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Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

cauenapier.com

11–20 of 146 posts

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#11

Not sure how this is appealing at all. I see a bunch of stick figures moving rapidly and comments flashing too quickly to read. I gave up as it wasn't obvious at all what to do or how to particpate.

The issue is that my site right now is too crowded giving this post reached a good position on HN.

On regular days, this are much calmer. You can check other sites using the Townsquare on https://townsquare.cauenapier.com/ (fixed link). Check out the map.

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#12
I hope sites that just provide a way for people to assemble offline will be the new thing soon.

A photography guide's site that rallies amateurs for walk tours. A planning board for a foreign language practice group. A site with a schedule and registration form for a sports event.

When I read "online social" my head thinks "not-really social".

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#13
Reminds me of m favorite late 90s messenger, Odigo[0]. It had some sort of radar which showed you people who were visiting the same site. It sure had this town hall feel, but admittedly most sites were simply empty.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odigo_Messenger

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#14
Reminds me of the old ff0000, sadly no longer active, but this is what it looked like: https://www.reddit.com/r/lost_websites/comments/11lao71/ff00...

I had found it on StumbleUpon. We'd log in with friends and just fly around, explore, punch each other, chat with random people across the world on a surprisingly fluid multiplayer setting that was built to promote a web advertising agency (if I remember correctly).

It was really ahead of its time. The old internet was so fun.

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#15

Now this is cool! I'd love to see something like it on most web pages as a way to interact with like-minded people... but then I start thinking about all the ways it's going to be abused and get sad.

I'm the site author and creator of TownSquare. The only moment it got a bit abused it was during the first HN spike. But before and after that, everything was friendly.

Love this idea and your creation of it. Unfortunately do think the parent's concerns are valid - at this moment on your site at least one person has set their name to something offensive so it shows up perpetually (under the street light). Anonymity+connectivity persists in bringing out the worst of our impulses, I guess...

Do you think names are really necessary? Or could they take some other form than text, perhaps unicode chars chosen from a selection of abstract shapes? The wonderful https://www.tunera.xyz/fonts/teranoptia/ comes to mind.

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#16
I love it, and I just want to say thanks for making this and releasing it. I jumped through the indieweb webring and already stumbled onto another site using it too. Despite what some others have said about the lack of permanence, this still feels like an old web treasure to me even if it didn't exist.

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#17
post #5

> The goal wasn't to build another social network. > It was to bring back a small feeling that the web used to have: the sense that there are actual people on the other side of the screen. > Town Square is intentionally tiny and forgetful. There are no accounts, no profiles, no follower counts, no permanent chat history. Messages exist only while people are there to read them. Cute idea! But maybe this is just me hav…

I'm actually thinking about implementing some sort of "permanence" for some people, specially for recurring visitors of a given site. But that's still an early thought.

Would that be a little guy permanently on the page even if the user isn’t present, or a permanent persona for a user across visits?

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#18

Now this is cool! I'd love to see something like it on most web pages as a way to interact with like-minded people... but then I start thinking about all the ways it's going to be abused and get sad.

I'm the site author and creator of TownSquare. The only moment it got a bit abused it was during the first HN spike. But before and after that, everything was friendly.

I think there might be some merit to a basic filter, perhaps some sort of timeout for obvious slurs. I see a few right now.

Re: Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other

#20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the site author and creator of TownSquare. The only moment it got a bit abused it was during the first HN spike. But before and after that, everything was friendly.

Love this idea and your creation of it. Unfortunately do think the parent's concerns are valid - at this moment on your site at least one person has set their name to something offensive so it shows up perpetually (under the street light). Anonymity+connectivity persists in bringing out the worst of our impulses, I guess... Do you think names are really necessary? Or could they take some other form than text, perhaps…

teranoptia looks cool as hell, thanks for sharing!
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