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Voten.co, a Real-Time Reddit Alternative Launches Public Beta

139 points by ericbarnes 9y ago

tyingq 9y ago
"The app itself is powered by Laravel, Vue.js, Socket.io, and Node" Is there another Laravel other than the php one? Seems odd to roll out with both php and node.js. I don't know why you would need both. Edit: Yes, I see each has it's strengths. But that has to drive a lot of doing the same thing twice, in two languages...they both interact with the same data. I would guess time-to-market is important at launch to react to things you missed. I would have settled on one or the other. Feels like premature optimization.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  It seems like if it's real-time a lot of the page is dynamic applications you interact with through AJAX, and probably it was easier to do that and get acceptable performance in Node. The other functions (say, edit profile) could then be handled by Laravel more easily. At least that's what I'd guess.
- rprime 9y ago
  I assume NodeJS is used just as a WebSocket server for their real-time events, doing that in PHP would be a bit uncomfortable.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    doing that in PHP would be a bit uncomfortable. Why? PHP works fine as a daemon, there are many servers written in pure PHP, as well as frameworks for "async" programming.
    - Shorel 9y ago
      It is uncomfortable, sadly. At the very least PHP Ratchet is not quite integrated with Laravel and the easy route is to use Node. https://github.com/laravel/echo https://github.com/laravel/echo
    - rprime 9y ago
      I am not saying that as an attack to PHP (or a defense of NodeJS), I am writing PHP daily, but when it comes to real-time (at least WS systems), PHP would be my last resort, mostly because it lacks any real support for such things, you'll have to force your way in. I guess we come back to _just because you can doesn't mean you should_. :)
- mediumdeviation 9y ago
  Laravel 5.4 integrates with Vue. https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/frontend#writing-vue-components https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/frontend#writing-vue-components Laravel can act as the API backend to the frontend (basically a set of REST endpoints that the frontend can talk to), or alternatively the Vue components are used only where heavy client-side interactions are required, while the rest of the pages are still served up by Laravel normally.
- dvdhnt 9y ago
  Agreed. Also, I've never noticed someone using both a front-end framework AND jQuery simultaneously. Usually, at least in projects I've collaborated on, this is redundant. However, I've never used Vue.js, so perhaps this is standard?
- seibelj 9y ago
  Nothing wrong with PHP, just use the right tool for the job, and the right tool is based on existing skills, time to market, requirements, etc. If PHP fits the bill, use PHP
  - tyingq 9y ago
    That's not what I said though. I'm asking why php AND node.js. One or the other should suffice. For websockets, as an example, HHVM+proxygen should be as performant as node. Or, node should be roughly as good as php for developer speed on the normal, not-websockets side of the house.
    - seibelj 9y ago
      In a microservices architecture, you might have many languages. And if you have a PHP developer and a node.js dev, and you are trying to deliver as fast as possible, that could be a reason to split it up.
      - tyingq 9y ago
        Writing everything twice for the speculative success of a brand new Reddit clone doesn't qualify as "deliver as fast as possible" to me. Edit: For clarity, I mean there would be significant overlap in areas like data retrieval, sessions/auth, etc. A Reddit like app would have read/write to and from the browser and to and from the database for many data structures. Users, admins, moderators, topic areas, topics, threads, users, etc. And different views depending on context. You see more of your own profile, less of others...and similar for moderated topic areas and so forth. So, 2 platforms means duplication of some of this data access, update, marshalling, acls, sessions, etc. Assuming the node.js part is for the "real time posts", via websockets, it would need most of the above. Then, assuming php is handling the rest, including profile edit, rendering everything but the posts, etc...it also needs most of the above.
        seibelj 9y ago
        I seriously doubt they are cloning all of their features in 2 languages, I think they are just splitting up features into different tech stacks.
- codegeek 9y ago
  I have played around a bit with socket.io and the reason you use Node for it is that socket.io itself comes with a in built node server for backend. So it is much easier and faster to fire up a server to run socket.io using node.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    Sure. Why would you though, not use node.js for the rest of the site? I'm not complaining about either php or node.js. I'm complaining about using both of them for a brand new site. I assume that both would need to understand the concepts around: users, admins, moderators, topic areas, topics, threads, banning, moderating, vote counts, sessions, and so forth. And interacting with all of that both server<->browser and server<->database. Feels like a lot of duplicated classes, marshalling, etc.
emodendroket 9y ago
Anyone can create a forum; the question is why people would actually visit this one instead of the existing alternatives. "Real-time" features don't seem like that much of a draw and Reddit et al could easily implement them if they were.
- macey 9y ago
  A lot of people feel that Reddit is overmoderated - there was that controversy recently where one of the employees admitted manually altering a bunch of content (removing pro-Trump submissions and comments). Also I imagine any general forum like Reddit wouldn't retain its power users for more than a few years at most. At a given time, most users are either at the point where they don't get any of the inside jokes, or where all of them are getting old. So it might make sense to have a new one of these every once in a while.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    There have been a number of Reddit controversies, but let's be honest: most people don't know or care that much about them. I think that'll blow over just like firing the community manager and the whole Ellen Pao thing did. I'm not even sure that the average person would agree that Reddit is "overmoderated," since their biggest scandals seemed to come from the opposite direction, like having subreddits devoted to hate speech and photos of underage girls.
  - arjie 9y ago
    Haha, but any website whose audience is mostly that group rapidly becomes exclusively that group because normal people don't like them.
    - macey 9y ago
      Lol. I was trying to say the nice version of this.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > A lot of people feel that Reddit is overmoderated - A tiny handful of people feel that Reddit is over moderated, and those people went to voat or 8chan. Everyone else thinks there's not enough moderation on Reddit. When you ask people what the good bits of Reddit are they almost always talk about the most heavily moderated sub-Reddits, which is telling.
koolba 9y ago
Does this require log in to browse as well? I'd imagine that anonymous read only viewing is larger percentage of the audience.
- fischersully 9y ago
  It does requite a login but the registration doesn't require email address and takes like 10 seconds
ScalaNovice 9y ago
Much as I hate Trump, I'm sick of the constant anti-Trump narrative specially since it's pushed by the same people that smeared Sanders. I hope we can get back to the pre-David Brock days.
imran3740 9y ago
