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Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

hackerforums.co

11–20 of 140 posts

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#11
post #10
post #9

Nice idea, but I have a feeling that 'Hangout' will turn into 'brigade things we like/don't like' aka Reddit.

How so?

That's how it usually goes with a side channel used to discuss another communications channel.

E.g., "Can you believe this trash got on the front page!" everyone proceeds to downvote or "hey my show hn is up!" everyone upvotes.

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#12
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

That's how it usually goes with a side channel used to discuss another communications channel. E.g., "Can you believe this trash got on the front page!" everyone proceeds to downvote or "hey my show hn is up!" everyone upvotes.

Hmm, that is certainly possible. Hopefully instead it can just be folks who are looking for a different type of interaction that a flat forum provides over something like this site.

Worth a shot at least.

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#13
post #6
post #5

Neat idea. I generally like HN, but it's definitely not a hangout spot. Discouraging idle chatter cuts both ways.

Agreed, and thank you! Come join us! Another major upside to forums is the ability to easily directly connect to folks. I've made many friends that way over the years in various forums, and business partners.

Registered.

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#14
Nice idea. The biggest hurdle with starting a community site is getting the initial users and maintaining a level of activity that keeps bringing back users to the site. If activity slows down a little, you will find that traffic decreases proportionally. How do you plan to solve the chicken and egg problem? After the initial launch, what's the plan to get your site in front of potential users?

I am working on a somewhat related idea : a site like reddit, but which also has a chat room for each subreddit/topic + public moderation logs among other features. I launched with only the chat rooms part of it and I faced the issues mentioned above, so I'm interested in hearing about your approach. Good luck!

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#15

Nice idea. The biggest hurdle with starting a community site is getting the initial users and maintaining a level of activity that keeps bringing back users to the site. If activity slows down a little, you will find that traffic decreases proportionally. How do you plan to solve the chicken and egg problem? After the initial launch, what's the plan to get your site in front of potential users? I am working on a some…

Thanks.

Totally agreed that forums (and communities in general) have the cold start problem, and there's no real good solution for it.

I do have some ideas though.

1) I'm interested in whipping up a simple phpBB mod that enables Link posts (like here on HN). That will help with the News posting aspect of the community. Thread here: https://hackerforums.co/the-lounge-f3/idea-extension-for-php...

2) I'm going to write up a fairly detailed thread later today that explains in more detail the Why of setting up the site, and the How I did it (literal technical details for those interested). I'll post that here and on Reddit and a few other places to hopefully get some exposure. Cool kids call that "traffic leaking" where you get valuable content in front of active communities, so might drive some traffic.

3) I'm debating setting up a contest of sorts, where members can earn a special badge/title by actively participating in the forum. So for example, start 10 threads and post 25 replies in threads and earn a special badge on your account for eternity. Silly, sure, but could be a simple fire starter.

But yeah, overall, it's a challenging thing to do, and I've failed at it a few times over the years in trying to start forums. I still really love them though, so I wanted to try it again.

BTW: Post your project here! :) https://hackerforums.co/show-hf-f7/

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#17
post #16

After registering, I'm seeing this: [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions_messenger.php on line 506: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable Probably best to turn off debugging statements.

Hmm, interesting. I'll take a look, thanks for letting me know.

Just so I'm clear, this happened immediately after registering? Or did you do anything else that triggered this?

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#18

Nice idea. The biggest hurdle with starting a community site is getting the initial users and maintaining a level of activity that keeps bringing back users to the site. If activity slows down a little, you will find that traffic decreases proportionally. How do you plan to solve the chicken and egg problem? After the initial launch, what's the plan to get your site in front of potential users? I am working on a some…

The way to solve the chicken and egg problem is through paid posters. If you hire an initial group of people to post content and reply to new users eventually visitors who come on board will see the buzz and participate. Then you can phase out paid posters when you no longer need them. Pretty easy.

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#19
I like this idea because HN mods (reasonably) discourage certain types of discussions as off-topic. But I'm actually interested to know what HNers think about various topics that may be deemed off-topic by mods. Looking forward to joining your community!

Re: Show HN: HackerForums.co, a forum for the crowd that hangs out on HN

#20
post #2

This site was borne of the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068138 (Specifically this part of the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17071224 ) I spun up an instance of phpBB (trying to keep costs down) and customized a ThemeForest theme to make it not ugly. I'll post a thread today that lists all of my notes from the setup process of the site for anyone interested. I'm a huge fan of…

I am thinking of starting a forum myself. How did you go about selecting phpBB of all options? I have mostly looked at nodeBB but have not taken any practical steps yet.
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