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I would give my left arm to be using internet forums again. Online communities adopting Discord and Slack was such a terrible move in hindsight. Definitely roo

I would give my left arm to be using internet forums again. Online communities adopting Discord and Slack was such a terrible move in hindsight. Definitely rooting for this to take off.

philip1209 3y ago
Thank you - try it out and let me know what you think. Based on the launch feedback so far today, I think I need to build a Slack integration - primarily as a separate channel to deliver the daily newsletter. It seems like lots of people don't even open their work email anymore, so the chat + forum need to work together. I wrote more about why chat fails for work communication in my launch post here - summarized as "our workplace communication looks like the floor of a 1980s stock exchange, not a place for writing code." https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/ https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Be careful with users hounding you for features, especially ones like you specify. Think of HN here. How many feature requests have they implemented over the last 10 years?
  - philip1209 3y ago
    That's a great point, and I'm conscious of it. I try to take a first-principles approach to building. For instance, a few people have requested "pinned posts." I personally don't want the same post stuck at the top of my screen forever, and upon digging in deeper I find that people really want a "Welcome" post that all new users see and can access. So, I'm exploring some ways of accomplishing that without pinning - such as a dismissible post for new members.
victorbjorklund 3y ago
Agreed. Im so thankful for the few remaining good forums like elixirforum.com etc. So sad that discord really hijacked all of the communities (of course i understand people choose it because it is good but still)
- guntherhermann 3y ago
  I think it's popular because it's easy / free to set up and the friction is very low for new user, not because it's actually any good. I think it's actually horrendous for things you want to use forums for. I don't remember using IRC in lieu of forums (did we?), why do we use Discord for the same?
  - philip1209 3y ago
    Those insights are things I've tried to bake into Booklet - for instance, a really generous free plan and no per-user pricing. Existing community platforms (like Circle) are not set up for bottoms-up adoption, so it ends up feeling like gross enterprise software.
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    They choose it because its engaging. Discord is really good at sucking you into conversation and capturing your attention/time. Its way better than IRC ever was. But that doesn't mean its a good format for information, issue threads, work discussion and such.
    - busymom0 3y ago
      What in the UI or UX of discords has this effect?
      - esafak 3y ago
        Presence indicators, activity indicators, emoji feedback, and video chat, to name a few. Features that provide instant gratification.
    - JuanPosadas 3y ago
      I guess endless frustration and wandering is engagement.
- Freedom2 3y ago
  If Discord hijacked all the communities, wouldn't elixirforum not exist? Seems like a contradiction...
srsqsonyl 3y ago
This take feels like twee projection of anecdata. There are thousands of forums that require sign up just to read posts. Always has been.
hinkley 3y ago
I would give my left arm to stop having to check work email for the five people who still use it. Something in the middle sounds lovely.
- philip1209 3y ago
  Do you use Slack? My impression after today's launch is that I need to deliver Booklet's daily summary over Slack, not just email. Would that work better for you?
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    That could work nicely, yes.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    We use teams but slack is common enough. It’s really a social issue more than a technical one. How to get people to stop playing, “guess which platform I sent you an urgent message on, which nobody else you work with uses to contact you, ever?” Threading and history I think are necessary for the email thread set.
    - philip1209 3y ago
      Yes, I agree. Email got ruined by external users - scams, spam, and marketing. Chat is nice for companies because everybody inside is trusted. The irony is not lost on me that Booklet is almost rebuilding email, but for internal-only usage. I think about this a lot.
neilv 3y ago
> I would give my left arm to be using internet forums again. Online communities adopting Discord and Slack was such a terrible move in hindsight. Was also a terrible move in foresight. :)
sakopov 3y ago
Absolutely. We've made a full circle and I'm very happy that products like this are becoming a thing again.
mrd3v0 3y ago
It's not like chat hasn't existed for decades, it definitely has been in foresight for many. I think what attracted people to these platforms is the ease of use and plug n play nature of centralised software compared to forums that have much less intuitive UX and have only recently adopted federation making the very vast majority of them lacking in interoperability.
- philip1209 3y ago
  Absolutely. Two big drivers were: 1. People are impatient, and chat makes everything urgent 2. Chat make posting easy, so authors post more and with less intentionality I wrote a long post about this on our blog as I announced Booklet: https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/ https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/
AhmadIbrahim 3y ago
I believe we need to standarize forums api so we can build readers as well to see all the forums you are subscribed to in one place instead of jumping between websites
- ss2f 3y ago
  If you like the old school bulletinBoards + standardized protocol, then you may like LemmyBB. An homage to the classic forums with the reach of activitypub protocol: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB
- philip1209 3y ago
  IMO, email and RSS are the universal APIs of the internet. Booklet already supports email, and I'm considering adding private RSS feeds.
philomath_mn 3y ago
I am dumbfounded by the number of people signing up for these chat-based communities. Do people scroll through the threads? Are they watching notifications come through? Chat works great for a small group of friends, I don't think it is a good fit for a community
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  Some telegram groups developed as some sort of community. "Do people scroll through the threads?" Most won't, so the same things and questions get discussed again and again. If the mod is engaged he will create sticky notes, but people also often ignore those. So - yeah, I agree. Not a good fit for a community. They sort of upgrade it though regulary, and now you can have subgroups in groups that can work as forum threads, but I experience it not as a good UX and I regulary delete telegram as it is really hard filtering out useful comments from noise.
a1o 3y ago
I hate that forums changed from Simple Machine Forums or PHPBB to Discourse, the ui in Discourse is terrible and I find it unfriendly for community feeling - it doesn't invite customization, discourse design looks like an airport bathroom.
- davidcollantes 3y ago
  I disagree. I find Discourse superb. From the user’s perspective it is simple, clean, fast, with amazing search, etc. It can be customised, but most people using it do it for practical reasons, and worry little about customisations.
  - sznio 3y ago
    >fast Discourse is definitely not fast. Whenever Google sends me to a discourse page I just end up giving up on waiting for it after staring for over 8 seconds at a blank page.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    I .. guess there are different standards or point of views what counts as clean and fast? I experience it as very slow and bloated, even though it somewhat improved.
    - comex 3y ago
      I experience it as fast compared to traditional, pre-SPA-era web forums; the use of JavaScript speeds up a lot of interactions that would otherwise require a full page load. The live Markdown preview is also a heck of a lot better than having to click “preview” and wait for a page load to see your BBCode rendered. Having live updates for new posts/edits without having to refresh contributes to a snappy feeling. And I think the visual theming is nice and clean. Still, compared to a good email client, it’s not so fast. Which is why I personally read Discourse forums mainly via email, only visiting the actual site for long threads or when I want to reply. It’s not perfect, since Discourse allows editing posts but doesn’t notify email users of edits. But it’s fine. I actually like it better than real mailing lists, because I prefer Discourse’s composing interface.

