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Bring back crappy forums

tedium.co

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Re: Bring back crappy forums

#291

Post by cwnyth »

ptx wrote: post #224
salaryman777 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you list a few?

FreeBSD forums, using XenForo which doesn't seem to be open source: https://forums.freebsd.org/ Arch Linux forums, using FluxBB: https://bbs.archlinux.org/ Free Pascal forums, using Simple Machines Forum: https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/ Python forums, using Discourse: https://discuss.python.org/ Nim forums, using their own nimforum software written in Nim: https://forum.nim-lang.org/

LinuxForums has been going strong for decades. My account there dates to 2004.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#292

Post by stackghost »

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…

>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 people carrying the conversation tend to change with each comment. Even with all its problems, I can't think of another format that can match it in terms of sharing the spotlight among a diverse set of voices.

The original battle.net forums featured a threaded view much like HN/reddit. Actually, in retrospect it was like mailing list archives.

IIRC they switched to a more orthodox phpbb-like layout because users preferred it.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#293

Post by uproarchat »

I have very fond memories of PHPBB. A lot of tech communities migrated to Discord now, so that chat history is not indexable by search engines, which makes finding information a little tough. When building Uproar chat, to combat that "lost information" that is inherent to chats, we added a pin-to-feed feature so you can pin anything you said in chat to a publicly viewable feed, which is indexable by search. It's not as nostalgic or "great" as PHPBB was, but it's better than nothing.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#294

Post by wpm »

salaryman777 wrote: post #192
prmoustache wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, I don't really understand this "bring back" things, there are a handful of forums I am visiting almost daily. And they are probably my most visited websites alongside hackernews and a couple of others.

Could you list a few?

68KMLA (68K Macintosh Liberation Army): https://68kmla.org/bb/

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#295

Post by y1n0 »

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…

The shelf-life of a day is because of the abstract voting aspect. Old crappy forums used comments, vs an abstract notion, as a vote.

This allowed for long running conversations. It did require stronger protections of posting rights though.

If it seemed useful enough someone could make an HN app that sorted by activity, maybe weighted by a person’s karma.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#296

Post by cogman10 »

MrJohz wrote: post #276
cogman10 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And much like "default new" forums have a thread workaround to keep threads of discussion alive, it's quotes. Forums are a bit like dropping into an IRC chat. You generally just go to the first and last pages and everything in between is lost (if they aren't in a quote chain).

Tbh, that's exactly what I always liked about forums. They weren't as good as a searchable source of information, but in terms of discussion it really hit the sweet spot for me. A single conversation could meander in different directions, but you still had the first page of the thread as an anchor point, and because there was only so much quoting you could do before it became obnoxious, the conversation remained more…

The other nice part about this is they inherently work better on mobile phones.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#297

Post by razster »

jwr wrote: post #265

I also wish we brought back interesting discussions in a medium that is not corporate-controlled, but I do not long for those crappy forums. I always thought they were a major regression. We had Usenet, and it had easily filterable threaded conversations with a plethora of good readers. The only thing it lacked was good inline image support, but that could have been bolted on. Instead, we started implementing those t…

I'm still connecting once in a while to a local (dialup)BBS that has been running since 1994, no growth but we're still keeping in touch. Same for a forum I frequent from time to time, since 2001. I've recently deactivated my IG, FB, and Reddit accounts, pretty much every mainstream social media platform. The censorship is beyond ridiculous.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#298

Post by doublepg23 »

hasteg wrote: post #274

Anyone here used to be on HackForums? I lived on there from 2011-2013/4... was pretty young back then but I learned so much and attribute it to getting to the spot i'm at now. I remember being so obsessed about "rep" on there, at one point I hit over 1k and it was like a huge achievement for me lol. Seems like that was the precursor to "followers" on X/Insta/whatever. Looking back, it wasn't the best place for a kid…

If I recall correctly, I was obsessed with the PBS show "Cyberchase" and had Googled the main antagonists name "Hacker" which lead to me HackForums.

It ended up being a very significant influence on my computing career!

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#299

Post by hellotheretoday »

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…

Don’t forget moderators getting tired of seeing new threads on a popular topic and inevitably creating the “megathread”: a thread that (by the time you arrive) has 900+ pages and the first post that is edited to include highlights and important new info hasn’t been updated in 2 years because the OP has moved on or become inactive

Even better when it contains potential fixes for problems. The solution you need is on page 672 but you’ll never know because the poster phrased the problem weird and even if they didn’t search is absolutely garbage (and outside search tools won’t work because most subforums are locked behind needing an account so they aren’t indexed). Have fun reading page after 40 post page where the overwhelming majority of the comment amounts to “I upvote/downvote this”

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#300

Post by hellotheretoday »

hhjinks wrote: post #96
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…

Unironically, image boards are the best. All replies available chronologically, and you can click any post number to follow whatever thread of conversation you find interesting.

The forced anonymity/lack of account names is also a big plus. Misinformation can obviously be perpetuated by appealing to bias (look at /pol/) but you lose the “forum celebrity” shit that gives power users the ability to gain credence simply based on name and eventually derail discussions simply by showing up
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