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Bring back crappy forums

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Re: Bring back crappy forums

#151

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

postalcoder wrote: post #123
doginasuit wrote: post #33

> We tried the forum thing. We wanted something else. Not necessarily because it was better, though sure, maybe it was. But because it was different. I don't think the novelty explains very much, the digg/reddit comment tree format is a clear improvement in the sense that it makes it easier to find and track interesting discussions. I always liked the aspect that you could follow a coherent back and forth where the p…

The downside with reddit-/hn-style comment is that, while they provide a superior UI for discussions, the liveliness of the discussions have a shelf life of a day. It makes it's hard to get a high quality discussion about new/breaking topics. What I mean is that, for new products, the threads that get the greatest discussion liquidity are those where not a single person knows a thing about it. So you'll get hundreds…

Could you transcribe and condense fleeting discussions into the forum shape?

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#153

Post by crimsoneer »

davb wrote: post #122

I used to participate in a bunch of forums across an range of topics and in recent years considered starting one myself but with the OSA (Online Safety Act) in the UK, it’s not worth the personal risk.

Why? You are significantly more likely to be struck by lightning when out for a walk then prosecuted for running a forum under the online safety act.

The act and guidance are very, very clear that your safeguards have to be proportionate to your scale and audience. If you're running a small forum, a quick "I sometimes check the posts and make sure nobody is using it to groom children or exchange child porn" is just fine.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#154

Post by _the_inflator »

As someone who worked as forum member and even hosted his own very successful forum during the 2000-2015 years - it is so much work in a one sided system.

It is a one to many relationship, where success in terms of forum quality and loyal members and member count are one thing, one bad apple another.

Moderation and administration looks easy on the outside but the regular members don't see the amount of invisible staff forums, that mods and admins use to handle and balance day to day happiness or survivorship - administrators always do it wrong, all blame no thank you.

I love and like forums and strictly stick to forum culture. If you can be polarizing here and there, like HN, I use it from time to time in polarizing topics. Strict rule: no flame wars, never. Most of the time I get support, which is ok, I don't troll.

Most of the time I try to find common ground and add a story or information to a comment.

Upvotes and downvotes show you the way.

So maybe it sounds pathetic but a big shoutout to the mods here and all the die hard members who keep HN the best place in my opinion there is. Never change, and I mean it.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#155

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

bsder wrote: post #80
doginasuit wrote: post #33

> We tried the forum thing. We wanted something else. Not necessarily because it was better, though sure, maybe it was. But because it was different. I don't think the novelty explains very much, the digg/reddit comment tree format is a clear improvement in the sense that it makes it easier to find and track interesting discussions. I always liked the aspect that you could follow a coherent back and forth where the p…

Most of the evils of the modern internet trace back to the fact that the default access device became a phone without a keyboard. Using a phone automatically puts you in "low interaction passive consumer" mode. Once you concede that, you are now 3 steps behind the 8-ball permanently.

The evils of the internet are just the evils of humanity scaled. The village brawl before the tavern was always more interesting then work or a difficult discussion of unemotional stoic elders.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#156

Post by crimsoneer »

drcongo wrote: post #147
someonebaggy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point surely we have to start openly defying the OSA and similar acts. What jury will convict someone for operating an online forum about sharks and not ensuring every user is older than 13?

I doubt that it's something that would ever get a jury trial - they'd have bankrupted you and taken everything you've got before it got to that. I also gave up running a couple of very niche forums when the OSA came in.

It's worth reflecting on the fact nobody has ever been arrested for running a forum under the online safety act. One forum, which was specifically dedicated to helping people commit suicide, was fined.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/27/suicide-f...

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#157

Post by account42 »

parasti wrote: post #125

This made me realize that forums existed only because there was somebody willing to pay for domain, hosting and maintenance with money and time. As a result most had a bus factor of 1. All the forums I know died with their maintainer moving on - and even forums "resurrected" by a community member had that exact problem. There is space for a fully distributed forum that can't die with its maintainer.

I disagree. Part of what makes forums unique and worth visiting is having the right benevolent dictator at the helm, setting the tone for the forum. Larger forums already share the hosting and maintenance work among a group of people.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#158

Post by beloch »

doginasuit wrote: post #33

> We tried the forum thing. We wanted something else. Not necessarily because it was better, though sure, maybe it was. But because it was different. I don't think the novelty explains very much, the digg/reddit comment tree format is a clear improvement in the sense that it makes it easier to find and track interesting discussions. I always liked the aspect that you could follow a coherent back and forth where the p…

While some forums had up-votes long before reddit came along, it was reddit that used them to rank and promote posts/comments. This provided some benefit, but also opened up a huge vulnerability. It became easier to find high quality posts some of the time, but it also drowned everything in a sea of karma-farmer spam.

Reddit also never found a good solution for moderation. Like the BBS's and message boards of yore, reddit mods are unpaid (by Reddit at least), anonymous, and unaccountable. Some are good. Most aren't. Modding is not a pleasant job, so it's worth asking why somebody would do it for free. The actions of some reddit mods can only be interpreted as psyops for authoritarian regimes.

Ranking and moderation remain tough problems. Algorithms can be gamed. AI, to date, has lacked the judgment to do either well. Humans can't be trusted not to behave like tyrants or push an agenda, either theirs or that of someone paying them. Not without costly incentives, like pay, and standards that are actually enforced by other humans, all of which is expensive.

An oldschool forum without up/down-votes might actually be less susceptible to karma-farming. No karma = no karma-farming. However, you're right that giving up everything that came with karma systems is tough to do.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#159

Post by khurs »

NDlurker wrote: post #24

2 of the best from my high school days are still around, though I barely even lurk anymore. https://forum.bodybuilding.com https://www.bluelight.org/community/forums/

WARNING NSFW: Bluelight is a recreational drugs forum, so you may otherwise want to click on it from work.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#160

Post by divan »

The word 'crappy' stood out to me. I feel the same sentiment about bringing back forums, but as a person who maintained few of those for many years, I always wanted explicitly non-crappy forums.

In fact, I attribute much of the decline of forums to the fact that they were crappy and hard to maintain. Those PHP/Ruby monstrousities, with plugin system that was a security and maintaiability nightmare, made maintaining a forum quite a challenging task. I have some forums died purely because it was impossible to update them anymore without blowing up half of the functionality.

Bring back non-crappy forums!

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