Bring back crappy forums • Hacker News Board

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#331

Post by sph » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #204

shoobiedoo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That little bit of personality is what made forums so much fun. The early 2000s somethingawful forums were such a goldmine. I've never laughed so hard in my life at the antics between users. When this person or that guy or some infamous user would show up, it would kick off a thread and it felt so much more "real" and personal. The ultra niche subreddits have that vibe, but as soon as they get to around 10k users, it…

The SA forums are still there, happily chugging along. It's been my main hangout for 20 years.

I didn’t participate in its heydays but made an account during covid era and it has disappointed me greatly.

Let’s say that if you wish BlueSky were a forum, it’s the place for you. All I found were a bunch of americans that were simultaneously playing edgy, touchy and uncurious with anything in their cultural blindspot. Dreadful stuff. But the shadow of its greatness was palpable and made me nostalgic for something I didn’t experience.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#332

Post by sph » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

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?

Motorsports: forums.autosport.com is very much alive

Also f1technical.net

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#333

Post by fluoridation » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 8:25 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #310

fluoridation wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand, long threads pick up too much baggage nobody is going to read I think the key here is, if you don't want to read what other people have to say, why are you here? Suppose it's a discussion on a technical topic. Maybe people have gone off on a tangent that should have been split off into a new thread/topic, or maybe the discussion being had is necessary context to get an idea of where the real answe…

> I think the key here is, if you don't want to read what other people have to say, why are you here? It's not reference material. It's a conversation people who aren't around anymore had days, weeks, months, years ago that is no more important that what anyone today might be saying. And only a fraction of it is relevant. Yet you have to scan each post to check. Maybe that's useful if you have a very specific technic…

>It's not reference material. It's a conversation people who aren't around anymore had days, weeks, months, years ago that is no more important that what anyone today might be saying.

That doesn't actually answer my question, it just makes me want to repeat it: if you have that attitude, why be there at all? The existence of a forum instead of an IRC chat or some other immediately-forgotten medium means that someone considers the discussion worth preserving. If you disagree with that, if you think past discussion is worthless, then you're not the intended audience, so why should you be catered to? Go hang out on Discord or whatever.

>Yeah, but it's ultra-ephemeral, definitely not the model of a forum thread.

I don't really know what you mean. 4chan threads are typically short-lived, but that's not an inherent property. You could have an imageboard or forum implementation modeled exactly after 4chan, but where threads are permanent. In fact, there are 4chan archives that let you browse past discussions at will. The only difference with a forum is that you may no longer be able to reply, if the real thread has 404'd. Those archives cost money to run, so clearly there's people who disagree with you that past conversations are unimportant, to the tune of thousands of dollars each month.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#334

Post by enaaem » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 8:26 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #40

kjshsh123 wrote: post #27

Social media won because it's better for the consumer and producer. For the producer, it's free infrastructure but it's also advertising. Having a large subreddit means your game getting recommended to others and potentially being seen being introduced to more people. For the consumer, these social media sites do usually do provide a better experience in showing people what they want to see and keeping away stuff the…

Social media has censorship, which most old school forums couldn't simply replicate with volume, even with moderators in place. So, a lot of times you will find unfiltered discussion about certain topics as opposed to a controlled narrative you will get on social media.

Old school forums would definitely ban you for bad behaviour. Comments like "Dumbass XD" that you would see on X all the time, will simply be removed.

Old school forums were also regulated by reputation, which means people had to put effort into their posts. This discourage low effort trolling and rage bait. If you had some crazy takes, people will eventually make fun of you. There was a time on 9gag where it was flooded with anti-trans posts. That could never happen forums, because people would ask why OP is so obsessed with trans people.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#335

Post by econ » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 8:52 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #225

throw0101a wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tree views get tedious to revisit after they have reached a critical amount of posts, especially if subtrees can shift position from up/down-clicks. So threads with no revisits don't last as long. Tree/threaded views are an implementation detail: in e-mail clients you can toggle the threading offset view ("by converstaion"), e.g.: * https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/mail/view-email-... Is there any reason…

I've thought for a decade or more that "discussion" should be an HTML element, with the view format user-selectable. Threaded, flat, time-ordered, collapsed, and/or ranked by votes would all be handy. An interactive filter-by-keyword would also be useful, in which a thread would expand only comments matching the current search, with other context expandable. This is more useful than search-in-page (all the irrelevant…

Some html tags for things people actually do online would be a game changer.

