Just remember that I am the next Bilokonsky in line in case something happens to Mykola. I'll even adopt part of his name:
Mykolansab
My non-existent spirit will hold you to that, ansab!
Pronounce it like it's an Irish name.
Bill O'Konsky.
Good to know.
What's up with the comment tracker? it said i had no responses today to anything while i'm potentially missing valuable pronounciation tips.
Your ran cross country? What were your times?
Mine were pretty bad. The best I did was over 20 minutes, but I did better relative to others (like 150th out of 300 runners) on tough courses. I bet Myk was way better. If I were taller, I'd have made a pretty good fullback. His looks like more of a runner's body.
I had a runner's body once, remember that photo is - damn! - 10 years old. My best time was a 19:11, that was my senior year after recovering from my injury. My comment above about the time I got hurt - my PR at the time had been 20:08, and in that race I fell, screamed for a bit, got up and limped the last 300 meters and finished at 20:10. I was so @!$%#ing pissed, I had been ahead of all the guys who usually beat me. Woulda been sub-19 for sure, probably way sub-19. C'est la vie.
So, I was never really good. But I was almost ok. :)
Mykola... I really liked this idea for groups
I want groups to be able to publish articles via the group, with author bylines. I want groups to have customizable homepages, down to graphics and layout - think of them less as advanced tags and more as independent magazines working within the internet at large.
btw.. Vasyl is the brother you should be looking out for! :)
Thanks to both of you for doing this, it"s nice to get to know about the people behind the name!
Just wish one day I could figure out how to spell that thing,,,
Copy and paste, like everyone else. This is the computer age!
oh yeah CTL-C, CTL-P.....OK got it, thanks :-)
:)
MykolansabBilokonsky
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