6 ms·

In my experience, the forum experience is far from dead, but it's effectively impossible to surface in a search engine - any search engine - unless you know the

In my experience, the forum experience is far from dead, but it's effectively impossible to surface in a search engine - any search engine - unless you know the name of the forum. Oh, and the content must also be "fresh". If the content isn't "fresh" (which most of the best forum/blog posts are not), nobody shows it anymore. I can search for a specific blog post using a verbatim quote, but the result (if it exists) is buried under 10+ pages of "fresher" content, no matter how disconnected it may be from the search.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
This is depressing. Good information is useful for far longer than a carton of milk in your fridge! And a lot of that new "milk" is apparently made of chalk and bilge-water.
- kashnote 5y ago
  Are people still drinking cow milk? Oat milk all the way.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Yes, of course they do, the alternative milk market is growing fast but most people still go for cow milk if they want milk. That's why grocery stores still devote a ton of space to cow milk.
    - robin_reala 5y ago
      I guess it depends on where you are. Here in Sweden it’s about 50/50 (if you take into account the non-refrigerated milks).
      - brimble 5y ago
        Here (mid-tier city in the US) it's more like 80/20 or 90/10 at any normal grocery store, and I suspect there's higher product turn-over for dairy so the actual sales figures favors dairy more than that suggests.
      - vlunkr 5y ago
        Sweden was the 4th highest consumer of milk per capita in 2013. Unfortunately that seems to be the most recent data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons...
      - dagw 5y ago
        Of course it depends on where you in Sweden you are. The super market in the the more affluent part of a large city where I live is about 50/50. Out in the 'sticks' where my parents live it's much closer 80/20
      - r_klancer 5y ago
        I'm relatively well informed but I always just assumed oat "milk" was an inferior substitute marketed to the actively or wannabe lactose intolerant. [EDIT: and vegans of course.] (No idea if "wannabe lactose intolerant" is really a thing, but i'm thinking of the way gluten sensitivity became a faddish self-diagnosis for a while.) I still don't drink the stuff, but it's only dawned on me in the last year that there are other reasons, such as environmental concerns or ... actually, I'm not sure. Opening two tabs to Google "oat milk why" and "oat milk why site:reddit.com" now, which conveniently makes this relevant to TFA :)
        ImaCake 5y ago
        I use cow milk in my coffee and almond milk in my bland cereal of choice. I’m not lactose intolerant, but too much milk definitely feels “heavy”. The almond milk plus some sultanas substitutes nicely and is very cheap. Mostly its not for the taste, it just makes breakfast easy and efficient so I can focus on fancy stuff later in the day.
      - skrbjc 5y ago
        Non refrigerated milk can still be from cows.
graeme 5y ago
Anyone know the origin of the fresh rule, and the purpose? It makes sense in some niches but in others it is so obviously bad I wonder why Google added it
- visarga 5y ago
  There was a big news event once (forgot what) and Google was only showing aged pages at the time. So they started prioritizing freshness.
api 5y ago
The entire information ecosystem has internalized a bias toward "freshness." It's even really strong in software. Evidently code is more valid and correct if it has recent GitHub commits.
- Lascaille 5y ago
  Software is the most toxic environment possible for freshness bias. Every month it seems like there's a new framework/ecosystem/whatever and everyone's migrating to it and you're behind the times if you're not using it.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    This is only if you bother chasing the absolute freshest trend. Things like React, Ruby on Rails, Node.JS, etc have been the standard and most popular tools for close to 10 years now and aren't going anywhere.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  I guess this is why a lot of sites now removed dates from their articles.
- beatsie_ 5y ago
  Google allows for searches within ranges of dates.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Almost no software just works if left unattended for years. If its a library it means it will likely not work with the latest versions of everything else. Your bug reports will go unattended. People also have a lot more tolerance for missing features or issues if they see it improving regularly. While getting something unsatisfactory as the last and final version is not nearly as acceptable.
  - api 5y ago
    I have built Unix/Linux stuff from the 1990s with no code changes. Programs that do well defined things generally have a long shelf life. Even X stuff often works, though it can look bad on modern displays. Math kernels, codecs, and so forth can more or less live forever.
echelon 5y ago
