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Fark redesign is now live (2007)

fark.com

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Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#281

Post by Khaine »

The re-design didn't kill fark.com, it was the attack on its users, which started with the "crackdown on misogyny" which meant cracking down on anything negative against women and then has expanded from there. The re-design and this were the one-two punch on that community. Since then, it has been a shell of itself.

You can argue about the merits of those changes, but it is those changes that changed the community, practically fatally so.

I think this also marked the death of the early 2000s internet culture, which had been formed on places like fark.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#282

Post by meerita »

placesalt wrote: post #263
meerita wrote: post #165

User redesigns are the main killers of websites. Consider the following examples: Digg, MySpace, Reddit, Slashdot, Facebook, Dropbox, and Typeform. These projects, among others, ultimately failed due to a misconception that they had a design problem or a desire to keep their design department occupied. Instead of following a clear vision, these projects were sacrificed in an attempt to please all users. HN should ref…

Slashdot attempted a redesign, but there was a revolt (the slashcott) where everybody refused to discuss anything except for their dislike of the redesign, and - after a week or so - the site relented and didn't go ahead with the change. The real cause of the decline of slashdot, in my opinion, was the corporate buyout and departure of CmdrTaco, Hemos, and the rest. For what it's worth, the site is still going, there…

I remember that too, in the end they re-styled a bit more and still produced the opposite effect.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#283

Post by smcl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #245
constantcrying wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (removing extreme TOS stuff - racism, hate speech etc) Why would you edit these? Deletion seems far superior, do you want people to go around editing out the racism of peoples posts? Seems absurd.

> Deletion seems far superior, do you want people to go around editing out the racism of peoples posts? The generous argument for would be it preserves any redeeming value in the offending comment. The practical answer is he (EDIT: spez) wanted something to rail against.

Can't really see how my comments suggest I'm "rail[ing] against" something

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#284

Post by ycombinete »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #95
boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

Here's my question: Can HN recover from this? It was already getting choppy with the election and cryptocurrency generating huge emotional hellthreads. Then came Musk and Mastodon. Now it's Reddit. HN is just turning into another hub of tech outrage. This site is giving me pain to read now. Want to see a contrast? Look at the comments on this Reddit drama and compare it against the original Digg redesign drama on HN…

In general the lack of separate communities, and the technical posts that take up a good portion of the front page seem to guard against that kind of Eternal September on HN. The top of the front page right now:

  1. Before Reddit and Digg, there was Fark. Then a user-hostile redesign killed it (fark.com)
  2. Why Perl?
  3. Video to Video with Stable Diffusion (Step-by-Step) – Stable Diffusion Art
  4. The Surprising Power of Documentation
  5. Intel is all-in on backside power delivery (ieee.org)
  6. Temperature-dependent RNA editing in octopus recodes the neural proteome
  7. MIDI 2.0 driver support coming with Linux 6.5
I suppose you'll know it's over when there are no more technical posts. So keep upvoting them ;).

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#285

Post by darreninthenet »

nebrie wrote: post #224
darreninthenet wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit won't die for the same reason Facebook won't... there's no real viable alternative for the majority of the users. It might become a bit shitter, it might lose a few users who are a bit more tech savvy or from the "old days of the internet" who'll find themselves fedi or forum based alternatives but the majority will keep getting what they want out of it without a reason to move - most users probably use the of…

There are alternatives. Lemmy has seen incredible growth over the past two weeks.

How do you fix the problem for the average user of why the (eg) recipe group on their Lemmy instance is empty, and when/if they do learn that other instances recipe groups are different groups, how they properly follow them all, and why it is their favourite one suddenly disappeared because their instance defed'd from that instance because the other instance also carried trumpsfavouriterecipes?

I get and like the principles of the Fediverse but for the average user it's too fragmented, needs too much effort around discoverability, is confusing and promotes echo chambers in some ways worse than Reddit (in that your instance can simply cut off another instance it doesn't agree with - at least in Reddit you can find another sub all on the same instance that meets your echo chambers. Yes you can change instances but supposing that other instance doesn't carry a group you use heavily?)

