8 ms·

I keep hearing about Scuttlebutt for a long time but haven't seen anyone actually using it? Why? edit: hm, the recommended application on the website itself is

• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• earthwalker99 3y ago
  >I keep hearing about Scuttlebutt for a long time but haven't seen anyone actually using it? Why? It's called Scuttlebutt, meaning it can never be remotely popular enough to function as a worthwhile social network.
  • todd3834 3y ago
    I don’t think this should be downvoted. It’s a valid point and potential lesson for anyone thinking about reviving or doing something similar. While this might not be the only issue I wouldn’t doubt that the name might prevent a larger audience.
    • losvedir 3y ago
      Why? I think it's a fine name, better than most, because it's a normal English word that says exactly what it does / what it's for. You're not just saying that because the word happens to end in "butt" are you? Or am I missing something?
      • filoleg 3y ago
        > I think it's a fine name, better than most, because it's a normal English word that says exactly what it does / what it's for Just because the name says exactly what the product does and what it's for, that doesn't automatically mean it is good. In fact, imo it is bad in a lot of cases. Do you think Instagram would have gotten as popular if it was named FlexGallery, or if Nextdoor was named SpreadRumorsActVaguelyRacistForum, or if Twitter/X was named PopularityContestShortMessagesAndBadNewsSourceSpaceWithSomePorn? I personally would say "no" to all of those, and it isn't just because the names get unnecessarily long and ugly. McDonalds would never rename itself to Cheap Passable Fast Food Restaurant.
        • simonw 3y ago
          Some things really can buck the trend - ChatGPT is a _terrible_ name but provided so much obvious utility that it managed to reach a large consumer market despite that.
          • ziddoap 3y ago
            ChatGPT and Scuttlebutt are both bad names, sure, but in completely distinct ways.
        • rzzzt 3y ago
          FlexGallery could work... the rest are Java class names.
          • filoleg 3y ago
            Actually agreed about FlexGallery, now that I am thinking about it. As for the rest, they just miss [...]Factory and [...]Controller prefixes, and then they truly would become typical Java classes.
      • nine_k 3y ago
        A name that makes many of your friends smile ironically is not a name that would induce a network effect, except maybe in marginal communities ("bitards"). A name must not be even remotely silly, else it will be laughed out of the (already crowded) room.
      • jrm4 3y ago
        "Normal English Word" feels like a stretch. At least in the US, pretty obscure and kind of archaic sounding?
      • ziddoap 3y ago
        >it's a normal English word I mean, it's an English word, for sure. I have never once in my many years heard someone actually say it seriously. Maybe a handful of times when someone was purposefully trying to be quirky.
        • kstrauser 3y ago
          Weird. Maybe it's a regional thing. I've only heard it through the midwest and the west coast. Also, all the freaking time when I was in the US Navy.
          • samatman 3y ago
            The guy who started the project is a sailor, so that tracks.
      • oli-g 3y ago
        > You're not just saying that because the word happens to end in "butt" are you? They're saying precisely that and they're 100% right, and it seems you're missing a lot of things. It's a social network. Its only value is in it having people using it and coming back. Just try and imagine any person in your IRL circles (who's not on HN) actually using a social network with butt in its name. I seriously can't believe you see no issue there whatsoever. A teenager. A young artist. A YouTuber. "Follow me on TikTok, Instagram, Scuttlebutt and Poopypants". I dare you to find a creator willing to say these words. Or if you just hang out with smart, like-minded tech-savvy middle-ages people who see past these things, then great, we have a new "social network" for smart, like-minded tech-savvy middle-aged people.
        • jdougan 3y ago
          > we have a new "social network" for smart, like-minded tech-savvy middle-aged people. Sounds great to me. The hard part is keeping the scammers away. If a ridiculous name can do that, I'm up for it.
