8 ms·

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new

by dchuk 8y ago

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”. If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
That could be interesting.
- dchuk 8y ago
  I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there. I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Use Discourse. It's not only the most advanced from a tech perspective, but it also aims to promote strong communities.
    - dchuk 8y ago
      No doubt that discourse is really nice software, and I will give it a go, but it does lack the “nostalgia” referred to by the original comment I replied to with this idea. All options are valid at this point though!
      - varrock 8y ago
        I am a huge fan of Simple Machine Forums - https://www.simplemachines.org/ https://www.simplemachines.org/
    - eitland 8y ago
      Am I the only one who is totally confused by discourse? Maybe it's because rhe demo instance was reset way to often or something but I've never really seen a really working discourse instance. (I think both Mozilla and Canonical (has?) run one but they weren't to active either IIRC. Anyone has examples of a working discourse community?
      - ravloony 8y ago
        I think https://purescript-users.ml https://purescript-users.ml is running on Discourse. It's quite young though.
      - flaviocopes 8y ago
        - https://discourse.mozilla.org/latest https://discourse.mozilla.org/latest - https://platform.github.community/latest https://platform.github.community/latest - https://forum.golangbridge.org/ https://forum.golangbridge.org/
        eitland 8y ago
        Thanks everyone. You've convinced me that discourse can work :-)
      - organsnyder 8y ago
        The subject matter may not appeal to some on HN, but here's an installation I set up at a previous employer over three years ago, that is thriving: https://discourse.biologos.org/ https://discourse.biologos.org/
        eitland 8y ago
        Heh, I've recognized that feeling too but I feel HN is still one of the most reasonable foras I know of.
  - happertiger 8y ago
    Second vote for discourse!
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    I think it is important to curate it, but I applaud the idea. I would say; only allow people with over a certain karma score on HN (>1000)? That way you benefit from the quite strict moderation here. But indeed I remember the days on vBulletin forums; all my remarks against ‘you cannot make friends over 30’ that I uttered here come from there: most my current friends and one of my best friends I met on forums. It just worked well.
    - jgalentine007 8y ago
      Dude, I've been on reddit since 2006 and I don't even have 1000 karma. Don't exclude the lurkers! (Who are too busy programming to post.)
      - tluyben2 8y ago
        Maybe you are right but how to prevent it from becoming a sales/recruitement/troll/showoff fest again?
        Yptur 8y ago
        I think that's what mods are for. At least back in the day that's how it worked. Of course some mods will abuse their powers and just do stupid stuff but in the end that's part of what made it so fun. You had to iterate through dozens of forums and hope that yours had a fighting chance because the mods did their job properly.
        AstralStorm 8y ago
        Normal forums have categories for these things. Maybe except trolling.
        dx034 8y ago
        Exactly that. I would explicitly allow it, esp since most have some interest in some of the topics. Even off-topic chat can be fine if it's in an extra category. The only thing to avoid is pure spam but with some threshold to sign up (e.g. verification) that can be kept relatively low.
- dchuk 8y ago
  Check it out! https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/
taneq 8y ago
> Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? So HN doesn't count?
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  No. not compared to where we were. Usenet was like every HN, phpBB, digg, slashdot, and reddit in one. I await those days again.
  - dx034 8y ago
    Nowadays you have a much larger internet community. 20 years ago, the number of people online was maybe a few hundred million (likely lower), now it's several billion. That increases complexity, any forum that's too broad will attract so many people that you only get noise. HN works well because it's relatively unknown (esp outside of tech). Reddit only works because subreddits are individually managed (and it's a company that can dedicate resources to it).
- dchuk 8y ago
  HN is quite different from forums because of the temporal nature of the content, the voting, and the threaded comments. Forums can foster very long running discussions, HN isn't really meant for that. Also, there are all the components of user profiles/messaging/signatures/etc that HN completely omits (which is totally fine, but something forums are known for that HN probably will never have).
  - pbowyer 8y ago
    > Forums can foster very long running discussions This. This is the element the 'modern web' has forgotten in its rush to 'new', 'realtime' and 'current' content. Just because a conversation happened weeks (or months, or years) ago doesn't mean it's not relevant now. Google search results appear to favour 'fresh' over 'stale'; yet it doesn't say the content is any better, or more useful to me. Hacker news has some awesome threads and knowledgeable people, but the threads and comments are buried in the archive. Add a comment to an old thread and no one reads it or responds. Which is the HN community's loss. Blog comments were another: I had discussions that spanned multiple years, as people found it of interest and joined in. Because I wrote for engagement, not for pageviews. Unless people regain a sense of place in time and realise that immediate doesn't trump everything else, I don't see us going back to longer-term discussions.
