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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

#281

Post by dchuk »

dougmwne wrote: post #262
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.

I really wish we could get this set up, maybe even with some official ycombinator promotion. In my mind HN is the last really great group of strangers on the internet. I have learned so much from these comments sections and I've frequently read someone's post and connected with it to the point where I wish I could sit down for a cup of coffee or a beer. Unfortunately, without community features it feels like slipping…

I'm going to tackle setting something up tonight and tomorrow night. I don't know anyone at ycomb so can't speak towards making anything official, but at the very least we can give it a shot and see if it can gain some traction/community.

I'll post a Show HN when it's ready.

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

#282

Post by dchuk »

bobsoap wrote: post #215
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.

Great idea. Since we're reminiscing, unless I have you mistaken for someone else, I suspect that we both may have been a part of the same community way back when. Regardless, I look forward this; sounds like it could be fun.

You're probably suspecting correctly :)

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

#283

Post by dchuk »

tluyben2 wrote: post #104
dchuk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think to kick things off it will be best to allow anyone to sign up and potentially lock it down in the future if things get out of hand. Usually forums have features like limiting new thread creation to users with enough karma/comments, so that can help a bit in keeping quality up.

Drop me an email if you need help anyway. I tried many existing options and have not found any good so far.

Thanks!

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

#284

Post by CalRobert »

dchuk wrote: post #27
foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

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.

Is there anywhere we can see this progress? I suppose I'll see this comment of mine when I look in HN (I do often) but would love to know when anything is up and running.

BTW, I'd strongly, strongly discourage vBulletin.

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

#285

Post by jolmg »

dpark wrote: post #273
pmlnr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not. There are places where the internet is Facebook. I remember times when the internet was a blue E on the desktop, but at least that really did take people to the internet, and not a walled garden.

The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. Yes, there exist people who essentially only use Facebook, but this is not the norm. Google is worth 755 billion dollars, and they didn’t get there just by being the easiest way to find Facebook. Pinterest has amassed a 12 billion dollar valuation just for managing to insert themselves between Google search results and a the billion blogs you thin…

> The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd.

I don't think he meant that, but rather the opposite. That while more people use the internet than ever before, they're subdivided in how they use it. To some people (not most; pmlnr's wording is "there are places") the internet is just Facebook, and that creates the effect of a smaller community of "internet users" where there is more in common between a pair of individuals than 2 strangers with vastly different uses of the real vast internet.

Note that the point of his post was to counter (though it doesn't entirely refute) the point of mseebach, which was that people had much less in common between strangers in the internet now that it's become mainstream.

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

#286

Post by GeezCobarr »

mseebach wrote: post #149
gkoberger wrote: post #44

I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Yeah, there's a lot more content to consume now. However, it doesn't feel like a community... it feels more like watching reruns on TBS. I remember making actual friends on message boards. Friends I eventually met in the real world. I don't think relationships like that are really formed anymore. Most of social media now is a broadcast, not a conversation. People (m…

I think a major factor is the fact that the internet is now mainstream. In the early days, you had something in common with everybody, simply by being on the internet. The place was silly with people absolutely floored by the idea that they were casually chatting with someone halfway across the continent, something only possible on very expensive phone calls until then. Everybody was also, by necessity, an early tech…

Great metaphor, the infrastructure. Like a street you go somewhere, if there is somewhere to go. And like a pipe something come down the shoot, but do you want it in the first place?

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

#287

Post by eswat »

Aco- wrote: post #278
eswat wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also felt this experience when it comes to content creation for games. I missed the modding communities in the late 90s/early 00s that had a sense of place and community. Things tended to gravitate around their IRC channels and those of the actual game. Was great to develop relationships online with not only the modders but the people developing the games. As an example, Epic Games were super-accessible back in…

You mention UT99/2003/2004, did you play competitively by chance? I miss the good old days of gaming, clans, ladders, forums & IRC. If it weren't for UT's modding & hacking community I wouldn't have got in to this industry. A lot of people I know have similar stories.

Nope I wasn’t part of the competitive scene. I was just an active participant in some of the fansite communities (BeyondUnreal, Planet Unreal) and the various mods like The Third Reich and Red Orchestra.

The only artifact of that era I still carry is still hanging around the neotokyo IRC channel after 15 years.

Like you said, the modding community helped a lot of people get in this industry. I wonder if it’s still the same now that it’s less about modding/hacking a game with a group of people and more about contributing content piecemeal (Elder Scrolls/Fallout) or working on an actual game from nearly scratch.

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

#288

Post by dpark »

jolmg wrote: post #285
dpark wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. Yes, there exist people who essentially only use Facebook, but this is not the norm. Google is worth 755 billion dollars, and they didn’t get there just by being the easiest way to find Facebook. Pinterest has amassed a 12 billion dollar valuation just for managing to insert themselves between Google search results and a the billion blogs you thin…

> The idea that the Internet is just Facebook for most people is absurd. I don't think he meant that, but rather the opposite. That while more people use the internet than ever before, they're subdivided in how they use it. To some people (not most; pmlnr's wording is "there are places") the internet is just Facebook, and that creates the effect of a smaller community of "internet users" where there is more in common…

It's very much what he said. "Internet data connection might be mainstream, but Internet, as in websites, blogs, genuine, independent content, is really not."

He specifically says that using the internet for blogs and websites (i.e. things other than Facebook) is not "mainstream". Maybe the Facebook comment was not intended to say that's what the "mainstream" use case is, but that's how it reads, and I'm frankly not sure what mainstream usage would be if it's not "websites".

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

#289

Post by jcoffland »

silveroriole wrote: post #134

I think we’re missing out on the weird and the unique. Reddit/Twitter does have massive streams of content, but they’re all pretty homogenous, and both sites have their own pretty homogenous etiquette rules. Back then every site was an amateur attempt with a bizarre design and a community of obsessive weirdos because only obsessive weirdos were posting online, and posting without learning the unspoken rules and celeb…

> Reddit/Twitter does have massive streams of content, but they’re all pretty homogenous

Reddit is anything but homogenous. It has many a dark and quirky corner. Twitter on the other hand.

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

#290

Post by jcoffland »

drb91 wrote: post #246
krapp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably best to take it back now. Why? The internet isn't for us, it shouldn't be a quirky clique only for the technorati, it should to be for everyone. "Normal" using the internet for mainstream, banal and commercial content that doesn't appeal to us is more or less the culmination of the dream. The world has been liberated (at least in part) and connected. Let's please at least take a moment to appreciate what's…

> Let's please at least take a moment to appreciate what's been gained for humanity as a whole The ability to interact faster? It’s a big wash: positive and negative. It’s hard to see the internet as objectively good for humanity.

> It’s hard to see the internet as objectively good for humanity.

You could say the same about the automobile.

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