6 ms·

It's also way easier to build a community when the buy-in is clicking a "subscribe" button with an account you already have and are logged into and knowing you

by hbn 3y ago

It's also way easier to build a community when the buy-in is clicking a "subscribe" button with an account you already have and are logged into and knowing you can unsubscribe at any time, as opposed to registering another username, giving a random site admin your email, verifying your email, trusting they're not gonna leak your info or password, etc. Plus everyone already knows how to use all the functionality, and they already have an app on their phone they can access you and posts will appear in the feed they're already checking.

BasedAnon 3y ago
This can be a feature rather than a bug. One of the things that I appreciate about forums is that you actually get to build relationships that are more personable than something like Reddit, because there's more commitment involved.
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  Significantly more personable, almost incomparably so. I've never built any form of relationship on Reddit, unless being abused by other Redditor's counts and that's a big part of why I left it. It's an issue with HN, but people generally don't get away with the same kind of nasty stuff on here. On the other hand I have real world friends that I originally met on forums 15 years ago.
Pxtl 3y ago
See, this is one of many reasons why I'm sad we still use usernames/passwords for so many sites. I'm much more likely to register for a site if it supports 3rd-party auth instead of managing another password. It's too bad we don't have a properly open way to do that -- no "auth with this address" but instead a fixed hand-coded list of FB, Google, etc.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  It sucks that often our only option for this kind of authentication is Facebook or Google, since they only see this as a way to harvest even more data about their users. Apple's implementation is a lot better on this front, but you're still placing your trust in a trillion dollar company. And lots of sites choose not to implement it because Apple's design makes it harder to track users across domains.
  - deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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- codetrotter 3y ago
  > It's too bad we don't have a properly open way to do that It exists, it’s a web standard, and it’s called WebAuthn https://auth0.com/blog/introduction-to-web-authentication/ https://auth0.com/blog/introduction-to-web-authentication/
- dragontamer 3y ago
  https://indieweb.org/IndieAuth https://indieweb.org/IndieAuth All we need for "identity" is a webpage that the world reasonably expects us to control. For an extreme example, my "identity" is simply my page at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dragontamer https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dragontamer. Because I "control" the page, and because most people have reason to trust dang/Hacker News to not manipulate my "About Page", it serves as an identity. ------- That being said, Hacker News "About" pages probably isn't the best place for a general web identity. But maybe a static-page at "neocities.org", or "Github", etc. etc. serve as an identity in practice.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago
  Is it really a lot of effort "managing" a password when your browser will literally create, pre-fill, and save those credentials for you? Valid argument in 2003. Not so much in 2023.
  - dmd 3y ago
    Sadly outside of the HN crowd something like 5% of people use that functionality of their browser - and maybe 1% use a password manager.
- jayelbe 3y ago
  OpenID does exactly that and has been a thing for something like 15 years now. Quite a few big sites like Yahoo, Google, AOL Verisign would provide a URL you could login with (they were identity providers) and there were lots of independent providers too. You could easily host your own with as simple PHP script. Sadly, fewer large sites would actually accept OpenID as a way of logging in, but you could used OpenID for authenticating Blogger comments. Stackexchange supported OpenID logins for 8 years [until July 2018](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307647/support-for-openid-ended-on-july-25-2018 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307647/support-for-...). The BBC wrote quite a good summary of how things stood in 2008: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/10/openid_foundation_meeting_what.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/10/openid_found... It's another one of those sad parts of the web we lost.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
With OAuth they can reuse one of many common identity providers they may already have, albeit an extra click or two.
babypuncher 3y ago
The way reddit's threads work with nested replies is also a vastly superior UX over the linear firehose approach of a conventional forum. So much so that pretty much everyone has resorted to copying it over the last 15 years. There's a reason phpbb went the way of the dinosaur and won't be making a comeback. The future is going to be something that learns from Reddit's mistakes without regressing to 2001 usability.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  The flat sequential thread was a reaction to threaded messages as seen on Usenet and mailing lists. It works reasonably well if users are careful to quote the messages they're responding to.
  - tquinn 3y ago
    Super interesting, I didn't know it was a reaction. Looking at Usenet thread screenshots, I think the UX issue with their threads is that they actually listed the title, not the actual message in a branch format. Whereas Reddit has the actual message content in a branch format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading#/media/File:Nntp.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading#/media/... VS https://preview.redd.it/r7k2gf1kav6z.png?auto=webp&s=9fd7a0bf3ccc158399cb499f85881ed77348d18e https://preview.redd.it/r7k2gf1kav6z.png?auto=webp&s=9fd7a0b... I think the flat sequential thread works fine with a limited number of messages. Eventually with enough replies it degrades to being very unwieldy like traditional forums.
    - iso1631 3y ago
      I'm sure slashdot showed the messages in threads (at least in some modes) at least 5 years before reddit was a thing. In fact here's a screenshot from 2005 https://www.flickr.com/photos/third/18260796 https://www.flickr.com/photos/third/18260796
  - iso1631 3y ago
    The web based forum I ran in the late 90s was threaded, then things like UBB came along and the flat structure seemed to win out.
rglullis 3y ago
That is not a problem with the Fediverse-based solutions. You can navigate from your instance to the content of the other ones, and subscribing/following a remote actor is seamless.

by hbn 3y ago

BasedAnon 3y ago

This can be a feature rather than a bug. One of the things that I appreciate about forums is that you actually get to build relationships that are more personable than something like Reddit, because there's more commitment involved.