> the forum experience is far from dead If you find a forum for a given subject, it is almost always an authoritative source filled with experts. This is especially true in engineering disciplines. It's unfortunate that Reddit and social media took over and led to their decline, because it's suboptimal setup in so many ways. - Reddit in the large is a high noise, low signal monetization chamber. Some subreddits have good moderation, but that doesn't stop the spill over and drama. - You can't assume much about any given Reddior, and you won't typically form relationships or associations with them. It's pretty much pseudonymous. - Reddit doesn't focus on authorship. It doesn't allow inclusion of images, media, or carefully formatted responses in threads. - Reddit corporate is the authority and owner of all content. They can change the rules at any time, and that's a fragile and authoritarian setup for human discourse. - Reddit corporate is constantly changing the UI and engaging in dark patterns to earn more money. This flies in the face of usability. Forums should make a comeback. It would be better if each community had real owners and stakeholders that had skin in the game rather than a generic social media overlord that is optimizing for higher order criteria that sometimes conflict with that of the community. But forums have problems too. They should be easier to host, frictionless to join, easy to discover, and longer lived. Another way to think of this: every major subreddit is a community (or startup) of its own and could potentially be peeled off and grown. You'd have to overcome the lack of built-in community membership and discovery, but if you can meet needs better (better tools for organizing recipes, community events, engineering photoblogs, etc.), then you might be able to beat them. Reddit can't build everything, just like Facebook couldn't.
nostrademons 5y ago
The forum experience is dying. I spent about 4 years of my time in-between Google stints working on a searchable feed for forum sites. Finally gave it up when I realize the extent to which the forum scene had died and moved to Reddit & Facebook while I was working on the project. The root problem is that attention has gone from abundant to scarce, and people already have their habits. That makes it really hard to build a new forum site and attract an audience that's willing to type your URL in every day (and if they don't visit daily, forget about building a viable community). Forum hosts like Facebook and Reddit don't have this problem - you can view your Buy Nothing Group and Moms of Springfield posts interspersed with your feed of friends, or your r/factorio content interspersed with a steady stream of r/AskReddit. There's also emerging technological barriers. If you don't sign up for CloudFlare, as a new website, you're going to get hosed - but at the same time, CloudFlare makes it basically impossible for any new search engine other than Google to spider the site. Ditto security patches, and keeping software up-to-date. Most people don't want to deal with sysadmin stuff at all, particularly if they're trying to build a community as a hobby. So that pushes people further toward hosted solutions with a turn-key secure software stack, which is Facebook and Reddit.
- shuntress 5y ago
  > The root problem is that attention has gone from abundant to scarce I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the root problem is that running & using a forum is too difficult. That is why centralized forums (like you mentioned, reddit and facebook) that handle it for you won out against decentralized forums run by forum members. Even before facebook/reddit/etc forums tended to live or die by individual effort of one passionate system admin dealing with all the hosting, updates, accounts, and spam until they get fed up and the forum closes because they can't find someone else to take the keys.
  - r_klancer 5y ago
    One of my favorite niche forums is https://archboston.com https://archboston.com. It has years of deep-dive discussion from passionate users about the history and progress of Boston area infrastructure and real estate development projects. For a while there the site was up but not allowing new accounts to be created -- someone was paying the hosting bills but didn't have time to do any admin tasks. Thankfully, someone else stepped up and people post new stuff every day (albeit with banner ads at the top of each page now, which is honestly not too bad) I'm happy, but it could have gone poof so easily.
worldsayshi 5y ago
I feel this would be solved if the search engine weighted results based on whether users trust the domains.
- aghilmort 5y ago
  pretty much what we're doing at https://breezethat.com https://breezethat.com, a topic search engine - we currently curate domains / pages internally based on trust - we'll be adding an open low-code way for others to vote / moderate
- Lascaille 5y ago
  That only works if you validate users, otherwise the trust database becomes 99% the result of the actions of SEO firms.
  - worldsayshi 5y ago
    Hmm, or you outsource the trust problem to your users. Let them select which domains to trust or who to trust to weight trustworthiness of domains for you. Imagine that user A can create a list of domains with trustworthiness score. User B can then use that list by going to user-a-awesome-curation.koogle.com?q=nice+shoes It might create filter bubbles but it would be transparent filter bubbles. You could even wikify/open source the curation.
  - chaxor 5y ago
    Doesn't cloudfare do this? (extremely extensively imo - just about every single click is a captcha of some type sometimes) As much as HN despises blockchains because of crypto, (no, that's not the only use of that tech) it does seem like verification of websites could be a decentralized consensus - along with DNS as well -and user verification could be a portion of the consensus of website quality. This could even help with making self hosted search engines more accessable
- datavirtue 5y ago
  A lot of this could be solved if we could signal intent or context before searching. But that would require that you know how to use the tool which is a gargantuan user barrier from Google's point of view. Meanwhile, we have to hack about trying to signal context.
machiaweliczny 5y ago
Google had button to search only forums. Monopoly shows.
koshnaranek 5y ago
So frustrating to find background Information to a big current event. Google will aggressively show the same news articles over and over.
impalallama 5y ago
the forum experience has effective been totally replaced by either discord or subreddits, or any other kind of self-moderated social media group you can think of. Its a plus in minus in a lot of ways but the biggest con is that its just straight impossible to search a discord log effectively.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