dchuk 8y ago
Update: Spent the evening researching software options for the "old school" style forums, and it seems like Xenforo is a solid choice in terms of active development, lots of addons/themes, and not crazy expensive. So I think I'll snag a license and put it on a droplet later this week when my wife is out for the evening :) Also think I found a good domain for it that I'll snag tonight as well.
- thirdsun 8y ago
  What's wrong with Discourse? It seems to be a popular choice. Here are some more ideas: https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted#social-networks-and-forums https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted#social-networ... Flarum looks like a worthwhile option: http://flarum.org/ http://flarum.org/
  - KajMagnus 8y ago
    I like Discourse too. (better than all the others mentioned so far) There's also Talkyard. It's a bit like Discourse, and has Slack chat features (maybe nice with informal chat channels?) and StackOverflow like Q&A topics. I'm developing it. Open source & beta. https://www.talkyard.io/forum/ https://www.talkyard.io/forum/
  - dchuk 8y ago
    Nothing is wrong with it, it's just a different interpretation of forums that is a departure from the "classic" bulletin boards we are discussing here.
- dx034 8y ago
  That's one of the main issues with HN. Since there's no notification and/or messaging, few people will look back in this thread once you've actually set it up. A Show HN could at least be seen by some, but I too often miss those as well.
- admg 8y ago
  Definitely interested if you go ahead!
handsomechad 8y ago
I think it's a really good idea. At least the spirit of it is correct - HN is a unique community which really helps me crowdsource a lot of wisdom and knowledge, and I think the pseudonymity and ephemerality is a feature more than a bug, but, it would be great to have longer running discussions that aren't swiftly superseded by the next days hot posts, and to have the freedom to post things/quesetions without the fear of getting drowned out (because on HN/reddit you have to be conscious of what is likely to get enough upvotes to even be seen)
- dchuk 8y ago
  Check it out here! https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/
ryan-allen 8y ago
Facebook Groups offer that to a certain degree. I get a lot of value out of small facebook groups I'm a member of, but they are not the same as the old forum-style, and it's on Facebook.
noyesno 8y ago
How about creating an Usenet newsgroup for HN?
- zafiro17 8y ago
  In a way, it exists: visit comp.misc where a small group of devoted usenet fans discuss HN-type things, and where a fair number of HN stories have been linked and discussed. Visit misc.news.internet.discuss for non-computer tech discussion (and some fluff), and visit sci.misc for science articles and discussion. Among those three newsgroups you have the sum total of HN and Slashdot, and a nice crowd of Usenetters.
bobsoap 8y ago
Great idea. Since we're reminiscing, unless I have you mistaken for someone else, I suspect that we both may have been a part of the same community way back when. Regardless, I look forward this; sounds like it could be fun.
- dchuk 8y ago
  You're probably suspecting correctly :)
dougmwne 8y ago
I really wish we could get this set up, maybe even with some official ycombinator promotion. In my mind HN is the last really great group of strangers on the internet. I have learned so much from these comments sections and I've frequently read someone's post and connected with it to the point where I wish I could sit down for a cup of coffee or a beer. Unfortunately, without community features it feels like slipping notes into a bottle and tossing them into the sea. HN is the restaurant at the end of the internet.
- dchuk 8y ago
  I'm going to tackle setting something up tonight and tomorrow night. I don't know anyone at ycomb so can't speak towards making anything official, but at the very least we can give it a shot and see if it can gain some traction/community. I'll post a Show HN when it's ready.
- dchuk 8y ago
  Just so you know, I setup a site here for this experiment: https://hackerforums.co https://hackerforums.co I'll get a Show HN going tomorrow!
CalRobert 8y ago
Is there anywhere we can see this progress? I suppose I'll see this comment of mine when I look in HN (I do often) but would love to know when anything is up and running. BTW, I'd strongly, strongly discourage vBulletin.
- dchuk 8y ago
  I'll reply to everyone here when it's online, and will post a Show HN. Hopefully it will get some traction.
- dchuk 8y ago
  Here you go! I'm sure it still needs tweaks, but it's a start: https://hackerforums.co https://hackerforums.co
greggyb 8y ago
Feel free to tap me to help mod if you'd like some assistance. I can give a few hours a week. Ninja edit: wording
dchuk 8y ago
UPDATE: Got something up and running here: https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/ I've tweaked it a bunch, but I'm sure there's a lot more to do. Please take a look if you're still following this HN thread...I'll post a Show HN in the morning for this. I also have a post with my notes from setting this thing up...suffice to say that DigitalOcean's 1 click installer requires a few more clicks...