        • losvedir 3y ago
          I mean, I wouldn't expect problems if the thing were called "Buttercup" would you? Or what about "Button"? "Saturday" (which has "turd" in it)? Are there problems with a Harpoon ("poon") IPA? Clearly the presence of a sequence of four silly letters isn't in and of itself disqualifying. Native speakers often won't even register the juvenile bit inside it. My only surprise here is that "scuttlebutt" doesn't work that way for other native speakers. It must be just my dialect or circles then, because it's an ordinary word for me which subsumes the "butt" within it (like I'm certain "button" does for you). But I guess it's not universally like that and the word is odd or rare enough that it doesn't do the same for others.
          • corobo 3y ago
            The butt is more noticeable because it's at the end of the word as a standalone syllable. With your examples the butt sounds are mixed in so they don't stand out as much.
        • 3y ago
  • jrm4 3y ago
    Upvoting because I'm also the guy who understands that, similarly, GIMP will never be big as it should be.
    • ziddoap 3y ago
      I have gotten some very strange looks from friends and coworkers when I have mentioned GIMP in passing.
    • oli-g 3y ago
      I wanted to hate on it, but I just downloaded the latest version and I see that after like 20 years, they finally realized that each tool window doesn't have to be a separate application. Good for them, for once I might be able to try actually try it.
      • BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
        I think single-window mode came as part of version 2.8, just shy of 12 years ago.
        • smrq 3y ago
          I guess the lesson here is that PR damage can be permanent.
    • RankingMember 3y ago
      Still waiting on non-destructive editing last I checked, which always seemed to be touted as "right around the corner" as much as a decade ago.
    • thatwasunusual 3y ago
      > GIMP will never be big as it should be. But having something "photoshopped" is a bad thing. Interesting. :)
    • rglullis 3y ago
      Yeah, the guy who renamed it to "Glimpse" is now worldwide famous for solving the only problem with the project. Designers are dropping Adobe Photoshop in droves and giving the project the complete recognition it rightfully deserved.
  • rglullis 3y ago
    Rumor has it, Microsoft balked away from a billion dollar acquisition of this source control and project management tool because they didn't want to be associated with a collaboration portal for gits.
    • echelon 3y ago
      If you're good enough that your name doesn't hold you back, good for you. As it stands, I turn my nose at stuff like Cockroach DB.
      • rglullis 3y ago
        I get not liking a name, but to pass judgement on the quality of a product/project based on its name alone seems like a complete midwit thing to do.
        • oli-g 3y ago
          When it's a DB layer, sure. When it's a social network? "Hey guys, have you seen Dave's new post on Poopypants?"
          • rglullis 3y ago
            Again, that's a total midwit dismissal. Scuttlebutt has a context and a meaning behind it. People might hear it without knowing the context, think "that it's a weird name, why is it so?", and then judge whether they like it or not. But to just hear the name and claim that it is inappropriate/bad/not-to-be-used because it reminds you of something that has nothing to do with the original context is ridiculous.
            • RankingMember 3y ago
              No offense, but you're repeatedly using the term "midwit", which demonstrates that you have a higher-than-average tolerance/liking for non-layman vocabulary, and so might not be the best judge of what the average person is going to accept. Most people are not going to bother looking up the etymology of a word before dismissing a product named using it. Personally, I'm not a fan of the name because it's a word that, like "jitterbug", I associate with old people, because the only people I've known to use it in conversation are over 65. Orgs spend millions on naming/branding because they know a name that doesn't hit right to the ear is going to be at a disadvantage. The vast majority of folks aren't going to bother giving your product a second thought if it doesn't appeal to them or has a negative connotation in their head right off the bat, regardless of the name's deeper relevance or origin.
  • serial_dev 3y ago
    2024 will be the year of Mastodong.
