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Indeed. And I was just thinking about how sites like Reddit and Hacker News are terrible when it comes to discussing things like podcasts or building a communit

by bnralt 4y ago

Indeed. And I was just thinking about how sites like Reddit and Hacker News are terrible when it comes to discussing things like podcasts or building a community. An active web forum is what would be really useful. For example, the podcast subs I frequent on Reddit often have people posting the same questions over and over again. A forum would simply aggregate them into one post that gets bumped to the top when someone comments, perhaps with the first post collating all the information as time goes on. But on the Reddit style boards, the discussion disappears soon after it's posted, just when the information starts to get there. It drops off the front page forever, and a couple days later someone comes along asking the exact same thing. Every podcast discussion starts from scratch, and ends soon afterwards. If you're a day or two late to a discussion, chances are no one will even your response.

irrational 4y ago
> A forum would simply aggregate them into one post that gets bumped to the top when someone comments, perhaps with the first post collating all the information as time goes on. But on the Reddit style boards, the discussion disappears soon after it's posted, just when the information starts to get there. This isn’t necessarily true. It sounds to me like you only have experience with some of the larger subreddits like r/pics. If you frequent smaller hobby subreddits you will find that the moderators will do exactly what is being described here. Some are pinned on a permanent basis, others are rotated out on a weekly or daily basis. The tools to do this are already baked into Reddit, it is up to the moderators of each subreddit whether to use them or not.
- bnralt 4y ago
  > It sounds to me like you only have experience with some of the larger subreddits like r/pics. As I said in my post, I frequent podcast subs, which are usually on the smaller side to things. Sure, you can pin posts, but only two at a time, which means they often get dropped and switched. And unless they're extremely recent (so you're pinning posts all the time), as soon as they get dropped, they disappear. Spent 30 minutes writing a post to a pin discussion that you posted minutes before moderators switched the pinned post to something else? Chances are, no one's ever going to see it. But a bigger problem is how nothing gets bumped to the top in those places. If I randomly stumble across a 5 year old discussion on IMDB and post a comment, it's going to be bumped to the top of the post list, and plenty of people will see it. If followed a link from something pinned to the top of a Reddit sub to a 10 day old discussion and make a comment, it's likely no one will see it. The only way people would even know there was a new comment is if they kept checking all of the dead conversations that have already fallen off the front page. And the upvoting/downvoting exacerbates this further. It's not just that you're limited to the most recent posts if you want someone to see what you've said, but you're often stuck replying to the most upvoted comments to that post. I'm surprised if I get a comment or upvotes on site like Reddit or Hacker News after a couple of days. On the webforums I frequent, I often get them after _years_. If this were a forum, I'd probably be making this post later tonight or later in the week. But on Hacker News, if I don't make it in the next couple hours it's likely no one would ever see my response.

by bnralt 4y ago

irrational 4y ago

> A forum would simply aggregate them into one post that gets bumped to the top when someone comments, perhaps with the first post collating all the information as time goes on. But on the Reddit style boards, the discussion disappears soon after it's posted, just when the information starts to get there. This isn’t necessarily true. It sounds to me like you only have experience with some of the larger subreddits like r/pics. If you frequent smaller hobby subreddits you will find that the moderators will do exactly what is being described here. Some are pinned on a permanent basis, others are rotated out on a weekly or daily basis. The tools to do this are already baked into Reddit, it is up to the moderators of each subreddit whether to use them or not.

bnralt 4y ago
> It sounds to me like you only have experience with some of the larger subreddits like r/pics. As I said in my post, I frequent podcast subs, which are usually on the smaller side to things. Sure, you can pin posts, but only two at a time, which means they often get dropped and switched. And unless they're extremely recent (so you're pinning posts all the time), as soon as they get dropped, they disappear. Spent 30 minutes writing a post to a pin discussion that you posted minutes before moderators switched the pinned post to something else? Chances are, no one's ever going to see it. But a bigger problem is how nothing gets bumped to the top in those places. If I randomly stumble across a 5 year old discussion on IMDB and post a comment, it's going to be bumped to the top of the post list, and plenty of people will see it. If followed a link from something pinned to the top of a Reddit sub to a 10 day old discussion and make a comment, it's likely no one will see it. The only way people would even know there was a new comment is if they kept checking all of the dead conversations that have already fallen off the front page. And the upvoting/downvoting exacerbates this further. It's not just that you're limited to the most recent posts if you want someone to see what you've said, but you're often stuck replying to the most upvoted comments to that post. I'm surprised if I get a comment or upvotes on site like Reddit or Hacker News after a couple of days. On the webforums I frequent, I often get them after _years_. If this were a forum, I'd probably be making this post later tonight or later in the week. But on Hacker News, if I don't make it in the next couple hours it's likely no one would ever see my response.