As with voat.co, who's gonna switch to this? Really the only people who switched over to Voat are the people who felt reddit was restricting their rights by posting controversial/hateful material on reddit. So it tends to be full of /pol-like MRAs/extreme right/alt-right users. Voten seems like it's trying to implement a more democratic system, but who will be pushed into switching over to that?
- dkhenry 9y ago
  I dunno, with the recent changes reddit has been rolling out it is no longer a nice place to visit. There is so much hate and anger on the front page and so little good content. I could make an account, but it seems like they shadow ban everyone except for bots ( and not just for content, the last two times I was shadow banned it was because I logged in from my office IP address which they deemed was "gaming" votes )
  - covercash 9y ago
    Being shadow banned has no impact on what content you see so if you just want a better front page experience, try creating an account and joining smaller subreddits that are more aligned to your interests. I don't think I have a single default sub on my front page anymore.
    - dkhenry 9y ago
      Right and then try to participate in the conversation, and you can't, but since its a shadow ban you don't even know that you can't participate. In general your giving traffic and ad dollars to people who seem more interested in pressing a narrative then providing content.
      - root_axis 9y ago
        What is the supposed narrative that shadowbans intend to foster?
need2sleep 9y ago
Looks dope, but not usable over Tor. Requests to the API are returned with a 403 code.
kevingrahl 9y ago
Aaand yet another reddit "alternative" and they all seem to fail or have troubles gaining traction. I can recall voat.co, hubski.com and imzy.com (my favorite so far) and now one more. I'd really like to know why devs think they can rival Reddit, it's just too big.
- aloisdg 9y ago
  I would like a decentralized Reddit.
  - ue_ 9y ago
    Have you heard of things like NNTPChan? Granted, it's not "Reddit" (it's an imageboard) however it's an imageboard that works over NNTP. It's as decentralised as I know of, though I'd also be interested in finding decentralised Reddit alternatives.
  - chrisdbaldwin 9y ago
    make it with blockstack
  - CM30 9y ago
    Same here. And with all the hype Mastodon and GNU Social inspired Twitter alternatives are getting now, I'm surprised no one's done the same for Reddit yet. Or at least managed to advertise it heavily enough that people have heard of it. It'd certainly fix a lot of Reddit's issues with censorship (by making it so the subreddit owners act like independent forum owners). Or if it's truly decentralised rather than federated, by not having a single person or team doing the moderation in general. And there'd certainly be no possibility of the system losing CSS support...
- thesuitonym 9y ago
  Digg was once too big...
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Curious what you liked about imzy.
zzzzz_ 9y ago
Reddit is technology wise pretty simple - it's just one step up from a forum. So these guys have re-implemented a forum and added a stack of features that only a bunch of devs could come up with. Markdown support is mentioned twice at the top of the features list! Anyway this is a site by actual guys that used to work at Reddit so you'd expect them to be pretty smart business orientated chaps right? Well they launch, pull a few strings and get to the the first page on HN ... then they immediately blunder by making you login to browse! Thankfully I was bored enough to do so and as expected it's just a barren 'seed user' populated scaled down version of reddit. The biggest USP is real time and there's actually only me on there right now. Last story was posted 35 mins ago. I logged in not expecting my favorite reddits to be there, but for an exciting proof of concept. If I was in charge of this company, me and my entire team including the tea lady would be logged into at least 5 different accounts and we'd be creating a frenzy of real time activity so that AT LEAST we give people an glimpse of what we're trying to create. Poorly executed - you'd really expect more from people with the resources to self finance a start up like this, the connections to drive users to the app and the experience of working for a top notch start up like Reddit for a number of years.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  To be fair, "logging in" is just making a username and password. No Email is required. That's really not a huge deal to me, but maybe others disagree.
  - hashkb 9y ago
    It's a huge deal if you care about conversion. Anyone with web experience should know this.
    - epmaybe 9y ago
      Are you talking about converting people from Reddit to Voten? Maybe the point is that they want more people to actively contribute rather than just lurk? It could just be a different opinion on what a Reddit alternative could look like.
KirinDave 9y ago
Has anyone signed up? It's very interesting what the first topics are. There is a #conservatism with 8 members already, but you can't make #liberalism, #communism or #leftists. "The_Donald" is "coming soon". (Edit: I must have hit a bug because I tried with a few names and my attempts just didn't do anything, but someone else did it immediately). I wonder if this is like Gab, an attempt to make a more single-issue-politics-friendly variant of a popular site.
- thesuitonym 9y ago
  This is exactly what I saw. Is it just the conservative outcasts from Reddit? Will we see a #creepshots in a few weeks?
- dkhenry 9y ago
  I just signed up and created #liberalism to test it out. Worked just fine https://voten.co/c/liberalism https://voten.co/c/liberalism
  - ue_ 9y ago
    Me too, I've created #Communism, works for me too. I didn't like how I had to subscribe to other channels before it let me make my own, though. https://voten.co/c/communism/ https://voten.co/c/communism/
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      Yeah, I edited my response to point out I think I hit a bug.
- stefanve 9y ago
  Jup created #agile was thinking of trying to create a agile focused HN and 1 minute later this came along :-). Anyway if this doesn't work out; DM me if you are interested in starting something like a agile focused HN. Looking a bit more fore the business / change management side of things instead of the SE side of things
- 9y ago
dkhenry 9y ago
Looks really nice. Modern clean layout, uses OAuth2 for login. The content is really light, but I guess we can see how that progresses
55555 9y ago
Real-time will lead to even 'lower quality' discussion. Consider email vs. chat.
douchechill 9y ago
What do you mean? I for one not only had a chuckle over morning coffee, but, learned a few things about what I would do and not do for my own startup. That's my opinion on the original comment. My opinion on you is that your feelings are too sensitive and are muddying your rationale here. "What new platforms need, is less of this." I disagree, brutal honesty goes a long way.
- SquareWheel 9y ago
  Flagging this comment. Creating a throwaway named "douche chill" just to reply to somebody might as well be a direct insult.
  - douchechill 9y ago
    It's a quote by Tobias Funke, a character from Arrested Development. You associated my username with the person I replied to. Technically you insulted them. I am flagging your comment about flagging my comment.
  - zzzzz_ 9y ago
    I'm surprised my comment sunk the way it, as did this topic and then it reappears with some mysteriously positive comments. All I'll say is strange. But if you think I'd bother registering another account just to reply to a random comment you're overestimating how much importance I place on dissenting views to my opinions. The douche chill account is weird though, whoever it is registered simply to agree with me. I'm flattered I guess :)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- sctb 9y ago