I would give my left arm to be using internet forums again. Online communities adopting Discord and Slack was such a terrible move in hindsight. Definitely rooting for this to take off.

philip1209 3y ago

Thank you - try it out and let me know what you think. Based on the launch feedback so far today, I think I need to build a Slack integration - primarily as a separate channel to deliver the daily newsletter. It seems like lots of people don't even open their work email anymore, so the chat + forum need to work together. I wrote more about why chat fails for work communication in my launch post here - summarized as "our workplace communication looks like the floor of a 1980s stock exchange, not a place for writing code." https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/ https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/

qingcharles 3y ago
Be careful with users hounding you for features, especially ones like you specify. Think of HN here. How many feature requests have they implemented over the last 10 years?
- philip1209 3y ago
  That's a great point, and I'm conscious of it. I try to take a first-principles approach to building. For instance, a few people have requested "pinned posts." I personally don't want the same post stuck at the top of my screen forever, and upon digging in deeper I find that people really want a "Welcome" post that all new users see and can access. So, I'm exploring some ways of accomplishing that without pinning - such as a dismissible post for new members.

victorbjorklund 3y ago

Agreed. Im so thankful for the few remaining good forums like elixirforum.com etc. So sad that discord really hijacked all of the communities (of course i understand people choose it because it is good but still)

guntherhermann 3y ago
I think it's popular because it's easy / free to set up and the friction is very low for new user, not because it's actually any good. I think it's actually horrendous for things you want to use forums for. I don't remember using IRC in lieu of forums (did we?), why do we use Discord for the same?
- philip1209 3y ago
  Those insights are things I've tried to bake into Booklet - for instance, a really generous free plan and no per-user pricing. Existing community platforms (like Circle) are not set up for bottoms-up adoption, so it ends up feeling like gross enterprise software.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  They choose it because its engaging. Discord is really good at sucking you into conversation and capturing your attention/time. Its way better than IRC ever was. But that doesn't mean its a good format for information, issue threads, work discussion and such.
  - busymom0 3y ago
    What in the UI or UX of discords has this effect?
    - esafak 3y ago
      Presence indicators, activity indicators, emoji feedback, and video chat, to name a few. Features that provide instant gratification.
  - JuanPosadas 3y ago
    I guess endless frustration and wandering is engagement.
Freedom2 3y ago
If Discord hijacked all the communities, wouldn't elixirforum not exist? Seems like a contradiction...