IMO Lemmy's growth will halt once the more intrepid average user decides it's too complex, tells all their friends about it and goes back to Reddit.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#286

Post by perihelions »

astrange wrote: post #217
tirpen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spez even infamously abused his admin access to edit another posters comment a while back. Calling it a dorm room shitshow is an insult to dorm rooms everywhere.

He was correct to do this, because it was funny. Any true longtime forum poster would recognize this. (Conversely, if it wasn't funny, he should've done it differently.) Although doing Lowtax things may lead to turning into Lowtax, which is probably bad. I can certainly tell you it's not a serious problem, because it'd be illegal if it was. All serious problems with websites are revenue issues or legal issues.

It's not funny when the victim isn't in on the joke and is distressed by it.

(Sure, the victim was (probably) a highly unsympathetic and stupid person. What justification is that? It's schoolyard-bully sociology to attack unsympathetic weirdos. Most bullies grow out of it and live with regrets. But 'spez is a fucking adult! What's he doing lurking in the worst subreddits of (his own) website, searching for prey to gaslight? What's the character of a grown-ass man who does that?)

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#287

Post by meerita »

tourist2d wrote: post #189
meerita wrote: post #165

User redesigns are the main killers of websites. Consider the following examples: Digg, MySpace, Reddit, Slashdot, Facebook, Dropbox, and Typeform. These projects, among others, ultimately failed due to a misconception that they had a design problem or a desire to keep their design department occupied. Instead of following a clear vision, these projects were sacrificed in an attempt to please all users. HN should ref…

It's hard to take you comment serious when you categorise Facebook and Dropbox as failed projects.

Dropbox went from good user experience and design style to bizarre current-thing design style back then. It backfired so bad people fleed from the platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15393684

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#288

Post by onion2k »

visarga wrote: post #235
onion2k wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach (not just for Reddit, but for all internet content sites) is that $9.99 is a significant investment when there are other sites providing content for free. The choice the user has to make isn't "Is Reddit worth $9.99?" but more like "Is Reddit better value at $9.99 than some other website at $0.00?", and Reddit is probably never going to win in that process for the majority of people. It…

Already survived a long time.

Surviving is not the goal.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#289

Post by darreninthenet »

Underqualified wrote: post #237
darreninthenet wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit won't die for the same reason Facebook won't... there's no real viable alternative for the majority of the users. It might become a bit shitter, it might lose a few users who are a bit more tech savvy or from the "old days of the internet" who'll find themselves fedi or forum based alternatives but the majority will keep getting what they want out of it without a reason to move - most users probably use the of…

I've seen UseNet die, so I'm not so sure. What Reddit does (and UseNet before it) is really niche. There aren't as many people on Reddit as there are on Facebook and Reddit isn't as entangled with people's 'real' life as much as social media is.

I loved Usenet before the mixture of web forums and spam killed it... we need something like this again - decentralised platforms without decentralised community.

Re: Fark redesign is now live (2007)

#290

Post by the_third_wave »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #95
boc wrote: post #12

I have a 14yo reddit account, and was a Digg user for years prior to that. While there were scandals like the HDDVD code stuff, ultimately the user-hostile Digg v4 redesign killed it for me- the day they forced it on everyone I never went back. Tonight watching all the subreddits go private is the first time I’ve ever felt like Reddit is the next to die. If anyone from reddit corporate is reading this, understand tha…

Here's my question: Can HN recover from this? It was already getting choppy with the election and cryptocurrency generating huge emotional hellthreads. Then came Musk and Mastodon. Now it's Reddit. HN is just turning into another hub of tech outrage. This site is giving me pain to read now. Want to see a contrast? Look at the comments on this Reddit drama and compare it against the original Digg redesign drama on HN…

Just ignore every post related to this subject and you'll be fine? If some people want to discuss it just let them, there is enough space on the site after all.
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