  Please leave out the personal pokes from comments here. We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349596.
shakna 9y ago
I'm not sold that real-time is a feature you want in your social site. Reddit has an issue with lightweight throwaway comments already. Broad mostly-right comments killing actual discussion. Wouldn't adding real-time on top of that add up to the hell of teamspeak in games with a bunch of kids? It could go like IRC... But if you're saying you're like Reddit, I don't see how it wouldn't devolve into pettyness.
rimjeilly 9y ago
so... I signed up... but I doubt it will catch on.. ala voat.co
hosker4u 9y ago
Tried to sign in with Facebook but did not work (and the login button seems odd looking).
noway421 9y ago
The product did not need to be 2 years in development, there is not much need in so much features and niceties. The main value of reddit is the content and vast network of users.
rublev 9y ago
They maybe you suck?
- telchar 9y ago
  That's not a constructive comment.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349672 and marked it off-topic.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
codelitt 9y ago
I know a lot of people are rather pessimistic about a Reddit competitor gaining traction, but on a technology and UX note they've done a great job. I signed up on mobile and browsed around. The user experience is miles ahead of Reddit's new mobile web client. Pages load instantly, everything is smooth, scaled well, and no tiny text to click. Well executed IMHO. Regarding being a Reddit competitor, if they can get the content well seeded and manage to allow unpopular opinions that are substantial then I would gladly switch. HN has done a fairly good job of not allowing downvotes into oblivion because someone disagrees with a popular opinion on the forum. It is not perfect, but better than Reddit. Unfortunately HN is more or less a single topic forum. I can't come here reliably for fishing discussions for example. Likewise, it would be great if Voten can figure out a way to disincentivize comments that are unconstructive or personal attacks but go along with the narrative (another problem I see on Reddit). So in short, my hope for the founders is that they can attract good users, properly seed content until it takes off, and promote substantial and quality comments regardless of viewpoint. I think they could be a good alternative at a time when Reddit is becoming a victim of its own success.
- ehsankia 9y ago
  > but on a [...] UX note they've done a great job Really? Their UI is bloated and ridiculous. On my laptop screen I can see a whopping two stories per page, compared to 10 on reddit. It's confusing, crammed and poorly designed. There's a big useless sidebar on the left where your eye automatically goes to, instead of the content. It looks exactly like the project of young webdevs straight out of school who are using all the fancy hip new tech and just learned about material design. EDIT: One quick example of "not putting content first". Take a given story. At the very top, in big, we have the username and their avatar. So to kick off, it seems more like Twitter/Facebook than reddit. The user posting is given more importance than the content itself...
  - codelitt 9y ago
    I haven't had the chance to see it on desktop yet. But on mobile it's much better than Reddit's new mobile interface. Loading time alone is much better for me. Anyways, I was commenting on the UX on mobile was. The UI wasn't what I was particularly focused on, but on mobile I found it much better as well.
root_axis 9y ago
What will the moderation policy be like? Will forums in the vein of former subreddits like coontown and jailbait be welcome? Also, why choose a domain so close to voat.co for a reddit alternative? Whether you're a fan/user of voat.co or not, i can see them being easily confused or mistaken as related projects. They could have at least gone with another tld.
Ono-Sendai 9y ago
I made a website a bit like this: http://suprsede.com/ http://suprsede.com/ It's like reddit but each topic/page has a realtime chat. Unfortunately it's rather infested by spammers currently :) Getting traction for these social media sites is very tricky!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
stefanve 9y ago
I have looked for an alternative for along time. Maybe this is something maybe not. But I'm going to try :-). I love HN because you are able to have great content and great conversations, but it is afk SE focused. A new platform for other news would be great Edit: created #agile was thinking of trying to create a agile focused HN and 1 minute later this came along :-). Anyway if this doesn't work out; DM me if you are interested in starting something like a agile focused HN. Looking a bit more fore the business / change management side of things instead of the SE side of things. Or if this already exists please point me to it :-)
znpy 9y ago
Signed up, wandered around, here are my impression. * Nothing fancy, nothing new, nothing impressive. I wouldn't spend time on this site. * The graphical design wasters most of my screen estate. * The side panel overlaps with the content when the window is not in full-screen. * If you register without an email, it is impossible to add one. * Did I mention that 60% of my screen estate is wasted ? * Reddit is open source, this is not.
- gressquel 9y ago
  totally agree with you, in addition: the site should really show its content at first page instead of hiding it behind login or signup.
- aphextron 9y ago
  I agree it's not perfect but we seriously need a reddit alternative. The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. If there were a HN like community centered around regular news aggregation I would be sooo happy. As is, it's impossible to find a news feed I trust anymore. Google news is infiltrated with fake clickbait nonsense, and I wont even get started on Facebook.
  - azernik 9y ago
    Since this is project is coming out of the voat.co community, I expect the community will be more toxic than Reddit's, not less. EDIT: The article implies a connection, but as cracell pointed out, there is in fact no association, even historical or in personnel.
    - cracell 9y ago
      Lead developer says it has nothing to do with voat here https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/votenco_a_realtime_reddit_alternative_that_doesnt/dczh192/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/... 'The whole thing is based on voting which is why it has "vote" in it. It has nothing to do with voat.co. I guarantee that'
dnrvs 9y ago
The immediate problem is that the home page is a boring marketing page and not content like reddit or hn
pvnick 9y ago
Best of luck. Reddit needs a good kick in the arse. Since shortly before Steve Huffman's (Spez) return, Reddit has adopted a policy of top-down content curation - banning controversial subreddits, changing the voting algorithm to dis-favor /r/the_donald, and most recently introducing /r/popular which is basically /r/all without that pesky /r/the_donald subreddit (ffs just man up and ban the group rather than pretending to support the free exchange of ideas). Reddit management prefers for their website to only showcase non-controversial content in order to attract advertisers. Which is their right, but I'm rooting for the disruptive upcomer that will kill that website like Reddit originally did to Digg back when Reddit was cool and stood for something.
- oridecon 9y ago
