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I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

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Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#31

Post by draw_down »

That just means you haven't come across any new ideas or personalities in a while. There's a podcast I've been enjoying recently- last night I listened to a podcast about that first podcast. I'm not suggesting any of this, I'm pointing it out because it's ridiculous, we're talking about wasting time here.

I'd say this person is standing in a grocery store complaining of hunger, except I sort of see what he means. A lot of energy goes into just a handful of websites like Facebook and Twitter, where in earlier years those people would have ended up on a crappy phpBB forum, each with its own weird sub-sliver of internet culture. Still, I'm pretty sure the internet has more bounty in this area than ever.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#32

Post by dchuk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #30
dchuk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”. If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

That could be interesting.

I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there.

I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#33

Post by slagfart »

lancewiggs wrote: post #26
slagfart wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pls help me get online, nerd Seriouspost: Agree with all that’s been said. Corporations have turned the web into an unpalatable wasteland. The prospect of someone finding out my name and job has taken all the joy out of calling someone a fuckhead online. I want to find it again. I will start searching, but the good communities I’ve found have been invite only.

Did your joy of calling someone else something bad remove the joy for everyone else?

In a small enough community, the Boy Who Cried Wolf remains a pertinent tale.

If you had the reputation as a decent and polite poster, the sudden use of a vile cuss, judiciously applied, yielded far greater aggregate results than someone who used them all the time. At the very least, you would save it for someone who really did deserve it.

Perhaps the sanding off of the web’s edges is simply a product of its size. Maybe we should go back to Usenet.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#34

Post by organsnyder »

dchuk wrote: post #32
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be interesting.

I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there. I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!

Use Discourse. It's not only the most advanced from a tech perspective, but it also aims to promote strong communities.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#35

Post by 8bitsrule »

worse, the fun things they had supplanted were never coming back. Forums were depopulated; blogs were shut down.

I get what he's saying. In the beginning the net opened the doors to self-expression. Lots of people had fun playing around, exploring, lots of new toys. Then conventions and concentrations arrived, and it BLEW UP. There's still a lot of personal, fun stuff out there, but it's harder to find.

As of 2015, PER DAY: 50,000 new -Wordpress- websites; ~ 3 million new posts. Good luck digging through THAT slush pile. https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/wordpress-statistics...

I find new, interesting websites by pouring through aggregators and topical forums (still out there). Takes time.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#36

Post by happertiger »

dchuk wrote: post #32
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be interesting.

I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there. I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!

Second vote for discourse!

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#37

Post by strkek »

There's definitely something about forums that can't be found in social networks. I don't know what that is, but I know it's very unlikely that I'll have as much fun as in those days.

Not sure if it's because I was a teenager back then and perceived the internet differently, but nowadays everything looks way too "serious".

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#38

Post by iKlsR »

Had a like experience and got a premium subscription to a manga service and haven't looked back, every week I start a few new ones. These are often surprisingly well written (of the last dozen or so, 4 of the authors had at least a degree in some field and the knowledge showed in the writing). Might not be everyone's thing but getting something interesting to read was the solution for me.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#39

Post by dchuk »

organsnyder wrote: post #34
dchuk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there. I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!

Use Discourse. It's not only the most advanced from a tech perspective, but it also aims to promote strong communities.

No doubt that discourse is really nice software, and I will give it a go, but it does lack the “nostalgia” referred to by the original comment I replied to with this idea. All options are valid at this point though!

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#40

Post by pmoriarty »

cityzen wrote: post #6

I have been saying I've "reached the end of the internet" for awhile now. I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. Trying to get a 56k modem to work, dealing with the fact that you couldn't always get online or if you did you could get kicked off at any time. I remember streaming the Tibetan Freedom Concert with realplayer back in '98. The first mp3 i got, napst…

"Now it just seems like every website online is trying to steal and sell your data."

I remember the days before the Morris Worm, the days before we were all drowning in malware, before you had to worry about your bank account being hacked in to, before your personal data stood a good chance of being leaked, stolen, or held for ransom, before the corporate/government gold rush for profit, spying, and control. Spam and the occasional troll seemed to be about the worst one could encounter back then.

Maybe I'm just remembering the past through rose-colored nostalgia glasses, but it seemed back in those days the internet was a mostly positive place -- or at least not a hostile one where you had to constantly watch your back and pretend to be who you weren't lest records of your past come back to haunt you.

Overnight popularity was the best thing and the worst thing to happen the internet. Perhaps if its growth wasn't so explosive, maybe we could have had time to deal with all the crap.

Back in those days we used to laugh at how clueless the corporations and governments were about the net, about how they'd never be able to control it. Well, now they've got us all by the balls.

Who's laughing now?

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