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Being able to (usually) personalize your comments I think also played a huge role in fostering community: avatars, taglines, signatures, etc. I wrote my own ta

by mercer 6y ago

Being able to (usually) personalize your comments I think also played a huge role in fostering community: avatars, taglines, signatures, etc. I wrote my own tagging system for HN and it's hard to describe how much it changed the experience for me. only usernames feels a bit like being in a community where everyone wears the same clothes, uses a vocoder, and covers up their faces. if you squint you might be able to make out the nametag.

Grumbledour 6y ago
This sound interesting. Do you have some more details or maybe even some code somewhere? I would love to find ways to more easily identify users on here. The username, despite my best efforts, I mostly overlook or can't remember. On Forums, with Avatar images, this used to be so much simpler.
- mostlysimilar 6y ago
  I love to think back on the early social web and consider how much we got right, particularly with forums. Presence and personality via avatars went a long way to feeling like a community in an era when the masses were still figuring out how to do that via technology. I still find chronologically ordered, flat discussion threads to be far superior to nested and vote ordered discussions.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    > I still find chronologically ordered, flat discussion threads to be far superior to nested and vote ordered discussions Yes, and not in the least because one can answer/reference multiple messages in one post, thus bringing different conversation 'branches' back together. It also provides a nice chronological order to follow the whole discussions, which is hard in nested discussions. However, flat discussions have limits: once you have hundreds of participants, it becomes nearly impossible to follow. I estimate that the limit to more or less comfortably follow flat discussion is ~50 posts/day, or 15-30 more or less active posters.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  By default HN almost hides usernames. The byline on this comment will be a smaller font than HN's already small body font size. It'll also be a light gray almost fading into the background. You'll need to spend extra effort to notice my username and try to remember it. I'm not likely to remember yours later.

by mercer 6y ago

Grumbledour 6y ago

This sound interesting. Do you have some more details or maybe even some code somewhere? I would love to find ways to more easily identify users on here. The username, despite my best efforts, I mostly overlook or can't remember. On Forums, with Avatar images, this used to be so much simpler.

mostlysimilar 6y ago
I love to think back on the early social web and consider how much we got right, particularly with forums. Presence and personality via avatars went a long way to feeling like a community in an era when the masses were still figuring out how to do that via technology. I still find chronologically ordered, flat discussion threads to be far superior to nested and vote ordered discussions.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  > I still find chronologically ordered, flat discussion threads to be far superior to nested and vote ordered discussions Yes, and not in the least because one can answer/reference multiple messages in one post, thus bringing different conversation 'branches' back together. It also provides a nice chronological order to follow the whole discussions, which is hard in nested discussions. However, flat discussions have limits: once you have hundreds of participants, it becomes nearly impossible to follow. I estimate that the limit to more or less comfortably follow flat discussion is ~50 posts/day, or 15-30 more or less active posters.
giantrobot 6y ago
By default HN almost hides usernames. The byline on this comment will be a smaller font than HN's already small body font size. It'll also be a light gray almost fading into the background. You'll need to spend extra effort to notice my username and try to remember it. I'm not likely to remember yours later.