  Reddit is still bearable if you ignore the frontpage/popular subs. Nothing new but it got way worse the last couple of years. - Look at this cute dog (drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola) - I broke my leg this morning (while holding this can of Pepsi) - Thread that shouldn't be on the frontpage (and the top comment is: "I bet he bought it at Walmart") - Cool drone video (literally filming an ad) - Photo of CharmingGuyMcAbs and/or CharmingGirlMcBoobs (Positive Reinforcement) > I'm rooting for the disruptive upcomer Doesn't look anything like Digg/MySpace days unless they somehow find a way to kill the "smaller" communities. Even the outbound click thing (or the new frontpage) didn't made any real impact from what I can tell. But who knows, maybe you're right and someone comes up with a killer feature. Or an UI that doesn't suck so bad that you need a mandatory browser extension (that fries your CPU).
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    /r/hailcorporate
    - oridecon 9y ago
      Why would I go to a sub that points to obvious shills and product placements? I'm only giving more views to their images. Maybe hailcorporate was made by the same people. (X-Files theme song)
dmix 9y ago
Reminds me of Prismatic. I'm still sad that site isn't around anymore. They were doing some great ML research. The combined this category based UX with recommendation algorithms and social indicators. Worked well. But I believe they had trouble monetizing it or potentially growing it to scale.
Shorel 9y ago
As a Reddit alternative, and given that the domain name is in Spanish, at least they could make the rest of the site in Spanish. Make it useful for people in Venezuela. It is the only reason I would use it over Reddit.
danso 9y ago
Signed up...of all the recommended programming-related channels to show a first-time user, why (after "opensource") are "vuejs" and "laravel" the channels most spotlighted? As opposed to "programming" or even "javascript"? On a sidenote, given that Reddit "growth-hacked" its early days by creating fake accounts and the appearance of activity [0], it'd be funny to see Voten use bots to simulate activity based on Reddit's years of activity. A slightly less obvious version of www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator, if you will. [0] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-reddit-got-huge-tons-of-fake-accounts--2 https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-reddit-got-hu... edit: One missing feature: I skipped out of the recommended channels feature after signing up. OK, now I want to sign up for more channels. I've been clicking random buttons and hamburger icons for a minute now and still couldn't tell you how to find the channels I've subscribed to, nevermind all the other existing channels. The "Search" menu appears to be the only place where I can find new channels to add. But there's not a list of channels. I'm just supposed to guess which channels already exist as I type into the autocomplete?
- rc_kas 9y ago
  Yeah, really hard to find channels. For #politics I had to type it into the URL bar and visit it in order to subscribe.
dkarapetyan 9y ago
I'm starting to think submitting PR pieces about Reddit clones on HN does more harm than good.
pranavsinghca 9y ago
Curious to know if this site applied to YC. Anyone know?
remx 9y ago
For those looking for something similar there are these: Telescope[0], Drum[1], Slashcode[2], and Microscope[3] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861985 [1]: http://drum.jupo.org http://drum.jupo.org [2]: http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/ http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/ [3]: https://github.com/DiscoverMeteor/Microscope https://github.com/DiscoverMeteor/Microscope
shireboy 9y ago
Realtime is interesting. I'd suggest cramming way more stories on a page. HN/Reddit work for me because I can glance the top 20-30 things.
Dahoramano 9y ago
Nice mobile web app! Works like a charm on my shitty 3rd world phone. It would be nice to share a batch of new links on channels one is the administrator of, perhaps for the first 15-30 days, to be able to populate channels. Also: Where do I go to edit channel settings as a moderator? Also: It would be nice in the case of my channel to make available content filters, like what is done in /r/science. ---- I'm a language learning specialist and full-time learner. Here's my new channel: A channel dedicated to learning, meta-cognition, and domain-specific resources. https://voten.co/c/learnyousome/ https://voten.co/c/learnyousome/
0xCMP 9y ago
Honestly, I don't even like reddit for some reason. I can only handle HN. I tried Imzy and others before too. I always come back to HN. I feel like more of these websites may be able to succeed (not sure Reddit has a network effect that could prevent another site from coming up), but I'm not sure how necessary it is.
wingerlang 9y ago
Strange for a "reddit alternative" to have a landing page instead of, you know, content upfront like.. reddit.
ratsz 9y ago
Looks good so far. How do I change my account password?
nassir 9y ago
Not worth it
homero 9y ago
There's also voat and imzy
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Imzy: https://redd.it/500ysb https://redd.it/500ysb
  - homero 9y ago
    Imzy just closed unexpectedly
3ioewjkfljdksl 9y ago
Not impressed...
Profragile 9y ago
Connect with FB is broken.
corobo 9y ago
Login wall really hits my "cba" buttons, sorry. If it re-appears on my radar with some more info behind it I'll give it a thought again. To expand on that a little - if I forget and link an interesting comment thread to a friend and they have to register to view it I look like a dork. It's not happening.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  CBA == can't be arsed? If so, completely agreed. That was one of Tzu's massive fails, though they supplied same in quantity.
  - corobo 9y ago
    Yeah exactly. I imagine it's a forced register thing so that they can build a userbase but I don't want to sign up without knowing what's there I am aware my complaining has taken longer than just signing up but I'm already registered and logged in here :P
pavel_lishin 9y ago
I wonder what their moderation is going to be like; it looks like you can't create your own channels (subreddits) yet, so the admins are on the hook for moderating the entire site, yes? Or are they going to take on a complete hands-off approach?
Huhty 9y ago
Here's a few more alternatives: https://www.inc.com/amy-vernon/3-reddit-alternatives-for-the-diaspora.html https://www.inc.com/amy-vernon/3-reddit-alternatives-for-the...
DHNawo 9y ago
Been browsing this for a little bit now. Honestly, the creator doesn't sound like he has a clear vision for what the site should be and how it should function. The UI overall is pretty slick.
kr0 9y ago
Can't see the content without signing up (regardless of email). Bye.
Xeoncross 9y ago
So this makes me wonder: HN what would you want in a reddit alternative that HN doesn't provide?
yladiz 9y ago
I'm not sure if I'm in the minority, but for a lot of content I ingest (news, video) I don't have an account, or actively use one, on the service. The only time I create an account is if I find the benefits of creating an account are more than just visiting the service without an account. For example, I keep an account on Youtube because I want to keep playlists and I don't mind if they have my watch history as a result, but I don't keep an account on Reddit because I just casually browse it without really participating (primarily because I feel like most of the discussion, by the time I see it, is something I can't add to, as opposed to a place like HN). And so for me, if this site is registration only, I don't see a point if it is only to make it real time and a "Reddit alternative" unless it's significantly better, but the most important part of Reddit is the community aspect, which is hard to replicate.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
Yeah, just what I need a notification for every time someone responds to one of my comments.
iofiiiiiiiii 9y ago
Well it took me a minute to find out how to post and now the Submit button is even greyed out.. what the hell?

