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Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

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Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#211

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

bil7 wrote: post #6

I think what would really be great is a social media site that doesn't offer direct image or video hosting. A bit like how reddit used to be. You just have link aggregation, voting, and comments. That's it. Maybe in a nice, clean, minimal UI as well. This would lend itself to tech folk I think. If only it existed.

>voting

This always leads to a hivemind. Because even if you're supposed to use it for rewarding good posts, what the horde ends up doing is using downvotes as a disagree button. Especially if the admins/moderators have authoritarian powers to hide content on top of the users' individual powers or rate limit posting by those with differing views. Because everyone's bias sneaks in - no one is exempt from this - and it's very hard to see your own biases if you don't deliberately venture out of your filter bubble regularly. The best tool I've found for this so far (and I maintain a search) is https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news It gets trickier when one side completely ignores a story, which both do.

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#213

Post by Minor49er » 

  - No friends or follows
  - The feed can be organized by top/new stories or threads
  - Posts and submissions can be upvoted/downvoted with a karma-like system
  - The more someone's posts are downvoted, the more transparent their entire profile page becomes
  - dang is the only moderator

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#215

Post by eps »

smoldesu wrote: post #214

You're kinda reinventing the wheel here. Federated communities have let you do this for years, but it hasn't resulted in a direct upgrade over Twitter. They're just two different social graphs, with two different goals.

VC: “I know there are similar companies out there doing the same as Dropbox, why should I invest in just another similar company?”

Drew: “Yes. There are similar companies out there doing the same as Dropbox. But do you actually use any of them?”

VC: “No.”

Drew: “Why?”

VC: “Because they are bad.”

Same here. There are existing solutions, but none of them is good enough.

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#216

Post by olah_1 »

ineptech wrote: post #129

Fleeting idea that could be combined with that: a web-of-trust social network where you can only "friend" people in real life, by tapping phones. When you do so, the app might say, "The person you just met claims to be Joe Schmoe, do you want to vouch for them?" If you approve them, they can message you and vice versa. A friend of Joe's can see you in his friend list, and try to message you, and you can accept it if…

Threema has a concept of "levels" for contacts:

> Level 1 (red): The ID and public key have been obtained from the server because you received a message from this contact for the first time or added the ID manually. No matching contact was found in your address book (by phone number or email), and therefore you cannot be sure that the person is who they claim to be in their messages.

> Level 2 (orange): The ID has been matched with a contact in your address book (by phone number or email). Since the server verifies phone numbers and email addresses (via an SMS or email with the activation link), you can be reasonably sure that the person is who they claim to be.

> Level 3 (green): You have personally verified the ID and public key of the person by scanning their QR code. Assuming their device has not been hijacked, you can be very sure that messages from this contact were really written by the person that they indicate.

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#217

Post by shanebellone »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #200
shanebellone wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point of small social circles. You can segment your audience as a broadcaster based on shared interests, language, and understanding. The vast majority of the Internet doesn't need to read your shit posting. However, a small group of friends might find that appealing. If no one finds that content useful, amusing, or interesting... you'd be screaming at a wall. Isn't that exactly how it should be?

That's... not relevant? OP was talking about a system that requires tapping phones to connect and using friends of friends to form secondary connections. This is why I have a burner sim for online accounts requiring a phone number. (Looking at you Telegram...)

Whoops, my bad.

I also maintain two phone numbers but for different reasons. I hate spam.

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#218

Post by olah_1 »

wylie39 wrote: post #179
ineptech wrote: post #129

Fleeting idea that could be combined with that: a web-of-trust social network where you can only "friend" people in real life, by tapping phones. When you do so, the app might say, "The person you just met claims to be Joe Schmoe, do you want to vouch for them?" If you approve them, they can message you and vice versa. A friend of Joe's can see you in his friend list, and try to message you, and you can accept it if…

scuttlebutt[0] is like this. 0: https://scuttlebutt.nz/about/

You can add someone on SSB just by adding their public key though. That's not what the comment above is talking about

Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?

#220

Post by shanebellone »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #206
unsupp0rted wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hate this because I’m physically nowhere near any HNers I’d trust, and vanishingly few HNers at all.

Around here, I'm pretty unwelcome at things like tech meetups. I stopped going, after experiencing the "circle of avoidance" thing, a few times. New York ageism is even worse than Silicon Valley. No one wants to know me, and I'm OK with that, as I get a lot done, anyway, and the people that matter to me (all over the world) are part of my circle.

I can relate to this. Most people don't like me. The problem is they don't like me for the things I love about myself.

Minimizing social friction produces lubricant, not "quality" humans.

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