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I have recently created a software package and wanted a forum to have my users post "fun" stuff that is not strictly technical since it's sort of a hobby. I hav

I have recently created a software package and wanted a forum to have my users post "fun" stuff that is not strictly technical since it's sort of a hobby. I have decided that it is way too tedious to host my own forums, so I chose a middle ground that is to create a subreddit. It is working out pretty well. There are be several reasons that hosting a forum/fanclub on Reddit is better than on Facebook. Facebook mandates real name use, one username for everything that not everyone is comfortable with, I'm sure everyone on HN is already aware of that. But I think there is another subtle reason. In the past, I have relied on Facebook to host another hobbyist project, and it was super active. I thought what is more convenient than having one place to notify users about the ongoings and stuff and plus having a mobile app that kicks ass, right? It turned out, after a while, the group died. No one would interact with our news anymore, even when we don't spam them with junk news. I think the subtle reasons is that Facebook is way too aggressive on interaction. Maybe something exciting is happening and many people flock to comment on it, and so Facebook spams everyone with notifications and emails about the current ongoing that many of the users don't care about. If a user gets annoyed and decides to mute the group, then I will lose a good, caring person forever. Reddit has no such jealous nudging mechanism, the user has to explicitly check that subreddit to know. So the participation becomes much more passive and the user can choose to update about the ongoings at their own convenience. It turns out being more gentle for hobbyist groups wins over being aggressive. Not that I only have those two choices, though...

chaseha 8y ago
A lot of that may be due to the way Facebook has changed their algorithms in the last few years. I know that both Pages and Groups that don't pay for engagement have had huge issues with their content no longer showing up in follower's feeds. Could be that rather than users "ignoring" the group
djsumdog 8y ago
If you wanted to run one yourself, you could always setup a Lobsters instance.
jgh 8y ago
OTOH Reddit also enforces time as a limitation on posts, just on a slightly slower scale than Facebook. For example "necroposting" isn't really a thing that's possible with a Reddit (or HN) model. Nor are threads that are ongoing for months at a time, which are quite common on traditional forums. I mean you can do it but it has to be mod-sanctioned via pinning.

chaseha 8y ago

A lot of that may be due to the way Facebook has changed their algorithms in the last few years. I know that both Pages and Groups that don't pay for engagement have had huge issues with their content no longer showing up in follower's feeds. Could be that rather than users "ignoring" the group

djsumdog 8y ago

If you wanted to run one yourself, you could always setup a Lobsters instance.

jgh 8y ago

OTOH Reddit also enforces time as a limitation on posts, just on a slightly slower scale than Facebook. For example "necroposting" isn't really a thing that's possible with a Reddit (or HN) model. Nor are threads that are ongoing for months at a time, which are quite common on traditional forums. I mean you can do it but it has to be mod-sanctioned via pinning.