139 points by ericbarnes 9y ago

"The app itself is powered by Laravel, Vue.js, Socket.io, and Node" Is there another Laravel other than the php one? Seems odd to roll out with both php and node.js. I don't know why you would need both. Edit: Yes, I see each has it's strengths. But that has to drive a lot of doing the same thing twice, in two languages...they both interact with the same data. I would guess time-to-market is important at launch to react to things you missed. I would have settled on one or the other. Feels like premature optimization.

emodendroket 9y ago
It seems like if it's real-time a lot of the page is dynamic applications you interact with through AJAX, and probably it was easier to do that and get acceptable performance in Node. The other functions (say, edit profile) could then be handled by Laravel more easily. At least that's what I'd guess.
rprime 9y ago
I assume NodeJS is used just as a WebSocket server for their real-time events, doing that in PHP would be a bit uncomfortable.
- icebraining 9y ago
  doing that in PHP would be a bit uncomfortable. Why? PHP works fine as a daemon, there are many servers written in pure PHP, as well as frameworks for "async" programming.
  - Shorel 9y ago
    It is uncomfortable, sadly. At the very least PHP Ratchet is not quite integrated with Laravel and the easy route is to use Node. https://github.com/laravel/echo https://github.com/laravel/echo
  - rprime 9y ago
    I am not saying that as an attack to PHP (or a defense of NodeJS), I am writing PHP daily, but when it comes to real-time (at least WS systems), PHP would be my last resort, mostly because it lacks any real support for such things, you'll have to force your way in. I guess we come back to _just because you can doesn't mean you should_. :)
mediumdeviation 9y ago
Laravel 5.4 integrates with Vue. https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/frontend#writing-vue-components https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/frontend#writing-vue-components Laravel can act as the API backend to the frontend (basically a set of REST endpoints that the frontend can talk to), or alternatively the Vue components are used only where heavy client-side interactions are required, while the rest of the pages are still served up by Laravel normally.
dvdhnt 9y ago
Agreed. Also, I've never noticed someone using both a front-end framework AND jQuery simultaneously. Usually, at least in projects I've collaborated on, this is redundant. However, I've never used Vue.js, so perhaps this is standard?
seibelj 9y ago
Nothing wrong with PHP, just use the right tool for the job, and the right tool is based on existing skills, time to market, requirements, etc. If PHP fits the bill, use PHP
- tyingq 9y ago
  That's not what I said though. I'm asking why php AND node.js. One or the other should suffice. For websockets, as an example, HHVM+proxygen should be as performant as node. Or, node should be roughly as good as php for developer speed on the normal, not-websockets side of the house.
  - seibelj 9y ago
    In a microservices architecture, you might have many languages. And if you have a PHP developer and a node.js dev, and you are trying to deliver as fast as possible, that could be a reason to split it up.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      Writing everything twice for the speculative success of a brand new Reddit clone doesn't qualify as "deliver as fast as possible" to me. Edit: For clarity, I mean there would be significant overlap in areas like data retrieval, sessions/auth, etc. A Reddit like app would have read/write to and from the browser and to and from the database for many data structures. Users, admins, moderators, topic areas, topics, threads, users, etc. And different views depending on context. You see more of your own profile, less of others...and similar for moderated topic areas and so forth. So, 2 platforms means duplication of some of this data access, update, marshalling, acls, sessions, etc. Assuming the node.js part is for the "real time posts", via websockets, it would need most of the above. Then, assuming php is handling the rest, including profile edit, rendering everything but the posts, etc...it also needs most of the above.
      - seibelj 9y ago
        I seriously doubt they are cloning all of their features in 2 languages, I think they are just splitting up features into different tech stacks.
codegeek 9y ago
I have played around a bit with socket.io and the reason you use Node for it is that socket.io itself comes with a in built node server for backend. So it is much easier and faster to fire up a server to run socket.io using node.
- tyingq 9y ago
  Sure. Why would you though, not use node.js for the rest of the site? I'm not complaining about either php or node.js. I'm complaining about using both of them for a brand new site. I assume that both would need to understand the concepts around: users, admins, moderators, topic areas, topics, threads, banning, moderating, vote counts, sessions, and so forth. And interacting with all of that both server<->browser and server<->database. Feels like a lot of duplicated classes, marshalling, etc.

emodendroket 9y ago

Anyone can create a forum; the question is why people would actually visit this one instead of the existing alternatives. "Real-time" features don't seem like that much of a draw and Reddit et al could easily implement them if they were.

macey 9y ago
A lot of people feel that Reddit is overmoderated - there was that controversy recently where one of the employees admitted manually altering a bunch of content (removing pro-Trump submissions and comments). Also I imagine any general forum like Reddit wouldn't retain its power users for more than a few years at most. At a given time, most users are either at the point where they don't get any of the inside jokes, or where all of them are getting old. So it might make sense to have a new one of these every once in a while.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  There have been a number of Reddit controversies, but let's be honest: most people don't know or care that much about them. I think that'll blow over just like firing the community manager and the whole Ellen Pao thing did. I'm not even sure that the average person would agree that Reddit is "overmoderated," since their biggest scandals seemed to come from the opposite direction, like having subreddits devoted to hate speech and photos of underage girls.
- arjie 9y ago
  Haha, but any website whose audience is mostly that group rapidly becomes exclusively that group because normal people don't like them.
  - macey 9y ago
    Lol. I was trying to say the nice version of this.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > A lot of people feel that Reddit is overmoderated - A tiny handful of people feel that Reddit is over moderated, and those people went to voat or 8chan. Everyone else thinks there's not enough moderation on Reddit. When you ask people what the good bits of Reddit are they almost always talk about the most heavily moderated sub-Reddits, which is telling.

koolba 9y ago

Does this require log in to browse as well? I'd imagine that anonymous read only viewing is larger percentage of the audience.

fischersully 9y ago
It does requite a login but the registration doesn't require email address and takes like 10 seconds

ScalaNovice 9y ago

Much as I hate Trump, I'm sick of the constant anti-Trump narrative specially since it's pushed by the same people that smeared Sanders. I hope we can get back to the pre-David Brock days.

imran3740 9y ago

As with voat.co, who's gonna switch to this? Really the only people who switched over to Voat are the people who felt reddit was restricting their rights by posting controversial/hateful material on reddit. So it tends to be full of /pol-like MRAs/extreme right/alt-right users. Voten seems like it's trying to implement a more democratic system, but who will be pushed into switching over to that?

