4 ms·

Agree, although there are still many incredibly active forums around, but I do feel the golden age of them has passed. I started my career on forums, modifying

Agree, although there are still many incredibly active forums around, but I do feel the golden age of them has passed. I started my career on forums, modifying them, moving eventually on to more general web work. It makes me a little sad to think this is pretty much the only "forum" I post in, but even HN is algorithmically-biased :)

xorand 8y ago
I feel the same. Is like the net turned out to induce too big changes on the present society, which is based on artificial scarcity and gate-keepers. So $they try, successfully until now, to reverse this by turning the net into TV. It works great because the largest part of the population has no idea how it was before and they are at the first stages of building an immunity. Overall is the Gutenberg press reloaded. First publish bibles in the local languages, then publish anything, like for example Leibniz, outside the usual channels (academia say), then limit the spreading of knowledge via laws and trade over boundaries. Much faster than before, but not so fast so that one individual, say, would witness both the Gutenberg press and a major effect like the USA.
- skilled 8y ago
  Very interesting that you mention TV, because this had been exactly my thinking process lately. It's starting to look like the goal is to fully commercialise the Web which leaves many (most) with no choice but to follow suit.
  - xorand 8y ago
    Yes, I'm sure many people think like this. Let me get back to the Gutenberg=Net analogy. I take as relevant history points (rounded numbers) - 1450 Gutenberg - 1970 Arpanet - 1500 Luther - 1990 Berners-Lee - 1700 Leibniz - 2010 Open Access, Open Science - 1800 USA - x, major event towards the freedom of the internet If we count in decades, suppose both processes as exponential and we take Gutenberg - Arpanet as the 0 point, then we see 2^t_internet = 5^t_gutenberg which suggests that the major event x would be at about 4.6 decades after the Arpanet. :)
    - xorand 8y ago
      Obscure notation. what I wanted is: t_internet - t_arpanet = 2^p t_history - t_gutenberg = 5^p where t_internet is in the range [t_arpanet, 210] (in decades) and t_history is in the range [t_gutenberg, t_arpanet] (in decades). Therefore, if a historic event related to the printing press occured at t_history time (in decades) then the equivalent event related to the net occured at t_internet (in decades), given by te formula: t_internet = t_arpanet + (t_history - t_gutenberg)^0,43067 where 0,43067 = (ln 2)/(ln 5).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Insanity 8y ago
I wouldn't classify HN as one of the 'old-school' forums. The community is too large for that. As I remember forums they are quite a lot smaller than HN and tended to focus around more specific topics. (HN is rather broad). I do miss the old gaming forums! They're replaced by discord now which is a different way of interacting.

xorand 8y ago

I feel the same. Is like the net turned out to induce too big changes on the present society, which is based on artificial scarcity and gate-keepers. So $they try, successfully until now, to reverse this by turning the net into TV. It works great because the largest part of the population has no idea how it was before and they are at the first stages of building an immunity. Overall is the Gutenberg press reloaded. First publish bibles in the local languages, then publish anything, like for example Leibniz, outside the usual channels (academia say), then limit the spreading of knowledge via laws and trade over boundaries. Much faster than before, but not so fast so that one individual, say, would witness both the Gutenberg press and a major effect like the USA.

skilled 8y ago
Very interesting that you mention TV, because this had been exactly my thinking process lately. It's starting to look like the goal is to fully commercialise the Web which leaves many (most) with no choice but to follow suit.
- xorand 8y ago
  Yes, I'm sure many people think like this. Let me get back to the Gutenberg=Net analogy. I take as relevant history points (rounded numbers) - 1450 Gutenberg - 1970 Arpanet - 1500 Luther - 1990 Berners-Lee - 1700 Leibniz - 2010 Open Access, Open Science - 1800 USA - x, major event towards the freedom of the internet If we count in decades, suppose both processes as exponential and we take Gutenberg - Arpanet as the 0 point, then we see 2^t_internet = 5^t_gutenberg which suggests that the major event x would be at about 4.6 decades after the Arpanet. :)
  - xorand 8y ago
    Obscure notation. what I wanted is: t_internet - t_arpanet = 2^p t_history - t_gutenberg = 5^p where t_internet is in the range [t_arpanet, 210] (in decades) and t_history is in the range [t_gutenberg, t_arpanet] (in decades). Therefore, if a historic event related to the printing press occured at t_history time (in decades) then the equivalent event related to the net occured at t_internet (in decades), given by te formula: t_internet = t_arpanet + (t_history - t_gutenberg)^0,43067 where 0,43067 = (ln 2)/(ln 5).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Insanity 8y ago

I wouldn't classify HN as one of the 'old-school' forums. The community is too large for that. As I remember forums they are quite a lot smaller than HN and tended to focus around more specific topics. (HN is rather broad). I do miss the old gaming forums! They're replaced by discord now which is a different way of interacting.