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Ask HN: What feature(s) would make you join an internet forum?
I run a new internet forum and I'm wondering what features I can build to attract users. If you came across a new internet forum, what novel (or old and boring) features would make you join? Or maybe, the forum lacks a popular feature (that you hate) that would entice you.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoPeople join internet forums for the niche they serve. Features and speed are cool for keeping the community unified and organized, but I don't think I would ever join a generic forum just because the site looks neat. The features should serve the niche the forum is built around.
- PaulHoule 3y agoCommunity has a few elements: the people and topic are one (e.g. dpreview is a great place to go to get photography questions answered) another one is the quality of moderation. Tildes has a fairly nice mechanism of notifying you about comments to your posts that I think draws people in to keep participating. (Note: I still have Tildes invites)
- thruway516 3y agoReal and verified identities
- clipsy 3y agoAside from absolute basic usability, I can’t imagine joining (or not joining) a forum due to its features rather than the community itself.
- icedchai 3y agoI want an easy way to see new posts/comments since a given timestamp (last visit, or one that I enter.) Highlight these 'new' ones in a specific color.
- forgotmypw17 3y agoFull portability, allowing a fork of the forum by the users at any time. Transparency and auditability.
- codingclaws 3y agoI like the portability idea. I think I will need to upgrade to using some data encryption in order to do that.
- PaulHoule 3y agoLook at ideas from the Fediverse which provides a tookit to build things like * mastodon which is a federated "twitter" * pixelfed which is a federated "flickr" * Kbin and Lemmy are a federated "reddit" Lately I've taken some interest in "Web3" in the sense that I think the Fedi is missing single sign on, but Web3 is problematic in many ways, not least the financialization/ownership thing seems to be about as offputting as having a friend join Amway, and that even with a good solution to signing your signing key people will still struggle to manage keys. Client-side SSL certificates have been around since the server-side ones but when have you seen one used?