dkhenry 9y ago
I dunno, with the recent changes reddit has been rolling out it is no longer a nice place to visit. There is so much hate and anger on the front page and so little good content. I could make an account, but it seems like they shadow ban everyone except for bots ( and not just for content, the last two times I was shadow banned it was because I logged in from my office IP address which they deemed was "gaming" votes )
- covercash 9y ago
  Being shadow banned has no impact on what content you see so if you just want a better front page experience, try creating an account and joining smaller subreddits that are more aligned to your interests. I don't think I have a single default sub on my front page anymore.
  - dkhenry 9y ago
    Right and then try to participate in the conversation, and you can't, but since its a shadow ban you don't even know that you can't participate. In general your giving traffic and ad dollars to people who seem more interested in pressing a narrative then providing content.
    - root_axis 9y ago
      What is the supposed narrative that shadowbans intend to foster?

need2sleep 9y ago

Looks dope, but not usable over Tor. Requests to the API are returned with a 403 code.

kevingrahl 9y ago

Aaand yet another reddit "alternative" and they all seem to fail or have troubles gaining traction. I can recall voat.co, hubski.com and imzy.com (my favorite so far) and now one more. I'd really like to know why devs think they can rival Reddit, it's just too big.

aloisdg 9y ago
I would like a decentralized Reddit.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Have you heard of things like NNTPChan? Granted, it's not "Reddit" (it's an imageboard) however it's an imageboard that works over NNTP. It's as decentralised as I know of, though I'd also be interested in finding decentralised Reddit alternatives.
- chrisdbaldwin 9y ago
  make it with blockstack
- CM30 9y ago
  Same here. And with all the hype Mastodon and GNU Social inspired Twitter alternatives are getting now, I'm surprised no one's done the same for Reddit yet. Or at least managed to advertise it heavily enough that people have heard of it. It'd certainly fix a lot of Reddit's issues with censorship (by making it so the subreddit owners act like independent forum owners). Or if it's truly decentralised rather than federated, by not having a single person or team doing the moderation in general. And there'd certainly be no possibility of the system losing CSS support...
thesuitonym 9y ago
Digg was once too big...
SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Curious what you liked about imzy.

zzzzz_ 9y ago

Reddit is technology wise pretty simple - it's just one step up from a forum. So these guys have re-implemented a forum and added a stack of features that only a bunch of devs could come up with. Markdown support is mentioned twice at the top of the features list! Anyway this is a site by actual guys that used to work at Reddit so you'd expect them to be pretty smart business orientated chaps right? Well they launch, pull a few strings and get to the the first page on HN ... then they immediately blunder by making you login to browse! Thankfully I was bored enough to do so and as expected it's just a barren 'seed user' populated scaled down version of reddit. The biggest USP is real time and there's actually only me on there right now. Last story was posted 35 mins ago. I logged in not expecting my favorite reddits to be there, but for an exciting proof of concept. If I was in charge of this company, me and my entire team including the tea lady would be logged into at least 5 different accounts and we'd be creating a frenzy of real time activity so that AT LEAST we give people an glimpse of what we're trying to create. Poorly executed - you'd really expect more from people with the resources to self finance a start up like this, the connections to drive users to the app and the experience of working for a top notch start up like Reddit for a number of years.

epmaybe 9y ago
To be fair, "logging in" is just making a username and password. No Email is required. That's really not a huge deal to me, but maybe others disagree.
- hashkb 9y ago
  It's a huge deal if you care about conversion. Anyone with web experience should know this.
  - epmaybe 9y ago
    Are you talking about converting people from Reddit to Voten? Maybe the point is that they want more people to actively contribute rather than just lurk? It could just be a different opinion on what a Reddit alternative could look like.

KirinDave 9y ago

Has anyone signed up? It's very interesting what the first topics are. There is a #conservatism with 8 members already, but you can't make #liberalism, #communism or #leftists. "The_Donald" is "coming soon". (Edit: I must have hit a bug because I tried with a few names and my attempts just didn't do anything, but someone else did it immediately). I wonder if this is like Gab, an attempt to make a more single-issue-politics-friendly variant of a popular site.

thesuitonym 9y ago
This is exactly what I saw. Is it just the conservative outcasts from Reddit? Will we see a #creepshots in a few weeks?
dkhenry 9y ago
I just signed up and created #liberalism to test it out. Worked just fine https://voten.co/c/liberalism https://voten.co/c/liberalism
- ue_ 9y ago
  Me too, I've created #Communism, works for me too. I didn't like how I had to subscribe to other channels before it let me make my own, though. https://voten.co/c/communism/ https://voten.co/c/communism/
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    Yeah, I edited my response to point out I think I hit a bug.
stefanve 9y ago
Jup created #agile was thinking of trying to create a agile focused HN and 1 minute later this came along :-). Anyway if this doesn't work out; DM me if you are interested in starting something like a agile focused HN. Looking a bit more fore the business / change management side of things instead of the SE side of things
9y ago

dkhenry 9y ago

Looks really nice. Modern clean layout, uses OAuth2 for login. The content is really light, but I guess we can see how that progresses

55555 9y ago

Real-time will lead to even 'lower quality' discussion. Consider email vs. chat.

douchechill 9y ago

What do you mean? I for one not only had a chuckle over morning coffee, but, learned a few things about what I would do and not do for my own startup. That's my opinion on the original comment. My opinion on you is that your feelings are too sensitive and are muddying your rationale here. "What new platforms need, is less of this." I disagree, brutal honesty goes a long way.