This is depressing. Good information is useful for far longer than a carton of milk in your fridge! And a lot of that new "milk" is apparently made of chalk and bilge-water.

kashnote 5y ago
Are people still drinking cow milk? Oat milk all the way.
- brimble 5y ago
  Yes, of course they do, the alternative milk market is growing fast but most people still go for cow milk if they want milk. That's why grocery stores still devote a ton of space to cow milk.
  - robin_reala 5y ago
    I guess it depends on where you are. Here in Sweden it’s about 50/50 (if you take into account the non-refrigerated milks).
    - brimble 5y ago
      Here (mid-tier city in the US) it's more like 80/20 or 90/10 at any normal grocery store, and I suspect there's higher product turn-over for dairy so the actual sales figures favors dairy more than that suggests.
    - vlunkr 5y ago
      Sweden was the 4th highest consumer of milk per capita in 2013. Unfortunately that seems to be the most recent data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons...
    - dagw 5y ago
      Of course it depends on where you in Sweden you are. The super market in the the more affluent part of a large city where I live is about 50/50. Out in the 'sticks' where my parents live it's much closer 80/20
    - r_klancer 5y ago
      I'm relatively well informed but I always just assumed oat "milk" was an inferior substitute marketed to the actively or wannabe lactose intolerant. [EDIT: and vegans of course.] (No idea if "wannabe lactose intolerant" is really a thing, but i'm thinking of the way gluten sensitivity became a faddish self-diagnosis for a while.) I still don't drink the stuff, but it's only dawned on me in the last year that there are other reasons, such as environmental concerns or ... actually, I'm not sure. Opening two tabs to Google "oat milk why" and "oat milk why site:reddit.com" now, which conveniently makes this relevant to TFA :)
      - ImaCake 5y ago
        I use cow milk in my coffee and almond milk in my bland cereal of choice. I’m not lactose intolerant, but too much milk definitely feels “heavy”. The almond milk plus some sultanas substitutes nicely and is very cheap. Mostly its not for the taste, it just makes breakfast easy and efficient so I can focus on fancy stuff later in the day.
    - skrbjc 5y ago
      Non refrigerated milk can still be from cows.

graeme 5y ago

Anyone know the origin of the fresh rule, and the purpose? It makes sense in some niches but in others it is so obviously bad I wonder why Google added it

visarga 5y ago
There was a big news event once (forgot what) and Google was only showing aged pages at the time. So they started prioritizing freshness.

api 5y ago

The entire information ecosystem has internalized a bias toward "freshness." It's even really strong in software. Evidently code is more valid and correct if it has recent GitHub commits.

Lascaille 5y ago
Software is the most toxic environment possible for freshness bias. Every month it seems like there's a new framework/ecosystem/whatever and everyone's migrating to it and you're behind the times if you're not using it.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  This is only if you bother chasing the absolute freshest trend. Things like React, Ruby on Rails, Node.JS, etc have been the standard and most popular tools for close to 10 years now and aren't going anywhere.
Workaccount2 5y ago
I guess this is why a lot of sites now removed dates from their articles.
beatsie_ 5y ago
Google allows for searches within ranges of dates.
Gigachad 5y ago
Almost no software just works if left unattended for years. If its a library it means it will likely not work with the latest versions of everything else. Your bug reports will go unattended. People also have a lot more tolerance for missing features or issues if they see it improving regularly. While getting something unsatisfactory as the last and final version is not nearly as acceptable.
- api 5y ago
  I have built Unix/Linux stuff from the 1990s with no code changes. Programs that do well defined things generally have a long shelf life. Even X stuff often works, though it can look bad on modern displays. Math kernels, codecs, and so forth can more or less live forever.

