9 ms·

I think what would really be great is a social media site that doesn't offer direct image or video hosting. A bit like how reddit used to be. You just have link

by bil7 4y ago

I think what would really be great is a social media site that doesn't offer direct image or video hosting. A bit like how reddit used to be. You just have link aggregation, voting, and comments. That's it. Maybe in a nice, clean, minimal UI as well. This would lend itself to tech folk I think. If only it existed.

asddubs 4y ago
so hacker news
- JadoJodo 4y ago
  I suspect GP was being facetious.
  - asddubs 4y ago
    oh yeah, rereading it, it's pretty obvious actually, I guess I was being dense that moment.
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that being facetious is against the community guidelines. The post really should be flagged immediately.
    - 37amxn37 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bcjordan 4y ago
Actually it could lend itself to a great business model as well — hackers both start startups, and often are looking for jobs at startups. You could use it for lead generation for startup founders to join your accelerator (once that concept exists), and an added benefit to founders would be access to hiring from the pool of hackers on the site. Win/win. Sounds like bit of a schlep though. Would need to draw an audience e.g. by producing a ton of your own content early on. Lots of legal processes involved with operating an accelerator. Probably not worth it.
- baxtr 4y ago
  The good thing though: After the initial seed phase, where you produced your content you could just disappear and only be active on twitter!
- runlaszlorun 4y ago
  no thats a great one… can i add that to my list of ideas?
seydor 4y ago
But how can i friend you? This is not social
- dnissley 4y ago
  Even just "follow" functionality would be great.
  - seydor 4y ago
    But it should be labeled frankly "Friend" should be labeled "Manipulate" "Follow" should be labeled "Stalk"
cheschire 4y ago
We have to be careful to not simply crowd-source the moderation either. Keeping a crowd-moderated social media site from devolving is a dang hard task.
- talkingtab 4y ago
  Just curious do you have experience with this and if so, what was it
  - 58x14 4y ago
    > dang hard task
    - trevcanhuman 4y ago
      i feel like that was on purpose
baxtr 4y ago
Great idea. To add: I think the site would also need a rock star moderator who diligently checks every comment and keeps the site clean. Also maybe it would be great to have a voting system where one could downvote as well! But only after a certain number of upvotes I think.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Let's also have zero notification whatsoever that someone answered to your comment so you have to keep engaged in constantly looking thru it manually
  - baxtr 4y ago
    This is a very neat "engagement" feature idea! Love it. I would probably then just bookmark the site and check it constantly.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      But no ads. Cause we aren't in it for the money.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        ...well, okay. A few ads, but only for semi-relevant job openings.
  - runlaszlorun 4y ago
    aha! good idea! the web is… not free really… but more free than the wall gardens. i think its biggest weakness is that notifications don’t really work there. but that bug is now a feature. nice!
  - wheats 4y ago
    Maybe a really unintuitive system for ranking too? Like make it unclear why some posts are ranked higher than others, and why some are somehow greyed out even though there isn't an obvious way to downvote or report content. Also make it so you have to manually minimize the top reply in order to see the second most popular topline reply because there should be absolutely no limit to seeing the amount of subreplies.
time_to_smile 4y ago
> link aggregation One thing I've noticed over the years is that most social media companies have slowly started to discourage outbound links. On reddit a surprising number of subs no longer allow you to just submit links, and a growing number require review before posting external content. Even Twitter (before Musk) was clearly deprioritizing external links. This is a bit troubling because it further leads to the "dead internet" where it gets harder and harder for people making interesting content independent of major sites to get visibility. I think of the main reasons HN remains relatively high quality is its primary function is still aggregating pointers to elsewhere.
- axus 4y ago
  I'd thought Reddit subs prohibited links because it attracts spam and marketing disguised as organic recommendations. For Twitter, they promote organic content "for free" but want to make the inorganic stuff pay money for promotion. Discord is close the original poster's idea for a social network, replace "social circle" with "Discord server" and lower the member limit for a server. Back to your topic, a semi-private Discord server/social circle moderator can ban anyone posting spam links so its not a huge problem there.
holler 4y ago
No voting but working on a clean/minimal link aggregation + live chat site at https://sqwok.im https://sqwok.im bonus points: "hacker theme" to make the hacker feel at home https://i.imgur.com/AleBLed.png https://i.imgur.com/AleBLed.png https://sqwok.im/p/TXmiluFNUILE_Q https://sqwok.im/p/TXmiluFNUILE_Q (cross-post)
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>voting This always leads to a hivemind. Because even if you're supposed to use it for rewarding good posts, what the horde ends up doing is using downvotes as a disagree button. Especially if the admins/moderators have authoritarian powers to hide content on top of the users' individual powers or rate limit posting by those with differing views. Because everyone's bias sneaks in - no one is exempt from this - and it's very hard to see your own biases if you don't deliberately venture out of your filter bubble regularly. The best tool I've found for this so far (and I maintain a search) is https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news It gets trickier when one side completely ignores a story, which both do.