SquareWheel 9y ago
Flagging this comment. Creating a throwaway named "douche chill" just to reply to somebody might as well be a direct insult.
- douchechill 9y ago
  It's a quote by Tobias Funke, a character from Arrested Development. You associated my username with the person I replied to. Technically you insulted them. I am flagging your comment about flagging my comment.
- zzzzz_ 9y ago
  I'm surprised my comment sunk the way it, as did this topic and then it reappears with some mysteriously positive comments. All I'll say is strange. But if you think I'd bother registering another account just to reply to a random comment you're overestimating how much importance I place on dissenting views to my opinions. The douche chill account is weird though, whoever it is registered simply to agree with me. I'm flattered I guess :)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sctb 9y ago
Please leave out the personal pokes from comments here. We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349596.

shakna 9y ago

I'm not sold that real-time is a feature you want in your social site. Reddit has an issue with lightweight throwaway comments already. Broad mostly-right comments killing actual discussion. Wouldn't adding real-time on top of that add up to the hell of teamspeak in games with a bunch of kids? It could go like IRC... But if you're saying you're like Reddit, I don't see how it wouldn't devolve into pettyness.

rimjeilly 9y ago

so... I signed up... but I doubt it will catch on.. ala voat.co

hosker4u 9y ago

Tried to sign in with Facebook but did not work (and the login button seems odd looking).

noway421 9y ago

The product did not need to be 2 years in development, there is not much need in so much features and niceties. The main value of reddit is the content and vast network of users.

rublev 9y ago

They maybe you suck?

telchar 9y ago
That's not a constructive comment.
sctb 9y ago
Please don't. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349672 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

codelitt 9y ago

I know a lot of people are rather pessimistic about a Reddit competitor gaining traction, but on a technology and UX note they've done a great job. I signed up on mobile and browsed around. The user experience is miles ahead of Reddit's new mobile web client. Pages load instantly, everything is smooth, scaled well, and no tiny text to click. Well executed IMHO. Regarding being a Reddit competitor, if they can get the content well seeded and manage to allow unpopular opinions that are substantial then I would gladly switch. HN has done a fairly good job of not allowing downvotes into oblivion because someone disagrees with a popular opinion on the forum. It is not perfect, but better than Reddit. Unfortunately HN is more or less a single topic forum. I can't come here reliably for fishing discussions for example. Likewise, it would be great if Voten can figure out a way to disincentivize comments that are unconstructive or personal attacks but go along with the narrative (another problem I see on Reddit). So in short, my hope for the founders is that they can attract good users, properly seed content until it takes off, and promote substantial and quality comments regardless of viewpoint. I think they could be a good alternative at a time when Reddit is becoming a victim of its own success.

ehsankia 9y ago
> but on a [...] UX note they've done a great job Really? Their UI is bloated and ridiculous. On my laptop screen I can see a whopping two stories per page, compared to 10 on reddit. It's confusing, crammed and poorly designed. There's a big useless sidebar on the left where your eye automatically goes to, instead of the content. It looks exactly like the project of young webdevs straight out of school who are using all the fancy hip new tech and just learned about material design. EDIT: One quick example of "not putting content first". Take a given story. At the very top, in big, we have the username and their avatar. So to kick off, it seems more like Twitter/Facebook than reddit. The user posting is given more importance than the content itself...
- codelitt 9y ago
  I haven't had the chance to see it on desktop yet. But on mobile it's much better than Reddit's new mobile interface. Loading time alone is much better for me. Anyways, I was commenting on the UX on mobile was. The UI wasn't what I was particularly focused on, but on mobile I found it much better as well.

root_axis 9y ago

What will the moderation policy be like? Will forums in the vein of former subreddits like coontown and jailbait be welcome? Also, why choose a domain so close to voat.co for a reddit alternative? Whether you're a fan/user of voat.co or not, i can see them being easily confused or mistaken as related projects. They could have at least gone with another tld.

Ono-Sendai 9y ago

I made a website a bit like this: http://suprsede.com/ http://suprsede.com/ It's like reddit but each topic/page has a realtime chat. Unfortunately it's rather infested by spammers currently :) Getting traction for these social media sites is very tricky!

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

stefanve 9y ago

I have looked for an alternative for along time. Maybe this is something maybe not. But I'm going to try :-). I love HN because you are able to have great content and great conversations, but it is afk SE focused. A new platform for other news would be great Edit: created #agile was thinking of trying to create a agile focused HN and 1 minute later this came along :-). Anyway if this doesn't work out; DM me if you are interested in starting something like a agile focused HN. Looking a bit more fore the business / change management side of things instead of the SE side of things. Or if this already exists please point me to it :-)

znpy 9y ago

Signed up, wandered around, here are my impression. * Nothing fancy, nothing new, nothing impressive. I wouldn't spend time on this site. * The graphical design wasters most of my screen estate. * The side panel overlaps with the content when the window is not in full-screen. * If you register without an email, it is impossible to add one. * Did I mention that 60% of my screen estate is wasted ? * Reddit is open source, this is not.

gressquel 9y ago
totally agree with you, in addition: the site should really show its content at first page instead of hiding it behind login or signup.
aphextron 9y ago
I agree it's not perfect but we seriously need a reddit alternative. The community there is simply too toxic and I've had to quit it. If there were a HN like community centered around regular news aggregation I would be sooo happy. As is, it's impossible to find a news feed I trust anymore. Google news is infiltrated with fake clickbait nonsense, and I wont even get started on Facebook.
- azernik 9y ago
  Since this is project is coming out of the voat.co community, I expect the community will be more toxic than Reddit's, not less. EDIT: The article implies a connection, but as cracell pointed out, there is in fact no association, even historical or in personnel.
  - cracell 9y ago
    Lead developer says it has nothing to do with voat here https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/votenco_a_realtime_reddit_alternative_that_doesnt/dczh192/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/5qhz99/... 'The whole thing is based on voting which is why it has "vote" in it. It has nothing to do with voat.co. I guarantee that'

dnrvs 9y ago

The immediate problem is that the home page is a boring marketing page and not content like reddit or hn

pvnick 9y ago

Best of luck. Reddit needs a good kick in the arse. Since shortly before Steve Huffman's (Spez) return, Reddit has adopted a policy of top-down content curation - banning controversial subreddits, changing the voting algorithm to dis-favor /r/the_donald, and most recently introducing /r/popular which is basically /r/all without that pesky /r/the_donald subreddit (ffs just man up and ban the group rather than pretending to support the free exchange of ideas). Reddit management prefers for their website to only showcase non-controversial content in order to attract advertisers. Which is their right, but I'm rooting for the disruptive upcomer that will kill that website like Reddit originally did to Digg back when Reddit was cool and stood for something.

oridecon 9y ago
Reddit is still bearable if you ignore the frontpage/popular subs. Nothing new but it got way worse the last couple of years. - Look at this cute dog (drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola) - I broke my leg this morning (while holding this can of Pepsi) - Thread that shouldn't be on the frontpage (and the top comment is: "I bet he bought it at Walmart") - Cool drone video (literally filming an ad) - Photo of CharmingGuyMcAbs and/or CharmingGirlMcBoobs (Positive Reinforcement) > I'm rooting for the disruptive upcomer Doesn't look anything like Digg/MySpace days unless they somehow find a way to kill the "smaller" communities. Even the outbound click thing (or the new frontpage) didn't made any real impact from what I can tell. But who knows, maybe you're right and someone comes up with a killer feature. Or an UI that doesn't suck so bad that you need a mandatory browser extension (that fries your CPU).
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  /r/hailcorporate
  - oridecon 9y ago
    Why would I go to a sub that points to obvious shills and product placements? I'm only giving more views to their images. Maybe hailcorporate was made by the same people. (X-Files theme song)

dmix 9y ago

Reminds me of Prismatic. I'm still sad that site isn't around anymore. They were doing some great ML research. The combined this category based UX with recommendation algorithms and social indicators. Worked well. But I believe they had trouble monetizing it or potentially growing it to scale.