echelon 5y ago

> the forum experience is far from dead If you find a forum for a given subject, it is almost always an authoritative source filled with experts. This is especially true in engineering disciplines. It's unfortunate that Reddit and social media took over and led to their decline, because it's suboptimal setup in so many ways. - Reddit in the large is a high noise, low signal monetization chamber. Some subreddits have good moderation, but that doesn't stop the spill over and drama. - You can't assume much about any given Reddior, and you won't typically form relationships or associations with them. It's pretty much pseudonymous. - Reddit doesn't focus on authorship. It doesn't allow inclusion of images, media, or carefully formatted responses in threads. - Reddit corporate is the authority and owner of all content. They can change the rules at any time, and that's a fragile and authoritarian setup for human discourse. - Reddit corporate is constantly changing the UI and engaging in dark patterns to earn more money. This flies in the face of usability. Forums should make a comeback. It would be better if each community had real owners and stakeholders that had skin in the game rather than a generic social media overlord that is optimizing for higher order criteria that sometimes conflict with that of the community. But forums have problems too. They should be easier to host, frictionless to join, easy to discover, and longer lived. Another way to think of this: every major subreddit is a community (or startup) of its own and could potentially be peeled off and grown. You'd have to overcome the lack of built-in community membership and discovery, but if you can meet needs better (better tools for organizing recipes, community events, engineering photoblogs, etc.), then you might be able to beat them. Reddit can't build everything, just like Facebook couldn't.

nostrademons 5y ago

The forum experience is dying. I spent about 4 years of my time in-between Google stints working on a searchable feed for forum sites. Finally gave it up when I realize the extent to which the forum scene had died and moved to Reddit & Facebook while I was working on the project. The root problem is that attention has gone from abundant to scarce, and people already have their habits. That makes it really hard to build a new forum site and attract an audience that's willing to type your URL in every day (and if they don't visit daily, forget about building a viable community). Forum hosts like Facebook and Reddit don't have this problem - you can view your Buy Nothing Group and Moms of Springfield posts interspersed with your feed of friends, or your r/factorio content interspersed with a steady stream of r/AskReddit. There's also emerging technological barriers. If you don't sign up for CloudFlare, as a new website, you're going to get hosed - but at the same time, CloudFlare makes it basically impossible for any new search engine other than Google to spider the site. Ditto security patches, and keeping software up-to-date. Most people don't want to deal with sysadmin stuff at all, particularly if they're trying to build a community as a hobby. So that pushes people further toward hosted solutions with a turn-key secure software stack, which is Facebook and Reddit.

shuntress 5y ago
> The root problem is that attention has gone from abundant to scarce I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the root problem is that running & using a forum is too difficult. That is why centralized forums (like you mentioned, reddit and facebook) that handle it for you won out against decentralized forums run by forum members. Even before facebook/reddit/etc forums tended to live or die by individual effort of one passionate system admin dealing with all the hosting, updates, accounts, and spam until they get fed up and the forum closes because they can't find someone else to take the keys.
- r_klancer 5y ago
  One of my favorite niche forums is https://archboston.com https://archboston.com. It has years of deep-dive discussion from passionate users about the history and progress of Boston area infrastructure and real estate development projects. For a while there the site was up but not allowing new accounts to be created -- someone was paying the hosting bills but didn't have time to do any admin tasks. Thankfully, someone else stepped up and people post new stuff every day (albeit with banner ads at the top of each page now, which is honestly not too bad) I'm happy, but it could have gone poof so easily.

worldsayshi 5y ago

I feel this would be solved if the search engine weighted results based on whether users trust the domains.

aghilmort 5y ago
pretty much what we're doing at https://breezethat.com https://breezethat.com, a topic search engine - we currently curate domains / pages internally based on trust - we'll be adding an open low-code way for others to vote / moderate
Lascaille 5y ago
That only works if you validate users, otherwise the trust database becomes 99% the result of the actions of SEO firms.
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  Hmm, or you outsource the trust problem to your users. Let them select which domains to trust or who to trust to weight trustworthiness of domains for you. Imagine that user A can create a list of domains with trustworthiness score. User B can then use that list by going to user-a-awesome-curation.koogle.com?q=nice+shoes It might create filter bubbles but it would be transparent filter bubbles. You could even wikify/open source the curation.
- chaxor 5y ago
  Doesn't cloudfare do this? (extremely extensively imo - just about every single click is a captcha of some type sometimes) As much as HN despises blockchains because of crypto, (no, that's not the only use of that tech) it does seem like verification of websites could be a decentralized consensus - along with DNS as well -and user verification could be a portion of the consensus of website quality. This could even help with making self hosted search engines more accessable
datavirtue 5y ago
A lot of this could be solved if we could signal intent or context before searching. But that would require that you know how to use the tool which is a gargantuan user barrier from Google's point of view. Meanwhile, we have to hack about trying to signal context.

machiaweliczny 5y ago

Google had button to search only forums. Monopoly shows.

koshnaranek 5y ago

So frustrating to find background Information to a big current event. Google will aggressively show the same news articles over and over.

impalallama 5y ago

the forum experience has effective been totally replaced by either discord or subreddits, or any other kind of self-moderated social media group you can think of. Its a plus in minus in a lot of ways but the biggest con is that its just straight impossible to search a discord log effectively.