srsqsonyl 3y ago

This take feels like twee projection of anecdata. There are thousands of forums that require sign up just to read posts. Always has been.

hinkley 3y ago

I would give my left arm to stop having to check work email for the five people who still use it. Something in the middle sounds lovely.

philip1209 3y ago
Do you use Slack? My impression after today's launch is that I need to deliver Booklet's daily summary over Slack, not just email. Would that work better for you?
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  That could work nicely, yes.
- hinkley 3y ago
  We use teams but slack is common enough. It’s really a social issue more than a technical one. How to get people to stop playing, “guess which platform I sent you an urgent message on, which nobody else you work with uses to contact you, ever?” Threading and history I think are necessary for the email thread set.
  - philip1209 3y ago
    Yes, I agree. Email got ruined by external users - scams, spam, and marketing. Chat is nice for companies because everybody inside is trusted. The irony is not lost on me that Booklet is almost rebuilding email, but for internal-only usage. I think about this a lot.

neilv 3y ago

> I would give my left arm to be using internet forums again. Online communities adopting Discord and Slack was such a terrible move in hindsight. Was also a terrible move in foresight. :)

sakopov 3y ago

Absolutely. We've made a full circle and I'm very happy that products like this are becoming a thing again.

mrd3v0 3y ago

It's not like chat hasn't existed for decades, it definitely has been in foresight for many. I think what attracted people to these platforms is the ease of use and plug n play nature of centralised software compared to forums that have much less intuitive UX and have only recently adopted federation making the very vast majority of them lacking in interoperability.

philip1209 3y ago
Absolutely. Two big drivers were: 1. People are impatient, and chat makes everything urgent 2. Chat make posting easy, so authors post more and with less intentionality I wrote a long post about this on our blog as I announced Booklet: https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/ https://www.contraption.co/news/launching-booklet/

AhmadIbrahim 3y ago

I believe we need to standarize forums api so we can build readers as well to see all the forums you are subscribed to in one place instead of jumping between websites

ss2f 3y ago
If you like the old school bulletinBoards + standardized protocol, then you may like LemmyBB. An homage to the classic forums with the reach of activitypub protocol: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB
philip1209 3y ago
IMO, email and RSS are the universal APIs of the internet. Booklet already supports email, and I'm considering adding private RSS feeds.

philomath_mn 3y ago

I am dumbfounded by the number of people signing up for these chat-based communities. Do people scroll through the threads? Are they watching notifications come through? Chat works great for a small group of friends, I don't think it is a good fit for a community

hutzlibu 3y ago
Some telegram groups developed as some sort of community. "Do people scroll through the threads?" Most won't, so the same things and questions get discussed again and again. If the mod is engaged he will create sticky notes, but people also often ignore those. So - yeah, I agree. Not a good fit for a community. They sort of upgrade it though regulary, and now you can have subgroups in groups that can work as forum threads, but I experience it not as a good UX and I regulary delete telegram as it is really hard filtering out useful comments from noise.

a1o 3y ago

I hate that forums changed from Simple Machine Forums or PHPBB to Discourse, the ui in Discourse is terrible and I find it unfriendly for community feeling - it doesn't invite customization, discourse design looks like an airport bathroom.

davidcollantes 3y ago
I disagree. I find Discourse superb. From the user’s perspective it is simple, clean, fast, with amazing search, etc. It can be customised, but most people using it do it for practical reasons, and worry little about customisations.
- sznio 3y ago
  >fast Discourse is definitely not fast. Whenever Google sends me to a discourse page I just end up giving up on waiting for it after staring for over 8 seconds at a blank page.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  I .. guess there are different standards or point of views what counts as clean and fast? I experience it as very slow and bloated, even though it somewhat improved.
  - comex 3y ago
    I experience it as fast compared to traditional, pre-SPA-era web forums; the use of JavaScript speeds up a lot of interactions that would otherwise require a full page load. The live Markdown preview is also a heck of a lot better than having to click “preview” and wait for a page load to see your BBCode rendered. Having live updates for new posts/edits without having to refresh contributes to a snappy feeling. And I think the visual theming is nice and clean. Still, compared to a good email client, it’s not so fast. Which is why I personally read Discourse forums mainly via email, only visiting the actual site for long threads or when I want to reply. It’s not perfect, since Discourse allows editing posts but doesn’t notify email users of edits. But it’s fine. I actually like it better than real mailing lists, because I prefer Discourse’s composing interface.