BizarreByte 3y ago
Significantly more personable, almost incomparably so. I've never built any form of relationship on Reddit, unless being abused by other Redditor's counts and that's a big part of why I left it. It's an issue with HN, but people generally don't get away with the same kind of nasty stuff on here. On the other hand I have real world friends that I originally met on forums 15 years ago.

Pxtl 3y ago

See, this is one of many reasons why I'm sad we still use usernames/passwords for so many sites. I'm much more likely to register for a site if it supports 3rd-party auth instead of managing another password. It's too bad we don't have a properly open way to do that -- no "auth with this address" but instead a fixed hand-coded list of FB, Google, etc.

babypuncher 3y ago
It sucks that often our only option for this kind of authentication is Facebook or Google, since they only see this as a way to harvest even more data about their users. Apple's implementation is a lot better on this front, but you're still placing your trust in a trillion dollar company. And lots of sites choose not to implement it because Apple's design makes it harder to track users across domains.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
codetrotter 3y ago
> It's too bad we don't have a properly open way to do that It exists, it’s a web standard, and it’s called WebAuthn https://auth0.com/blog/introduction-to-web-authentication/ https://auth0.com/blog/introduction-to-web-authentication/
dragontamer 3y ago
https://indieweb.org/IndieAuth https://indieweb.org/IndieAuth All we need for "identity" is a webpage that the world reasonably expects us to control. For an extreme example, my "identity" is simply my page at https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dragontamer https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dragontamer. Because I "control" the page, and because most people have reason to trust dang/Hacker News to not manipulate my "About Page", it serves as an identity. ------- That being said, Hacker News "About" pages probably isn't the best place for a general web identity. But maybe a static-page at "neocities.org", or "Github", etc. etc. serve as an identity in practice.
mostlysimilar 3y ago
Is it really a lot of effort "managing" a password when your browser will literally create, pre-fill, and save those credentials for you? Valid argument in 2003. Not so much in 2023.
- dmd 3y ago
  Sadly outside of the HN crowd something like 5% of people use that functionality of their browser - and maybe 1% use a password manager.
jayelbe 3y ago
OpenID does exactly that and has been a thing for something like 15 years now. Quite a few big sites like Yahoo, Google, AOL Verisign would provide a URL you could login with (they were identity providers) and there were lots of independent providers too. You could easily host your own with as simple PHP script. Sadly, fewer large sites would actually accept OpenID as a way of logging in, but you could used OpenID for authenticating Blogger comments. Stackexchange supported OpenID logins for 8 years [until July 2018](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307647/support-for-openid-ended-on-july-25-2018 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307647/support-for-...). The BBC wrote quite a good summary of how things stood in 2008: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/10/openid_foundation_meeting_what.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/10/openid_found... It's another one of those sad parts of the web we lost.

paulryanrogers 3y ago

With OAuth they can reuse one of many common identity providers they may already have, albeit an extra click or two.

babypuncher 3y ago

The way reddit's threads work with nested replies is also a vastly superior UX over the linear firehose approach of a conventional forum. So much so that pretty much everyone has resorted to copying it over the last 15 years. There's a reason phpbb went the way of the dinosaur and won't be making a comeback. The future is going to be something that learns from Reddit's mistakes without regressing to 2001 usability.

zozbot234 3y ago
The flat sequential thread was a reaction to threaded messages as seen on Usenet and mailing lists. It works reasonably well if users are careful to quote the messages they're responding to.
- tquinn 3y ago
  Super interesting, I didn't know it was a reaction. Looking at Usenet thread screenshots, I think the UX issue with their threads is that they actually listed the title, not the actual message in a branch format. Whereas Reddit has the actual message content in a branch format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading#/media/File:Nntp.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_threading#/media/... VS https://preview.redd.it/r7k2gf1kav6z.png?auto=webp&s=9fd7a0bf3ccc158399cb499f85881ed77348d18e https://preview.redd.it/r7k2gf1kav6z.png?auto=webp&s=9fd7a0b... I think the flat sequential thread works fine with a limited number of messages. Eventually with enough replies it degrades to being very unwieldy like traditional forums.
  - iso1631 3y ago
    I'm sure slashdot showed the messages in threads (at least in some modes) at least 5 years before reddit was a thing. In fact here's a screenshot from 2005 https://www.flickr.com/photos/third/18260796 https://www.flickr.com/photos/third/18260796
- iso1631 3y ago
  The web based forum I ran in the late 90s was threaded, then things like UBB came along and the flat structure seemed to win out.

rglullis 3y ago

That is not a problem with the Fediverse-based solutions. You can navigate from your instance to the content of the other ones, and subscribing/following a remote actor is seamless.