If you’ve got Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or any other social media then triberr.com is (theoretically) an excellent platform to spread the word about your blog posts; ways to get people to come and read whatever it is you have to say. Even if it’s just your grocery list.

The premise is about being a tribe and sharing, sharing alike. Which is a wonderful premise. I’ve been doing triberr for a couple of months and it sort of worked. You join a tribe, which is like a club centered around a theme, and link the blog of your choice with it. When you make a post, notice of that post goes into a tribal stream, which alerts other tribe members. Then they have the option of sharing or not sharing your post on their twitter, facebook, et al.. In return when their blog post comes up, you do the same about them. Share and share alike.

Like I said it’s a wonderful premise. In a world less centered around teaching our kids not to share hairbrushes, car rides, the air we breathe it would work out great. Lately, however, not so much for me and triberr. I’ve noticed a marked lack of reciprocal sharing. I share others’ posts. They don’t share mine. Week after week, nothing changes. I share. They don’t. To be quite frank, I’ve been feeling a little used.

Others have also taken note, some of them being brave enough to complain in the tribe “campfire” area. Some say “well the post has to be something I like” or “I just didn’t want to have a post about erotica on my feed”. Which are reasons I can sort of see – but triberr also used to have this nifty function where you could see if they’d shared yours vs how many of theirs you had shared. After a couple of months where certain members post nothing but posts about their next book or reviews about lesbian erotica, you start to think it’s not about what you’ve posted at all and simply a case of someone not sharing. Period.

Then triberr did something everyone is raving about. They redid how the system works. Now I can see how many posts of mine they’ve shared – but not if I’ve shared any of theirs at all. They added a couple of other stats that really mean nothing to me and I could care less about: how many comments that post has, how many blog posts they’ve made in a month, and how many posts they’ve shared from their tribe overall… nothing to let me really know if sharing has been reciprocated. All I see is: they’re not sharing mine, but they’re sharing. And it rather bothers me. If they’re not sharing mine, is it because they’re not seeing mine, because they think I haven’t shared theirs, because things are no longer on such a personal level with the absence of my favorite setting? I think it’s the latter.

Edit: Furthermore, if this person isn’t sharing mine and I keep sharing theirs how long before I know to stop, that clogging up my twitter feed with their stuff isn’t fair to me and my twitter readers? At first I’d give the nonsharing people 7 shares before I stopped. (The stats only went back 7 days.) Then I started to give them 3. If I felt generous, I’d give them 10. Hey, after 10 shares you can be pretty sure this person is just using the system and thus you. But now, all I see is they’ve been sharing! Just not mine. I’m not sure what it means, but logically it suggest they’re not sharing mine because it’s… well… mine. And since sharing your own stuff counts and some of these people post several times a day, it might even be safe to guess they’re only sharing their own stuff.

Now I had gotten funny about triberr. I’d go in, I’d look at them vs me, and then I’d take a look at who I was looking at. There are three members who I have gotten to know by sight that never ever share anything of mine no matter how many of theirs I share. And there are the same number of triberr members that share my posts and I know sharing theirs will be fairly reciprocated. And then. There’s everybody else.

So I’m going to my stream, unable to see the important part about who I’m looking at: if they’re users or not. I’m sharing posts by people I recognize that have shared in the past. And everybody else I’m not sure what to do with and quite frankly am quite uncomfortable with not knowing. Which means I’m only sharing a little bit because I’m hating this guessing game and thinking about dropping triberr altogether.

Now, you could say I’m just a persnickety woman that’s getting old. You could say I hate change. Here’s the thing: ever since the new system has been up, only 1… count with me… 1 post of mine has been shared by one person who always shares. God bless him. One. No one else has shared any of my posts.

I’m gonna guess it’s because they’re having the same problem I am.

Annoyed? Oh hell fucking yes. I am. When a feedback thread was posted in one of the streams by the triberr people, I told them how unhappy I was and how my posts were not even getting shared at all anymore. And I got blown off.

And it’s like: okay, well. The premise is good. The problem here is that there are too many selfish people in the world, and their Mommas encouraged that selfishness. We condone that selfishness when we nod and mumble because someone didn’t want to help with the gas crises by “sharing their car” (of all things). Some of us even tell our kids not to share toys: there might be germs about and heavens forbid we also share a healthy immune system. And this may seem like a tiny little thing, but for me it means this tiny little thing has become an utter and complete waste of my time.

So my review of triberr’s new system: it sucks. It works for some – judging by the stats I see, that some is the group of people who were already well known and popular before things changed over. I at least am wasting my time. I’m not saying you shouldn’t give it a shot – I’m saying be aware of the situation. And I’m considering closing my account. I could be drawing comic pages and creating something for my fans instead.

Humph.