by dchuk 8y ago

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

That could be interesting.

dchuk 8y ago
I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there. I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Use Discourse. It's not only the most advanced from a tech perspective, but it also aims to promote strong communities.
  - dchuk 8y ago
    No doubt that discourse is really nice software, and I will give it a go, but it does lack the “nostalgia” referred to by the original comment I replied to with this idea. All options are valid at this point though!
    - varrock 8y ago
      I am a huge fan of Simple Machine Forums - https://www.simplemachines.org/ https://www.simplemachines.org/
  - eitland 8y ago
    Am I the only one who is totally confused by discourse? Maybe it's because rhe demo instance was reset way to often or something but I've never really seen a really working discourse instance. (I think both Mozilla and Canonical (has?) run one but they weren't to active either IIRC. Anyone has examples of a working discourse community?
    - ravloony 8y ago
      I think https://purescript-users.ml https://purescript-users.ml is running on Discourse. It's quite young though.
    - flaviocopes 8y ago
      - https://discourse.mozilla.org/latest https://discourse.mozilla.org/latest - https://platform.github.community/latest https://platform.github.community/latest - https://forum.golangbridge.org/ https://forum.golangbridge.org/
      - eitland 8y ago
        Thanks everyone. You've convinced me that discourse can work :-)
    - organsnyder 8y ago
      The subject matter may not appeal to some on HN, but here's an installation I set up at a previous employer over three years ago, that is thriving: https://discourse.biologos.org/ https://discourse.biologos.org/
      - eitland 8y ago
        Heh, I've recognized that feeling too but I feel HN is still one of the most reasonable foras I know of.
- happertiger 8y ago
  Second vote for discourse!
- tluyben2 8y ago
  I think it is important to curate it, but I applaud the idea. I would say; only allow people with over a certain karma score on HN (>1000)? That way you benefit from the quite strict moderation here. But indeed I remember the days on vBulletin forums; all my remarks against ‘you cannot make friends over 30’ that I uttered here come from there: most my current friends and one of my best friends I met on forums. It just worked well.
  - jgalentine007 8y ago
    Dude, I've been on reddit since 2006 and I don't even have 1000 karma. Don't exclude the lurkers! (Who are too busy programming to post.)
    - tluyben2 8y ago
      Maybe you are right but how to prevent it from becoming a sales/recruitement/troll/showoff fest again?
      - Yptur 8y ago
        I think that's what mods are for. At least back in the day that's how it worked. Of course some mods will abuse their powers and just do stupid stuff but in the end that's part of what made it so fun. You had to iterate through dozens of forums and hope that yours had a fighting chance because the mods did their job properly.
      - AstralStorm 8y ago
        Normal forums have categories for these things. Maybe except trolling.
        dx034 8y ago
        Exactly that. I would explicitly allow it, esp since most have some interest in some of the topics. Even off-topic chat can be fine if it's in an extra category. The only thing to avoid is pure spam but with some threshold to sign up (e.g. verification) that can be kept relatively low.
dchuk 8y ago
Check it out! https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/

taneq 8y ago

> Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? So HN doesn't count?

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
No. not compared to where we were. Usenet was like every HN, phpBB, digg, slashdot, and reddit in one. I await those days again.
- dx034 8y ago
  Nowadays you have a much larger internet community. 20 years ago, the number of people online was maybe a few hundred million (likely lower), now it's several billion. That increases complexity, any forum that's too broad will attract so many people that you only get noise. HN works well because it's relatively unknown (esp outside of tech). Reddit only works because subreddits are individually managed (and it's a company that can dedicate resources to it).
dchuk 8y ago
HN is quite different from forums because of the temporal nature of the content, the voting, and the threaded comments. Forums can foster very long running discussions, HN isn't really meant for that. Also, there are all the components of user profiles/messaging/signatures/etc that HN completely omits (which is totally fine, but something forums are known for that HN probably will never have).
- pbowyer 8y ago
  > Forums can foster very long running discussions This. This is the element the 'modern web' has forgotten in its rush to 'new', 'realtime' and 'current' content. Just because a conversation happened weeks (or months, or years) ago doesn't mean it's not relevant now. Google search results appear to favour 'fresh' over 'stale'; yet it doesn't say the content is any better, or more useful to me. Hacker news has some awesome threads and knowledgeable people, but the threads and comments are buried in the archive. Add a comment to an old thread and no one reads it or responds. Which is the HN community's loss. Blog comments were another: I had discussions that spanned multiple years, as people found it of interest and joined in. Because I wrote for engagement, not for pageviews. Unless people regain a sense of place in time and realise that immediate doesn't trump everything else, I don't see us going back to longer-term discussions.

