4 ms·

I think forum platforms are still the best type of web site for communities that need to communicate in the long term, i.e. where information does not get stale

I think forum platforms are still the best type of web site for communities that need to communicate in the long term, i.e. where information does not get stale quickly. For instance, in building-hobby/crafting forums, people post threads about their ongoing projects, which sometimes may take years to complete. In some collecting forums, there are threads that are over a decade old — and still active, each with a wealth of information about one very specific subject. Disagreements about details about a specific type of item means that there is sometimes a lot of info that can't always be easily collected into a wiki. However, these forums are dependent on there being a good search function: When they breaks down, people do complain. It is also not suitable to automatically lock/cull old threads on these forums.

a4isms 4y ago
The most useful "social media" sites for musicians are fairly vanilla forums. Heavily moderated, single well-understood focus, &c. &c. Example: https://talkbass.com https://talkbass.com is for people to talk about playing bass. And as you suggest for crafting, there are lots of old posts that are valuable today. For example, bowing (arco) technique on double bass.
tester756 4y ago
Indeed, forums are the way to go if you value deep, long discussions. If you want to write 2-3 comments and then thread dies, then Reddit/HM/Discord/FB Groups
- krapp 4y ago
  Which makes it odd that HN, a forum ostensibly all about deep, intellectual discussions, has so many features that seem designed to suppress discourse at length, due to the fear of entropy leading to the Eternal September effect.
  - SamBam 4y ago
    Among other things, the lack of an easy way to notice that someone replied to a days-old comment of yours.
    - prawn 4y ago
      In case you or others are unaware, there's https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/ - created by @dang
      - boogies 4y ago
        Dan Grossman isn’t dang.
        prawn 4y ago
        Ha - I remember realising that years ago and obviously forgot since. Thanks for the correction.
      - account42 4y ago
        Also https://hnrss.org/ https://hnrss.org/ if you prefer feeds over mail.
spurgu 4y ago
> In some collecting forums, there are threads that are over a decade old — and still active, each with a wealth of information about one very specific subject. Yes! This is why it's so sad to see these being taken over by Facebook groups, which really really sucks at this type of thing. Even threads running for a week or two are horrible UI/UX-wise. > It is also not suitable to automatically lock/cull old threads on these forums. This is a really bad feature of Reddit. Say, when I'm searching for a solution to something I often stumble upon a related Reddit thread, which in the majority of cases is locked due to being older than 6 months. In these cases I could've chimed in after finding the solution elsewhere, but now these threads remain stupid and useless forever. Centralization is good in the regard that I already have a Reddit account so I don't have to sign up to a new forum to post (in those rare cases the post is not locked). But then again there are modern solutions to simplify this as well (Sign in with X).

a4isms 4y ago

The most useful "social media" sites for musicians are fairly vanilla forums. Heavily moderated, single well-understood focus, &c. &c. Example: https://talkbass.com https://talkbass.com is for people to talk about playing bass. And as you suggest for crafting, there are lots of old posts that are valuable today. For example, bowing (arco) technique on double bass.

tester756 4y ago

Indeed, forums are the way to go if you value deep, long discussions. If you want to write 2-3 comments and then thread dies, then Reddit/HM/Discord/FB Groups

krapp 4y ago
Which makes it odd that HN, a forum ostensibly all about deep, intellectual discussions, has so many features that seem designed to suppress discourse at length, due to the fear of entropy leading to the Eternal September effect.
- SamBam 4y ago
  Among other things, the lack of an easy way to notice that someone replied to a days-old comment of yours.
  - prawn 4y ago
    In case you or others are unaware, there's https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/ - created by @dang
    - boogies 4y ago
      Dan Grossman isn’t dang.
      - prawn 4y ago
        Ha - I remember realising that years ago and obviously forgot since. Thanks for the correction.
    - account42 4y ago
      Also https://hnrss.org/ https://hnrss.org/ if you prefer feeds over mail.

spurgu 4y ago

> In some collecting forums, there are threads that are over a decade old — and still active, each with a wealth of information about one very specific subject. Yes! This is why it's so sad to see these being taken over by Facebook groups, which really really sucks at this type of thing. Even threads running for a week or two are horrible UI/UX-wise. > It is also not suitable to automatically lock/cull old threads on these forums. This is a really bad feature of Reddit. Say, when I'm searching for a solution to something I often stumble upon a related Reddit thread, which in the majority of cases is locked due to being older than 6 months. In these cases I could've chimed in after finding the solution elsewhere, but now these threads remain stupid and useless forever. Centralization is good in the regard that I already have a Reddit account so I don't have to sign up to a new forum to post (in those rare cases the post is not locked). But then again there are modern solutions to simplify this as well (Sign in with X).