by bil7 4y ago

asddubs 4y ago

so hacker news

JadoJodo 4y ago
I suspect GP was being facetious.
- asddubs 4y ago
  oh yeah, rereading it, it's pretty obvious actually, I guess I was being dense that moment.
- ihatepython 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that being facetious is against the community guidelines. The post really should be flagged immediately.
  - 37amxn37 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bcjordan 4y ago

Actually it could lend itself to a great business model as well — hackers both start startups, and often are looking for jobs at startups. You could use it for lead generation for startup founders to join your accelerator (once that concept exists), and an added benefit to founders would be access to hiring from the pool of hackers on the site. Win/win. Sounds like bit of a schlep though. Would need to draw an audience e.g. by producing a ton of your own content early on. Lots of legal processes involved with operating an accelerator. Probably not worth it.

baxtr 4y ago
The good thing though: After the initial seed phase, where you produced your content you could just disappear and only be active on twitter!
runlaszlorun 4y ago
no thats a great one… can i add that to my list of ideas?

seydor 4y ago

But how can i friend you? This is not social

dnissley 4y ago
Even just "follow" functionality would be great.
- seydor 4y ago
  But it should be labeled frankly "Friend" should be labeled "Manipulate" "Follow" should be labeled "Stalk"

cheschire 4y ago

We have to be careful to not simply crowd-source the moderation either. Keeping a crowd-moderated social media site from devolving is a dang hard task.

talkingtab 4y ago
Just curious do you have experience with this and if so, what was it
- 58x14 4y ago
  > dang hard task
  - trevcanhuman 4y ago
    i feel like that was on purpose

baxtr 4y ago

Great idea. To add: I think the site would also need a rock star moderator who diligently checks every comment and keeps the site clean. Also maybe it would be great to have a voting system where one could downvote as well! But only after a certain number of upvotes I think.

ilyt 4y ago
Let's also have zero notification whatsoever that someone answered to your comment so you have to keep engaged in constantly looking thru it manually
- baxtr 4y ago
  This is a very neat "engagement" feature idea! Love it. I would probably then just bookmark the site and check it constantly.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    But no ads. Cause we aren't in it for the money.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      ...well, okay. A few ads, but only for semi-relevant job openings.
- runlaszlorun 4y ago
  aha! good idea! the web is… not free really… but more free than the wall gardens. i think its biggest weakness is that notifications don’t really work there. but that bug is now a feature. nice!
- wheats 4y ago
  Maybe a really unintuitive system for ranking too? Like make it unclear why some posts are ranked higher than others, and why some are somehow greyed out even though there isn't an obvious way to downvote or report content. Also make it so you have to manually minimize the top reply in order to see the second most popular topline reply because there should be absolutely no limit to seeing the amount of subreplies.

time_to_smile 4y ago

> link aggregation One thing I've noticed over the years is that most social media companies have slowly started to discourage outbound links. On reddit a surprising number of subs no longer allow you to just submit links, and a growing number require review before posting external content. Even Twitter (before Musk) was clearly deprioritizing external links. This is a bit troubling because it further leads to the "dead internet" where it gets harder and harder for people making interesting content independent of major sites to get visibility. I think of the main reasons HN remains relatively high quality is its primary function is still aggregating pointers to elsewhere.

axus 4y ago
I'd thought Reddit subs prohibited links because it attracts spam and marketing disguised as organic recommendations. For Twitter, they promote organic content "for free" but want to make the inorganic stuff pay money for promotion. Discord is close the original poster's idea for a social network, replace "social circle" with "Discord server" and lower the member limit for a server. Back to your topic, a semi-private Discord server/social circle moderator can ban anyone posting spam links so its not a huge problem there.

holler 4y ago

No voting but working on a clean/minimal link aggregation + live chat site at https://sqwok.im https://sqwok.im bonus points: "hacker theme" to make the hacker feel at home https://i.imgur.com/AleBLed.png https://i.imgur.com/AleBLed.png https://sqwok.im/p/TXmiluFNUILE_Q https://sqwok.im/p/TXmiluFNUILE_Q (cross-post)

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

>voting This always leads to a hivemind. Because even if you're supposed to use it for rewarding good posts, what the horde ends up doing is using downvotes as a disagree button. Especially if the admins/moderators have authoritarian powers to hide content on top of the users' individual powers or rate limit posting by those with differing views. Because everyone's bias sneaks in - no one is exempt from this - and it's very hard to see your own biases if you don't deliberately venture out of your filter bubble regularly. The best tool I've found for this so far (and I maintain a search) is https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news It gets trickier when one side completely ignores a story, which both do.