dchuk 8y ago

Update: Spent the evening researching software options for the "old school" style forums, and it seems like Xenforo is a solid choice in terms of active development, lots of addons/themes, and not crazy expensive. So I think I'll snag a license and put it on a droplet later this week when my wife is out for the evening :) Also think I found a good domain for it that I'll snag tonight as well.

thirdsun 8y ago
What's wrong with Discourse? It seems to be a popular choice. Here are some more ideas: https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted#social-networks-and-forums https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted#social-networ... Flarum looks like a worthwhile option: http://flarum.org/ http://flarum.org/
- KajMagnus 8y ago
  I like Discourse too. (better than all the others mentioned so far) There's also Talkyard. It's a bit like Discourse, and has Slack chat features (maybe nice with informal chat channels?) and StackOverflow like Q&A topics. I'm developing it. Open source & beta. https://www.talkyard.io/forum/ https://www.talkyard.io/forum/
- dchuk 8y ago
  Nothing is wrong with it, it's just a different interpretation of forums that is a departure from the "classic" bulletin boards we are discussing here.
dx034 8y ago
That's one of the main issues with HN. Since there's no notification and/or messaging, few people will look back in this thread once you've actually set it up. A Show HN could at least be seen by some, but I too often miss those as well.
admg 8y ago
Definitely interested if you go ahead!

handsomechad 8y ago

I think it's a really good idea. At least the spirit of it is correct - HN is a unique community which really helps me crowdsource a lot of wisdom and knowledge, and I think the pseudonymity and ephemerality is a feature more than a bug, but, it would be great to have longer running discussions that aren't swiftly superseded by the next days hot posts, and to have the freedom to post things/quesetions without the fear of getting drowned out (because on HN/reddit you have to be conscious of what is likely to get enough upvotes to even be seen)

dchuk 8y ago
Check it out here! https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/

ryan-allen 8y ago

Facebook Groups offer that to a certain degree. I get a lot of value out of small facebook groups I'm a member of, but they are not the same as the old forum-style, and it's on Facebook.

noyesno 8y ago

How about creating an Usenet newsgroup for HN?

zafiro17 8y ago
In a way, it exists: visit comp.misc where a small group of devoted usenet fans discuss HN-type things, and where a fair number of HN stories have been linked and discussed. Visit misc.news.internet.discuss for non-computer tech discussion (and some fluff), and visit sci.misc for science articles and discussion. Among those three newsgroups you have the sum total of HN and Slashdot, and a nice crowd of Usenetters.

bobsoap 8y ago

Great idea. Since we're reminiscing, unless I have you mistaken for someone else, I suspect that we both may have been a part of the same community way back when. Regardless, I look forward this; sounds like it could be fun.

dchuk 8y ago
You're probably suspecting correctly :)

dougmwne 8y ago

I really wish we could get this set up, maybe even with some official ycombinator promotion. In my mind HN is the last really great group of strangers on the internet. I have learned so much from these comments sections and I've frequently read someone's post and connected with it to the point where I wish I could sit down for a cup of coffee or a beer. Unfortunately, without community features it feels like slipping notes into a bottle and tossing them into the sea. HN is the restaurant at the end of the internet.

dchuk 8y ago
I'm going to tackle setting something up tonight and tomorrow night. I don't know anyone at ycomb so can't speak towards making anything official, but at the very least we can give it a shot and see if it can gain some traction/community. I'll post a Show HN when it's ready.
dchuk 8y ago
Just so you know, I setup a site here for this experiment: https://hackerforums.co https://hackerforums.co I'll get a Show HN going tomorrow!

CalRobert 8y ago

Is there anywhere we can see this progress? I suppose I'll see this comment of mine when I look in HN (I do often) but would love to know when anything is up and running. BTW, I'd strongly, strongly discourage vBulletin.

dchuk 8y ago
I'll reply to everyone here when it's online, and will post a Show HN. Hopefully it will get some traction.
dchuk 8y ago
Here you go! I'm sure it still needs tweaks, but it's a start: https://hackerforums.co https://hackerforums.co

greggyb 8y ago

Feel free to tap me to help mod if you'd like some assistance. I can give a few hours a week. Ninja edit: wording

dchuk 8y ago

UPDATE: Got something up and running here: https://hackerforums.co/ https://hackerforums.co/ I've tweaked it a bunch, but I'm sure there's a lot more to do. Please take a look if you're still following this HN thread...I'll post a Show HN in the morning for this. I also have a post with my notes from setting this thing up...suffice to say that DigitalOcean's 1 click installer requires a few more clicks...