HN is already a "social" network, albeit with a limited set of features. But that "limitation" is what makes the site so engaging (a strong set of moderation rules also help of course). I'm building "Create your very own HN site yourself" - (https://hn.plus) if anyone is interested - I guess you will be able to follow the HN model yourself with it.
Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
361–370 of 399 posts
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#362I feel like we already have I have gotten jobs off of HN, started organizations with people I met here, hired people from posts, argued and agreed and flamed and shared ....all the stuff you do with social networks It's just that this network minimizes the "personality" driven aspects of social networks because it's not driven to optimize profit or engagement. It's seemingly driven to optimize for civility. I think t…
I think a news feed is probably what’s missing. See friends. Track them. Pick fights every time they say something you disagree with. Upvote every time you agree with them. Done. /s
First time I'm grateful a sarcastic comment was suffixed with a `/s`.
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah...the thing about the talks (I'm quite good at that stuff), is that they also skew young, and generally, at least around here, they are considered as currency, so there's a lot of competition for them. I could really give a rat's ass about ego, and I'm not looking for work, so I'm not interested in mud-wrestling some hungry young turk, with a syllabus full of Buzzword Stew, for a speaking engagement. I'm good at…
Chris, I read your blog and many of your posts here. You are a good writer. Please don't stop. First, it sucks that you are facing that age discrim IRL. In the tech world, "doing talks" is a bit like publishing in scientific research. It builds a brand name for yourself and increases your value. This is why the young and aggressive (and mostly men) want to do it. Plus, it is a form of fame and adoration. The same gro…
Thanks. I’ve considered doing stuff like Vimeo/YouTube stuff, and may do so, but it’s a lot of work. I’ve had a full dance card, the last couple of years, and that has even affected my text postings (which is why I came up with my “Shorties”[0] series).
I enjoy writing, but don’t enjoy video production as much (but I haven’t really done enough to say that, definitively).
When I give talks and classes, I spend a lot of time, preparing. I spent close to a month, preparing this 90-minute Bluetooth class[1].
I have just been a bit strapped for time, lately.
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fine if it doesn't fulfill all use cases, but demonstrating any thought to some of them would help flesh out the details of what's being proposed. Are you building a social network, or a chain of trust? Are identities fungible, or irrevocably linked to a person's legal name and physicality? Etc.
The whole point of vouching for someone is so they can prove they are who they say they are. If you don't want to do that, then don't do that. Or, if you have two identities, I suppose you'd have two accounts. Anyway, things don't have to be for everyone. In the unlikely scenario in which this gets built, there would still be other websites too.
> Anyway, things don't have to be for everyone. In the unlikely scenario in which this gets built, there would still be other websites too.
Just so we're clear: Do you realize this is how systemic prejudice gets built?
"Our policies disproportionately exclude [insert minority group] in particular? Well it isn't because we're [insert -ist word here]! We love [group]. We're baffled why they would believe otherwise."
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#365Cool, this came up. Hey HN! I’m building Overlapp, a true social network connecting everyone over the things we like, dislike, and want to do: our Overlapps! Imagine instagram with a sliding scale to share just how much you like or dislike something and also a button to easily add to your wish list. From there we show you friends, colleagues or people nearby (or around the world) that also want to see that quirky ban…
I wonder if having to manually set your interest/disinterest in each topic would get a bit annoying, but I do like the end result of seeing your common ground with other people. Ditching the slider and having discrete 1-5 buttons (face emoji) could make it quicker. Combines the slider and the buttons in one.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. We have been discussing this internally and eventually will end up where users want it to be. But imho the slider will prove to be fun and provide more of an emotional connection with the topic and the app. But we will certainly have shortcuts so most likely will be the best of both a slider and a quick 5 choices.
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#366Earlier 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.
As people who don’t do this, I prefer to stay anonymous. Anonymous writing has a long and good history with some bad apples. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwafrr
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#367I find it interesting that most discussion forums have essentially the same data model, but just a different UI and moderation.
Think: Reddit, HN, Twitter, Discord, TikTok, Insta, Signal/Whatsapp/Telegram/Messenger.
I feel like Reddit is a superset of most though although they suck at chat. Discord is great at chat, but their forum functionality is weak.
All of HN could be implemented as a single sub-reddit for example. I would much rather use HN on the Reddit UI too. And Twitter also.
The most important thing that trumps all is always the community.
I've often thought a fun experiment would be to create a simple clone of the UI of Reddit, HN, Twitter, Discord, and then show each of those feeds inside the UI of each other.
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#368Simple: 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…
This sounds great on paper, but you would still run into a few major problems: - the network effect or how do you get a critical mass of users - moderation/abuse prevention since its distributed Imagine someone uploads CSAM and now muliple people unwillingly and unknowingly have their computers redstribute it (become mirrors) or re-upload it to cloud storage. In addition, most of these points are wet dreams for the a…
Network effect and critical mass of users isn't part of the plan. Scaling is done per the user population. If you end up with 100 circles of 150 people and it is sustainable with ads thats fine. No social circles are public, nothing is public.
Moderation is done by users since no circle or content is spread wider than 150. Their phones/devices are only end nodes receiving content, not distributing it at all. The idea is the platform doesn't need suggestion algo's or spying on people's content for advertisers. It just distributes content to those that are members in a circle. The client apps can be built to flag questionable content so it doesn't end up in the users cloud storage.
Again, in my head this is not a global/public "town square" (which any website thinking they are that is a fallacy). It is a social media site for private groups of people to use which is the vast majority of what people want. A social circle for family, social circles for current/former groups of workers, etc. Maybe allow larger private groups for churches, schools, etc. Private groups tend to have very good self-moderation.
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, right now they would need to unlock it and I can sign out of the app somewhere else.
The phone would have the same physical security features. But 'signing out' would be more of an ostracism thing.
Ah, ok, so it's just a pain to get back into the social network. Isn't this just adding friction for friction's sake?
Re: Ask HN: How might HN build a social network together?
#370Personally I still think Google Plus got a lot of things right. It was a very pleasant place where people had real, meaningful discussions, and was quite unlike Facebook or Twitter. Nothing else I've tried since its disappearance had quite the same sense of content and community. What exactly made it so different is hard to say. Was there something about the way you organised your friends into circles? You could shar…
IMO the reason it failed is the same reason it was great. It didn't have Facebook's stickiness and way of getting you to add everybody because of the way circles worked. If it had been less privacy minded and just copied Facebook's lack of respect for user privacy and glued everyone together in one big pot, then it would have done better.
Well, not for me. Google Plus worked great for its users, but Google clearly wanted something else from it and kept messing with it. Changing or removing features, first requiring real names, then importing all Youtube users (that's when it really went down hill), and ultimately they decided to pull the plug despite millions of happy users. It was a fantastic success, just not as big as Facebook, nor apparently something Google knew what to do with.