Content editable is as old as Rome but obvious things are still missing like a rich text input area with the obvious options like italic and bold. But why not a with some sensible attributes. And with highlighting.

It would also be sensible to have standardized forms that the webmaster can't modify in any way.

You could also have an that points at a json. Blogspot use to have tags like that. Something like:

Then the title tag is replaced by the "title": from the json. Could have a pagination tag too. Need to flesh out things like requesting the next json when one gets to the end. Not impossible.

Perhaps there is even room for commercial post ranking solutions.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#336

Post by econ » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #263

postalcoder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm reminded of this amusing comment by dang on this subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24215601 A bunch of people skim the article (or just the title), post hot takes, then there's responses to those, and so on...

I had some hilarious moderation experiences by deleting all negative responses from topics specifically chosen attract negativity. People got so mad that they couldn't rub their poop on the conversation. I respond to their mails with some of the funniest trolling in my career. Meanwhile the conversations were all love and peace among the like minded.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#337

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

econ wrote: post #335

dredmorbius wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought for a decade or more that "discussion" should be an HTML element, with the view format user-selectable. Threaded, flat, time-ordered, collapsed, and/or ranked by votes would all be handy. An interactive filter-by-keyword would also be useful, in which a thread would expand only comments matching the current search, with other context expandable. This is more useful than search-in-page (all the irrelevant…

Some html tags for things people actually do online would be a game changer. Content editable is as old as Rome but obvious things are still missing like a rich text input area with the obvious options like italic and bold. But why not a with some sensible attributes. And with highlighting. It would also be sensible to have standardized forms that the webmaster can't modify in any way. You could also have an that poi…

What kinds of forms do you have in mind?

Another ask of mine would be standard page formats, such that there could be standard styles which could be consistently applied to them. Article, index, search, gallery, discussion/thread, off the top of my head.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#338

Post by throw0101a » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

abruzzi wrote: post #304

throw0101a wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tree views get tedious to revisit after they have reached a critical amount of posts, especially if subtrees can shift position from up/down-clicks. So threads with no revisits don't last as long. Tree/threaded views are an implementation detail: in e-mail clients you can toggle the threading offset view ("by converstaion"), e.g.: * https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/mail/view-email-... Is there any reason…

If you were able to toggle HN from tree view to chronological view, it would be borderline incomprehensible. With tree views like HN, nobody bothers to quote what they are reacting to because the placement of the post will usually make that obvious (I note that you did quote, but none of the responses to your post quoted you.) I see the same on reddit. There are UI change you could make that might solve this, but cla…

> With tree views like HN, nobody bothers to quote what they are reacting to […]

He says as he replies to a commented that did quoting. :)

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#339

Post by doginasuit » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 11:51 PM UTC

arexxbifs wrote: post #273

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…

Reddit and HN aren't forums, they're factories for quick takes and reactions (and yes this is one of them). It's a transitory experience. The good old "crappy" forum format isn't gamified with upvotes and often have long-running, slow-burn threads that go on for months or years. Even once popular, high-traffic forums such as SomethingAwful had a different pacing and community feel to them. It's like a pub with its lo…

I'm curious, where would you prefer to go for a discussion like this one with people you've never heard from before? It seems like you find it valuable enough to participate.

Speaking for myself, I don't know another place I can go to hear thoughts about the topic of the day from a random set of voices, some of whom impact the way I think. I don't think it is an accident, I think it is supported by the design. They don't read like quick takes to me, it is possible and likely to find perspectives from people who has spent time thinking about the topic or have unique experience or knowledge to share.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#340

Post by doginasuit » Thu, Jul 02, 2026, 11:57 PM UTC

denotes wrote: post #303

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…

Defining superfluous as off-topic, the format does not inherently invite superfluous content. In both the traditional forum and engagement ranking schemes, the off-topic post will be ignored and the poster has the same experience in both settings. I argue that the culture of some forums may invite noise, but the forum has several mechanisms to make this invitation a net-positive attribute. If a post has negative valu…

The superfluous content I was thinking about is all the extra content besides the discussion. Forum signatures and gratuitous UI layouts that take up a significant part of the screen. I think the minimalism of the comment tree is partly why it works so well.

What I'm hearing from you and the other people who prefer the old format is appreciation of a tighter knit community and a thread of conversation that lasts more than a day. I can appreciate that too.