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Old forums used to feel a bit like a community. They were small and close nit, and visibility wasn't dictated by voting, so proper in-depth discussions could ha

Old forums used to feel a bit like a community. They were small and close nit, and visibility wasn't dictated by voting, so proper in-depth discussions could happen. They felt more like a collaborative room than a megaphone. At least, that's my thoughts.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
They also didn't "age out" every discussion to invisibility after a day or two, as usually sorting was usually by time of last update. Discussion topics could go for weeks, or occasionally months. Losing that is my personal bugbear with everything moving to a feed, as it prioritises consumption over depth.
- Deimorz 7y ago
  (Disclaimer: my site) I definitely agree with this, and on Tildes (https://tildes.net https://tildes.net) the default sorting method causes topics to bump back up to the top when there's a new comment on them, the same way forums work. We regularly have topics stay active for days or weeks because of it, and old topics will suddenly spring back to life when new discussions start. Tildes's mechanics have a lot of similarities to reddit/HN-style sites overall, and you can still choose to sort by votes, strictly chronologically, etc. if you prefer, but I've always liked that forum-style method. The heavily time-dependent approaches that are popular now force everyone to need to reply quickly. On HN and reddit, if you don't get involved in a thread in the first 12 hours or so, you might as well not bother because it'll disappear soon. Replying to anything over a day old means that almost nobody will ever see your comment. Tildes is still young so it's not extremely active yet, but there are usually a few hundred comments and ~50 topics every day. If you (or anyone else reading this) is interested in an invite, feel free to email me. The address and a lot more info about the site is in the announcement post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    It's the cult of recency that even infects Google search. Last week's news can still be worth talking about, last year's fact might still be a fact. HN and reddit also has the tendency that a lively discussion will simply start to fade out once the story has dropped out of sight. Nice one, Tilde looks a really interesting mix. Votes are useful as a pre-filter in discovery, age the best way to organise discussion. I wish you the very best of luck with it! Bonus points for the dark theme option. From first impression it looks fit for beta - is there functionality still missing? I'll take a closer look over the weekend.
    - Deimorz 7y ago
      It probably doesn't even really need to be called alpha/beta any more. It's very stable and has comparable or better features than most of the similar sites. There's a lot I still want to add, but there always will be.
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    One thing I didn't like about Tildes was being banned without notice by the moderator.
siruncledrew 7y ago
> They were small and close nit That's my growing problem with Reddit (and somewhat HN). There's actually a fallacy to "the more, the merrier". As some of my favorite subreddits have grown and seen a lot more crossover users, it's become way less merrier of an experience. Like having a favorite swimming spot or nice hiking trail get inundated with people - it changes the dynamic of doing something. In my opinion, it leads to the "generalization" of subreddits, where dumb posts are the new average and the "uniqueness" of the subreddit gets lost. Idk, to me it seems inevitable that "grow, grow, grow" the userbase is going to have some detrimental effects to the nature of a community. Maybe it's all wishful thinking at this point, but "small and close nit" sounds better of a community than "extra-large and individualistic".

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

They also didn't "age out" every discussion to invisibility after a day or two, as usually sorting was usually by time of last update. Discussion topics could go for weeks, or occasionally months. Losing that is my personal bugbear with everything moving to a feed, as it prioritises consumption over depth.

Deimorz 7y ago
(Disclaimer: my site) I definitely agree with this, and on Tildes (https://tildes.net https://tildes.net) the default sorting method causes topics to bump back up to the top when there's a new comment on them, the same way forums work. We regularly have topics stay active for days or weeks because of it, and old topics will suddenly spring back to life when new discussions start. Tildes's mechanics have a lot of similarities to reddit/HN-style sites overall, and you can still choose to sort by votes, strictly chronologically, etc. if you prefer, but I've always liked that forum-style method. The heavily time-dependent approaches that are popular now force everyone to need to reply quickly. On HN and reddit, if you don't get involved in a thread in the first 12 hours or so, you might as well not bother because it'll disappear soon. Replying to anything over a day old means that almost nobody will ever see your comment. Tildes is still young so it's not extremely active yet, but there are usually a few hundred comments and ~50 topics every day. If you (or anyone else reading this) is interested in an invite, feel free to email me. The address and a lot more info about the site is in the announcement post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It's the cult of recency that even infects Google search. Last week's news can still be worth talking about, last year's fact might still be a fact. HN and reddit also has the tendency that a lively discussion will simply start to fade out once the story has dropped out of sight. Nice one, Tilde looks a really interesting mix. Votes are useful as a pre-filter in discovery, age the best way to organise discussion. I wish you the very best of luck with it! Bonus points for the dark theme option. From first impression it looks fit for beta - is there functionality still missing? I'll take a closer look over the weekend.
  - Deimorz 7y ago
    It probably doesn't even really need to be called alpha/beta any more. It's very stable and has comparable or better features than most of the similar sites. There's a lot I still want to add, but there always will be.
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  One thing I didn't like about Tildes was being banned without notice by the moderator.

siruncledrew 7y ago

> They were small and close nit That's my growing problem with Reddit (and somewhat HN). There's actually a fallacy to "the more, the merrier". As some of my favorite subreddits have grown and seen a lot more crossover users, it's become way less merrier of an experience. Like having a favorite swimming spot or nice hiking trail get inundated with people - it changes the dynamic of doing something. In my opinion, it leads to the "generalization" of subreddits, where dumb posts are the new average and the "uniqueness" of the subreddit gets lost. Idk, to me it seems inevitable that "grow, grow, grow" the userbase is going to have some detrimental effects to the nature of a community. Maybe it's all wishful thinking at this point, but "small and close nit" sounds better of a community than "extra-large and individualistic".