Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 399 posts

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

#261

Post by _8j50 »

I have a good idea too, without ads! Profitable also but not a twitter or mastodon clone, more like myspace met reddit and a really pretty baby (great UI concept, i won't spill the beans), moderators get paid and moderation is federated. Most importantly it isn't some idealist utopian platform but built for profit while preseving freedoms and user consent and user data ownership.

I would rethink about mirroring real life interactions, real life has drawbacks and people can do real life in real life just fine.

I have many ideas though, and I am not motivated enough and I don't code for a living or have a ton of money and a desire to make sales pitches.

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

#262

Post by grom117 »

addrian27 wrote: post #141
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…

Interesting, but how do we know if friend of a friend is real or not? I think it's also vulnerable to bots or malicious infiltration

One thing that might be valuable on this is to do sms contact syncing where people can provide soft proof that they share the same social circles. In essence, if both parties have John Doe in their phone as 123-456-7890 , we can extrapolate that they both know him. Extend this across many contacts and it might be possible to see how much their direct networks overlap. One way of proving a person is indeed who they claim to be is by using a service like authillo.com

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

#263

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

Anyone remember AOL chat rooms? You'd jump into a room with a topic (#teenpoolparty13) and start chatting with strangers. In general it would be okay, because it was like a bunch of people huddled together trying to have their conversations in one tiny bedroom. "New" social media killed the free-form group conversation, instead creating splinter conversations that were so highly focused that it actually generated more conflict.

Even in-person, where we have a thousand interpersonal heuristics and social queues to control social interaction, it can still be a mess. Social interaction is best in small groups connected by a common theme and protected by a blanket of familiarity. But with a random group of strangers, no social (or physical) ramifications, with splintered, hyper-focused conversations, it can only either A) devolve into rancor, or B) become an echo chamber. Bringing together lots of people you barely know or don't know at all to talk about random things just isn't a good model for human interaction.

Eternal September is just one of many of the examples of it devolving. With a small consistent group you can establish a consistent culture and psychological safety. Grow the group and the newbies destroy it. Healthy social interaction relies heavily on trust and cooperation.

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

#264

Post by mywacaday »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #190
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…

The first problem I see is separating my online identity with my real identity. I really don't want anyone at my job finding out which dog I am on the internet. My coworkers and family really wouldn't appreciate my shit posting. :) The second is friends of friends can get really awkward. There are some people who are friends with me that are also friends with people who never want to see me again.

I had a conversation recently about the problems of social media and the growing extremes of political viewpoints. We agreed the a good part of the problem is partially caused by the online echo chamber but mostly by the increasing physical isolation of people in the real world. In the past the majority of men would have worked in manual labor with lots of other people, women would have worked at home and spent a lot more time getting to know their neighbours, now we work in isolation on a screen and stay at home without integrating with a community on a daily basis like times past. This allows people's views to go unchallenged and reduces the middle ground we all depended upon. Previously our vees would be challenged and our standing in our community would depend on our views. To go back to your point about anonymity should we be posting stuff online that we know our physical peers would have a problem with. Anonymity has its place I'm just not sure where the line is drawn.

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

#265

Post by 7speter »

AlbertCory wrote: post #237

As someone else pointed out, that was Google Plus. The number one thing to realize is: this is not a technical problem. It's a marketing, political, and social problem. Facebook and Twitter have vast numbers of users who are not at all technical. How you reach people like that and get them to join is your problem, and it has nothing to do with deep understanding of the technology.

Facebook was kinda like this bbut then it had to make a quarterly profit.

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

#266

Post by cpersona »

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.

Sorry to hear your experience has been that. As someone approaching that point, I wonder whether I will have to find other outlets besides the traditional tech meetups that I was attending more regularly in the times before covid.

Since you do bring experience, I would recommend (if you haven't tried yet), to give talks instead of just attending. I have found that the speakers tend to be well received regardless as they bring value. I did a lightning talk once and had the most positive interactions after my talk than any of the other meetups I attended.

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

#267

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

Simple: non-profit, worker cooperative is the corporate structure, dunbar number for the max social circle size, users moderate content, and no global/public/viral content at all. Open source software running on open source software.

Here's my counter thought to some huge platform technically speaking. We have these massively powerful devices in our pockets and everything is a web app, use the device to do more. Make content decentralized (no, not that crypto-bro or crypto-hater). Decentralize the storage of content to people's devices for things received. Then the platform itself is more of a message broker. Let users pick their cloud storage drug of choice (icloud, onedrive, google, dropbox, etc.) or abstract it away where you provision storage for them and charge beyond some sane limit but the client app gets the content from cloud storage (user defined or brokered). Once the content has been delivered to all users for a circle (max 150) its gone off the platform and when users view that historical content its local/cloud delivered (some caching algo to make it fast). Provide users the ability to tag content as archivable which just gives them a timeline feed of it they can browse whenever. Users literally own the content.

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

#268

Post by some_furry »

SoftTalker wrote: post #253
kayodelycaon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first problem I see is separating my online identity with my real identity. I really don't want anyone at my job finding out which dog I am on the internet. My coworkers and family really wouldn't appreciate my shit posting. :) The second is friends of friends can get really awkward. There are some people who are friends with me that are also friends with people who never want to see me again.

> My coworkers and family really wouldn't appreciate my shit posting. Shit posting is one of the biggest forms of toxicity online. It would be nice if it went away by tying posts to real people. Some people don't care and would shitpost anyway, but most people only shitpost because nobody knows who they really are.

This comment rhymes with the justifications for Real Name policies. They don't work.

All real name policies do is make many LGBTQ+ people feel unwelcome.

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

#269

Post by scrame »

qrio2 wrote: post #247
AlbertCory wrote: post #237

As someone else pointed out, that was Google Plus. The number one thing to realize is: this is not a technical problem. It's a marketing, political, and social problem. Facebook and Twitter have vast numbers of users who are not at all technical. How you reach people like that and get them to join is your problem, and it has nothing to do with deep understanding of the technology.

right, google plus failed bc it was a platform problem. Who would prefer to use that product over facebook, twitter, etc that duplicate the functionality 90%. ello was another hilarious example (that somehow... still exists...)

yeah, was also more annoying to use. it read trying to solve the problem of broadcasting everything to everyone, so it had this concept of circles, whereas Twitter people WANT everyone to see everything they say, either for like or conflict. Facebook was similar, but you could throw sheep at your friend/girl you liked, and it might be ambiguous.

plus made you define your social circles as literal "circles", that's not the MySpace top 8, or Seinfeld speed dial.

plus might have just been the right tech for the wrong model.

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

#270

Post by samsquire »

I wrote the beginnings of a feed in PHP that used email to communicate.

But I never got further than that.

I encrypted XML files inside email attachments and the system relied on a client that interpreted them.

I had a file system mailbox which sent items whenever they appeared in the folder by email to the email addresses in the XML.

Post reply on HN