Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#41

Post by lazyjones » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #39

bronlund wrote: post #20

Guys! IRC is still there! Usenet is still there! The reason it's not the same is that all you guys left.

> The reason it's not the same is that all you guys left. +1. Usenet is still there, and a few groups are still being used for academic discussions. But many other groups have almost no "legitimate" users anymore, and have been filled with spam messages. But the real show stopper today is that, since a community does not exist in these groups anymore, one or two crazy people can completely control and dominate a grou…

> The reason it's not the same is that all you guys left.

I was on IRC since the time EFnet had about 2000 users during the day (1993 or so). I left when it had turned into this:

> one or two crazy people can completely control and dominate a group.

op-wars, annoying admins abusing their own, often academic servers, is what destroyed IRC for me. Reddit is the same for groups where various political/ideological views collide, only same-interest groups are worthwhile.

MMOGs possibly made IRC unattractive for many people too...

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#42

Post by bsaul » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

PerfectElement wrote: post #29

In 20 years, today's teenagers will be talking about "the good days when Twitter and Instagram were all the rage". I think that part of what you miss is the feeling of being young, with an open road ahead of you, fewer responsibilities, and hormones in full force, making life seem much more colorful.

That’s unfortunately probably what all of this is about.

I realized how true that was when i went back living in the same area as when i was a kid. Everything seemed duller , narrower, and noiser than when i was a kid, and yet it was exactly the same place.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#43

Post by Top5a » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 10:46 AM UTC

cotelletta wrote: post #32

It's going to sound elitist but it's kinda obvious: the old internet was predominantly youngish STEM academics and tech professionals. I.e. smart people. It also created a lot of tribal alignment which meant that serious moral and ethical conflict was rare. That said, we also grew up, and now I'm sure a lot of those conversations would seem as inane as the average Discord shitpost. Which, tbh, is terrible... The anim…

>It's going to sound elitist

I do not believe prefacing your argument with a hedge in this manner is necessary :) Barrier to entry and positive attractors, including, in the case of the early web, academic mindset, for early technological adopters are real phenomena. cf. Eternal September

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#44

Post by faissaloo » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

Macha wrote: post #40

TomMarius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phone number stays private

Don't you add people by phone number? i.e. username -> phone number lookup is not possible but phone number -> username is?

No, you can give yourself an @ so people can find you.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#45

Post by 1ste » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #27

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #16

Good old nostalgia. I miss IRC, simple hand-written HTML websites and forums. Now everything seems to run through Facebook or one of their peers, with little to no room for custom touches and design, everyone just paints within the lines. I also kind of miss the days of movies on VHS, physically going and renting movies, music on CDs, not having millions of media choices accessible within seconds. Though I have to sa…

Browsing and discovery within a blockbuster store was far superior to what any of the steaming apps have given us. I absolutely loathe the process of trying to find something to watch these days

Disagree. While that was good, I enjoy browsing Netflix. I wish it had reviews though.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#46

Post by thisone » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

can't say I miss A/S/L every conversation and people trying to get kids (aka me) into private chat rooms.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#47

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

You just need to look for scoped communities. As big as AOL seemed to be, you didn’t potentially have billions of people.

Engaging people on Twitter in any kind of serious discussion is like doing it in meatspce Times Square. You’ll find reasonable people, but it can quickly shift to crazy or even dangerous.

That’s the downside of the public square.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#48

Post by SmushyTaco » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

You could always make a new platform for chatrooms like back in the day but with modern technologies.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#49

Post by ausbah » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 2:44 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #31

watmough wrote: post #10

My 8 year likes to chat in Roblox. Lots of the games are sort of a surrogate open world / chatroom type deal. It seems close enough to the same thing, but for today's older kids, I'd have to imagine they are all on Facebook or whatever social network is current.

Roblox is pretty amazing actually.

Roblox is really amazing actually, as someone who played it in middle school 6+ years ago - seeing the game still going strong while (seemingly) keeping most of the core "game" intact is amazing.

It is not flashy, but it was the way me and many other kids were introduced to programming through building games involving Lua and their in game GUI.

Re: Tell HN: I miss the chatrooms of the 90s

#50

Post by yesenadam » Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

conductr wrote: post #27

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #16

Good old nostalgia. I miss IRC, simple hand-written HTML websites and forums. Now everything seems to run through Facebook or one of their peers, with little to no room for custom touches and design, everyone just paints within the lines. I also kind of miss the days of movies on VHS, physically going and renting movies, music on CDs, not having millions of media choices accessible within seconds. Though I have to sa…

Browsing and discovery within a blockbuster store was far superior to what any of the steaming apps have given us. I absolutely loathe the process of trying to find something to watch these days

>I absolutely loathe the process of trying to find something to watch these days

Wow, I find it infinitely superior to video stores, besides almost every movie or series ever made being instantly available, and many reviews of them all!

Maybe I can help with that. Lists are good, google lists of..whatever you're looking for. e.g. best movies ever/comedies/european series etc. I use IMDb a lot, I read a page or two of user reviews of a movie and almost always know whether I will like the movie or not, and am almost never very surprised by what I think of it. There are a few critics I regularly read in External Reviews on IMDb, e.g. from Ebert, Urban Cinefile, Moria - but have learnt to mostly trust the user reviews instead. IMDb lists are a great way to discover new movies, either googling lists or seeing what lists the movies you love are in. (NB the movie score on IMDb is mostly no guide to anything.) When I find a director or actor or screenwriter I like, I check out their other stuff.

..If all else fails, you could (I hope) do worse than check out the movies & series I've given an 'outstanding' star to on http://www.adamponting.com/movies/ :-) Good luck.