Shorel 9y ago

As a Reddit alternative, and given that the domain name is in Spanish, at least they could make the rest of the site in Spanish. Make it useful for people in Venezuela. It is the only reason I would use it over Reddit.

danso 9y ago

Signed up...of all the recommended programming-related channels to show a first-time user, why (after "opensource") are "vuejs" and "laravel" the channels most spotlighted? As opposed to "programming" or even "javascript"? On a sidenote, given that Reddit "growth-hacked" its early days by creating fake accounts and the appearance of activity [0], it'd be funny to see Voten use bots to simulate activity based on Reddit's years of activity. A slightly less obvious version of www.reddit.com/r/SubredditSimulator, if you will. [0] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-reddit-got-huge-tons-of-fake-accounts--2 https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-reddit-got-hu... edit: One missing feature: I skipped out of the recommended channels feature after signing up. OK, now I want to sign up for more channels. I've been clicking random buttons and hamburger icons for a minute now and still couldn't tell you how to find the channels I've subscribed to, nevermind all the other existing channels. The "Search" menu appears to be the only place where I can find new channels to add. But there's not a list of channels. I'm just supposed to guess which channels already exist as I type into the autocomplete?

rc_kas 9y ago
Yeah, really hard to find channels. For #politics I had to type it into the URL bar and visit it in order to subscribe.

dkarapetyan 9y ago

I'm starting to think submitting PR pieces about Reddit clones on HN does more harm than good.

pranavsinghca 9y ago

Curious to know if this site applied to YC. Anyone know?

remx 9y ago

For those looking for something similar there are these: Telescope[0], Drum[1], Slashcode[2], and Microscope[3] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861985 [1]: http://drum.jupo.org http://drum.jupo.org [2]: http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/ http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/ [3]: https://github.com/DiscoverMeteor/Microscope https://github.com/DiscoverMeteor/Microscope

shireboy 9y ago

Realtime is interesting. I'd suggest cramming way more stories on a page. HN/Reddit work for me because I can glance the top 20-30 things.

Dahoramano 9y ago

Nice mobile web app! Works like a charm on my shitty 3rd world phone. It would be nice to share a batch of new links on channels one is the administrator of, perhaps for the first 15-30 days, to be able to populate channels. Also: Where do I go to edit channel settings as a moderator? Also: It would be nice in the case of my channel to make available content filters, like what is done in /r/science. ---- I'm a language learning specialist and full-time learner. Here's my new channel: A channel dedicated to learning, meta-cognition, and domain-specific resources. https://voten.co/c/learnyousome/ https://voten.co/c/learnyousome/

0xCMP 9y ago

Honestly, I don't even like reddit for some reason. I can only handle HN. I tried Imzy and others before too. I always come back to HN. I feel like more of these websites may be able to succeed (not sure Reddit has a network effect that could prevent another site from coming up), but I'm not sure how necessary it is.

wingerlang 9y ago

Strange for a "reddit alternative" to have a landing page instead of, you know, content upfront like.. reddit.

ratsz 9y ago

Looks good so far. How do I change my account password?

nassir 9y ago

Not worth it

homero 9y ago

There's also voat and imzy

dredmorbius 9y ago
Imzy: https://redd.it/500ysb https://redd.it/500ysb
- homero 9y ago
  Imzy just closed unexpectedly

3ioewjkfljdksl 9y ago

Not impressed...

Profragile 9y ago

Connect with FB is broken.

corobo 9y ago

Login wall really hits my "cba" buttons, sorry. If it re-appears on my radar with some more info behind it I'll give it a thought again. To expand on that a little - if I forget and link an interesting comment thread to a friend and they have to register to view it I look like a dork. It's not happening.

dredmorbius 9y ago
CBA == can't be arsed? If so, completely agreed. That was one of Tzu's massive fails, though they supplied same in quantity.
- corobo 9y ago
  Yeah exactly. I imagine it's a forced register thing so that they can build a userbase but I don't want to sign up without knowing what's there I am aware my complaining has taken longer than just signing up but I'm already registered and logged in here :P

pavel_lishin 9y ago

I wonder what their moderation is going to be like; it looks like you can't create your own channels (subreddits) yet, so the admins are on the hook for moderating the entire site, yes? Or are they going to take on a complete hands-off approach?

Huhty 9y ago

Here's a few more alternatives: https://www.inc.com/amy-vernon/3-reddit-alternatives-for-the-diaspora.html https://www.inc.com/amy-vernon/3-reddit-alternatives-for-the...

DHNawo 9y ago

Been browsing this for a little bit now. Honestly, the creator doesn't sound like he has a clear vision for what the site should be and how it should function. The UI overall is pretty slick.

kr0 9y ago

Can't see the content without signing up (regardless of email). Bye.

Xeoncross 9y ago

So this makes me wonder: HN what would you want in a reddit alternative that HN doesn't provide?

yladiz 9y ago

I'm not sure if I'm in the minority, but for a lot of content I ingest (news, video) I don't have an account, or actively use one, on the service. The only time I create an account is if I find the benefits of creating an account are more than just visiting the service without an account. For example, I keep an account on Youtube because I want to keep playlists and I don't mind if they have my watch history as a result, but I don't keep an account on Reddit because I just casually browse it without really participating (primarily because I feel like most of the discussion, by the time I see it, is something I can't add to, as opposed to a place like HN). And so for me, if this site is registration only, I don't see a point if it is only to make it real time and a "Reddit alternative" unless it's significantly better, but the most important part of Reddit is the community aspect, which is hard to replicate.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

Yeah, just what I need a notification for every time someone responds to one of my comments.

iofiiiiiiiii 9y ago

Well it took me a minute to find out how to post and now the Submit button is even greyed out.. what the hell?