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Bring back crappy forums

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Re: Bring back crappy forums

#351

Post by magic_hamster »

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 digg/reddit comment tree format is a clear improvement

You are talking about content discovery. But for a sense of community I have never seen or been able to replicate the feeling of belonging and building a shared experience like old crappy forums.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#352

Post by doginasuit »

TFNA wrote: post #170
CM30 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I think both formats have their pros and cons. For example, a standard forum discussion tends to prioritise the last post, while a Reddit one tends to prioritise the first few posts. This means that unless you can get into a discussion in the first 30 minutes to an hour (depending on the subreddit size), your comment is basically getting buried. The earliest posts will probably have racked up dozens or hundreds o…

> This means that unless you can get into a discussion in the first 30 minutes to an hour (depending on the subreddit size), your comment is basically getting buried This had been the case for a while on big subs, but there has apparently been a further change. When I returned to Reddit this year after a break, I found that most new posts on the smaller subs would draw all their comments in the first 30–60 minutes, a…

I believe I heard that reddit has started a different kind of feed to replace r/all and it does introduce some kind of algorithm that "suggests" content differently from the straightforward upvote system. Although the popularity contest aspect of it was always somewhat regrettable, I liked that it was a really simple algorithm that supported an entirely human driven curation of content, so it seems like a regression.

As someone who usually shows up to the thread after most of the energy has moved on, it is always a little disappointing. It seems open for some kind of innovation that could keep the conversation alive and give it the longevity that comment trees generally lack. I always try to reply to these straggler replies to my own comments.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#353

Post by arexxbifs »

doginasuit wrote: post #339
arexxbifs wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> I'm curious, where would you prefer to go for a discussion like this one with people you've never heard from before?

That's my point: HN/Reddit/etc serve a different purpose than phpBB-style forums. The format isn't improved or superior, it's just different. I suppose it was originally popularized by Slashdot, so it isn't even "new".

> It seems like you find it valuable enough to participate.

I never said I didn't?

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#354

Post by dredmorbius »

econ wrote: post #343
dredmorbius wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stop everyone from reinventing the registration form so that it can be filled out without all the fuzzy business. You specify the fields you need and where it should post. Then have no further control over it. Have the browser bar show it is a standard form for site: example.com which means no [3rd party] js listening in on personal information. Validate and format all countries adresses correctly. Get email addresse…

Now the hard part:

Which fields are allowed?

Which aren't?

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#355

Post by lazystar »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #253
lazystar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the biggest issue with reddit/digg/hackernews style comments is how top comments can be gamed for profit. old forums had the problem of "first" and "bump" comments, but steering the conversation was harder.

> top comments can be gamed for profit This sounds poetic, but makes no sense to me. I've been here for a few years and I regularly post comments. I still have almost no idea which ones will be up-voted . However, I do know which ones will be down-voted . So tell us, how do you write a comment that can be "gamed for profit"?

you pay for upvotes from a third party upvote service.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#356

Post by coldpie »

shoobiedoo wrote: post #348
sph wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

yeah it's nothing like it used to be. back in the old days it was like the wild west. nothing was off the table unless it was illegal or grossly against the forum rules. now it's just a forum version of reddit or bluesky like you said

It has definitely grown up with its users, yes. Most of us are in our 30s-50s now, lol.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#357

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

HardlyCognizant wrote: post #280
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequented a forum with a two-pane UI with a tree in one page and the text in another. It encouraged long posts; was used for political and historical discussions. And what was amazing was that it had a seamless NNTP backend, you could easily participate using an news client, which was nearly every email client those days.

Do they roll their own software, or is it a purchased solution? I'd love to know more about the application powering it.

It was their own software; and it was long time ago, so I didn't think it was still functioning, but, to my surprise, it still is:

https://vif2ne.su/nvk/forum/0/0.htm

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#358

Post by cryptopian »

zippergz wrote: post #45
eleventen wrote: post #7

I'm not sure I understand the difference between "crappy forums" and subreddits. They have all the same features. Tags function as sections. You can sort threads chronologically. Karma. I suspect there's no actual difference, the author just liked the sort of people who were willing to deal with the traditional "crappy forum" interface for the sake of connecting around some niche hobby, and it provided enough frictio…

The differences aren't chiefly technical. They are cultural, as you alluded to. I started out using BBSes then usenet and email lists then forums and now reddit, for an overlapping set of hobbies. I can tell you with certainty that the subreddits about those hobbies are a pale shadow of what existed on ANY of the prior discussion platforms. The volume of conversation might be higher, but the depth and sophistication…

> So if they stumble into random niche subreddit because the algorithm suggested it or someone linked to it or it popped up in a search result, in two clicks they can be posting their own new posts or replies in that very niche community

I occasionally post on a regional cycling subreddit. It's the kind of sub where the average post gets maybe 5-10 comments and maybe 100 upvotes if it's popular, mostly people discussing commute routes, laughing about bad infrastructure, highlighting community events and so on. Sometimes a post makes it to the front page, and inevitably, this brings a lot of anger and direct, uninformed takes. It's usually because it's some dashcam of somebody doing something stupid, and that makes it very clickable.

Re: Bring back crappy forums

#360

Post by krapp »

KajMagnus wrote: post #347
krapp wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a chronologically sorted tree view - sort each subtree chronologically and then the root comments, keeping the hierarchy. HN doesn't do it because it would undermine the goal of karma sorting, and potentially lower the quality of conversation*. You could arguably do it with a flat view (I've seen some alternate HN views posted as Show HNs that do so) but you would have to add chan-style greentext links t…

You can also have a tree view side-by-side with a flat view — see this comment (in this discussion): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48770861 If you click a comment in the flat view, the tree view jumps to that comment, so you can see it in its context. > You can have a chronologically sorted tree view Couldn't that be a change-sort-order-button? But this doesn't solve the find-the-most-recent-comments problem?

I have a browser plugin that highlights most recent unread comments on HN with a yellow background, and counts new comments in the thread listings. One could even add "next unread" links as well.

I've seen imageboards that toggle between a flat and tree view with javascript.

Any feature you can think of has probably been implemented by someone at some point. Unfortunately almost no one cares about forums anymore so trying to innovate in the space is a waste of time. Only a very fringe subset of nerds (myself included, I still weep for my HN clone in Hack that will never be finished, and my Godot client that will never be released) considers forum UI design to be interesting.

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