• evbogue 3y ago
  Oh Scuttlebot. Such a great idea, and for a time it actually worked. I haven't been actively developing with the codebase for years, but I believe the current status of the project is that there were too many code rewrites that simply broke things that previously worked at one point or another. I tell people sometimes that I'd put together a team to do a retro Scuttlebot revival with a Patchwork-style app and of course git-ssb! If you're interested in this kind of project email or call me. Contacts are in my bio. I'm mostly looking for devs who want to dive into an old Node.js codebase, who want to recapture the magic of the original protocol, and then upgrade all of the modules to modern standards. Maybe Deno or Bun even.
  • black_puppydog 3y ago
    Not sure if you're aware of this but mycognocist has continued a rust implementation and it's really getting there in terms of "what one would need for a patchwork style application" https://github.com/mycognosist/solar https://github.com/mycognosist/solar I've also been toying with this, exactly for that kind of unapologetically desktop-only "classic" client. Suffice to say I'm also a bit butt(hehe)hurt about how the desktop client story worked out after manyverse decided dump the original protocol some years into the effort.
• Hamuko 3y ago
  Why? Well, for one thing, it's an append-only log, which I would argue is a terrible choice for a social network.
  • r3trohack3r 3y ago
    Append-only logs are fine as long as they only contain pointers to content. You can store 10k blocks in the size of a JPG image. And, when trees grow large, with stale data that has been forgotten by the network, you can do garbage collection/compaction by shaking out the dead references and sharing a new tree. Its just SSB never reached this point.
• woah 3y ago
  Social networks are strongly dependent on network effects. For a time SSB was actually used by some of my friends, but it required a desktop app, had a confusing onboarding process, IIRC had some rough edges around syncing content, and was just not smooth enough to compete against highly funded centralized companies in the cuthroat social networking space.
• nightpool 3y ago
  Scuttlebutt had the Bitcoin like problem of requiring everybody to have a local copy of the entire database, with a confusing / glitchy "syncing" process to download the latest posts. I tried to use it for a few days on my Android, but it never showed any new posts and the syncing process took like 30 seconds every time I opened the app.
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
    A true Satoshi whitepaper Bitcoin would include everyone having a local copy of the database as well as peer-to-peer connections. No necessary middlemen. Is this correct.
    • pooper 3y ago
      A Bitcoin of my dreams would have close to zero if not zero transactions cost with everyone on the network running at least full nodes fully synchronized with the main network. The fact that it costs money to send some Bitcoin from one wallet to another is sad.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
      It requires a third party to send some Bitcoin from one wallet to another. Is this correct. Was this contemplated by the Satoshi paper.
  • r3trohack3r 3y ago
    This isn't entirely true. Scuttelbutt had some design and scaling issues. But there wasn't a global database. Each user gets their own blockchain. Its a network of tiny blockchains where the consensus model was the signature from the private key and the chain of hashes.
    • p4bl0 3y ago
• Solvency 3y ago
  Everyone here is focused on the tech and I'm here wondering how I'm supposed to convince my friends and family to join me on something called Scuttlebutt.
  • oli-g 3y ago
    Someone at last, thank you!!
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    The name was the part I liked best! "Scuttlebutt" is a naval term for a water keg, and it became slang for conversation around the watering hole. In other words, it was gossip around the water cooler from before we had water coolers.
    • Solvency 3y ago
      ...and this is why 99% of niche developer attempts don't flourish into the next big social network. Might as well call it "Codswallop", which is also a valid historical slang that is equally completely ridiculous for mass appeal.
      • megous 3y ago
        Yeah, yahoo and google is very meaningful on the other hand.
        • dewey 3y ago
          They are short, memorable and don’t have “butt” in the name.
          • kstrauser 3y ago
            I currently have halibut baking in the oven with garlic butter, and butternut squash soup. I love a good dumb butt joke, but not everything with the substring butt in it is automatically funny or reminiscent of butts.
• tazjin 3y ago
  It had a major technical flaw in that it depends on some weird, Javascript-only JSON-serialisation bugs (iirc), and these basically had to be reimplemented in other languages so nobody really ended up writing any other clients for it.