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Back in jr high school we had halo modding forums that were hosted on free hosts until we had someone with money to pay for a server, until that ran out and we

Back in jr high school we had halo modding forums that were hosted on free hosts until we had someone with money to pay for a server, until that ran out and we moved again. Some of those communities might go on and last a while and accumulate knowledge. Ah maybe not, sounds like a path the gamergate stuff. But the concept certainly feels nostalgic. And besides now I have a job and a small amount of extra cash to pay for a small community website. Would be nice to have federated reddits instead of reddit.

DoItToMe81 3y ago
What? What does Gamergate have to do with any of that? That's absolutely deranged and obsessed.
- tiptup300 3y ago
  There's some pattern of creating those sorts of environments. Maybe it's the opposite, a community like reddit if You're banned or maybe shamed or even down voted for an ignorant take, not even a bad faith argument, maybe that user stays on Reddit but joins a different subreddit that new subreddit may be more likely to indulge in that viewpoint, maybe even sarcastically. While on small websites I think a user in that case might just be dissuaded from engaging in the community outright. I don't believe gamergate to be a special thing, just oxygen, fuel, and a spark.
Nextgrid 3y ago
The reason forums lost out to Reddit and centralized social media is because the latter is more convenient. Turns out having to register an account on every single forum and have to prove your worth every time is less convenient that having a single account and a proof of trustworthiness (as in if you haven’t spammed/misbehaved elsewhere, chances are you won’t misbehave here either) following you around.
- naravara 3y ago
  Doesn’t Federation solve exactly that problem? Ignoring all the publication of content bits, I always felt like what the internet really needed to improve portability of accounts and data was just a federated user authentication standard.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    It does until the ‘Federation’ splits into multiple competing blocs that auto-blocklist each other… Which typically happens within a few months.
- celdon25 3y ago
  I'd say it's more of a failure of certain search engines, among other things. Personally I've found reddit karma to be correlated with the obnoxiousness of the user, not the inverse. There's plenty out there who feel the same. Even with that point aside, what is there to prove? I don't understand the assertion. Wrongthink will get you censored on Reddit faster than anywhere else regardless of how much karma you had. Even good posts on Reddit get shuffled past the first pages after a few days. There's too much negative incentive to put effort into content when it can get censored, downvoted, or buried. Sure, you might potentially reach more users in the right circumstances, but many of those users are addicted to notifications and doomscrolling, not enthusiasts of the subject matter. Plenty of that here on HN as well (more on the side of trend-chasing, manufactured two-minute hate about climate or national news, while rarely challenging the status quo) but it's at least tolerable, and I know the moderation is fair here. Forums haven't "lost out" when they can still serve to bring people together who have, or want to read unpopular opinions. I could go on about use cases. If there were none, there would be no forums. The takeaway here is that Reddit can be and is considered by a decent proportion to be a dystopian failure, not a "convenience". A black hole of siphoned search traffic that regurgitates a watered down and sanitized imitation of something resembling a community.
  - celdon25 3y ago
    Here's an example just from today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuAOYIjieQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuAOYIjieQ

DoItToMe81 3y ago

What? What does Gamergate have to do with any of that? That's absolutely deranged and obsessed.

tiptup300 3y ago
There's some pattern of creating those sorts of environments. Maybe it's the opposite, a community like reddit if You're banned or maybe shamed or even down voted for an ignorant take, not even a bad faith argument, maybe that user stays on Reddit but joins a different subreddit that new subreddit may be more likely to indulge in that viewpoint, maybe even sarcastically. While on small websites I think a user in that case might just be dissuaded from engaging in the community outright. I don't believe gamergate to be a special thing, just oxygen, fuel, and a spark.

Nextgrid 3y ago

The reason forums lost out to Reddit and centralized social media is because the latter is more convenient. Turns out having to register an account on every single forum and have to prove your worth every time is less convenient that having a single account and a proof of trustworthiness (as in if you haven’t spammed/misbehaved elsewhere, chances are you won’t misbehave here either) following you around.

naravara 3y ago
Doesn’t Federation solve exactly that problem? Ignoring all the publication of content bits, I always felt like what the internet really needed to improve portability of accounts and data was just a federated user authentication standard.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  It does until the ‘Federation’ splits into multiple competing blocs that auto-blocklist each other… Which typically happens within a few months.
celdon25 3y ago
I'd say it's more of a failure of certain search engines, among other things. Personally I've found reddit karma to be correlated with the obnoxiousness of the user, not the inverse. There's plenty out there who feel the same. Even with that point aside, what is there to prove? I don't understand the assertion. Wrongthink will get you censored on Reddit faster than anywhere else regardless of how much karma you had. Even good posts on Reddit get shuffled past the first pages after a few days. There's too much negative incentive to put effort into content when it can get censored, downvoted, or buried. Sure, you might potentially reach more users in the right circumstances, but many of those users are addicted to notifications and doomscrolling, not enthusiasts of the subject matter. Plenty of that here on HN as well (more on the side of trend-chasing, manufactured two-minute hate about climate or national news, while rarely challenging the status quo) but it's at least tolerable, and I know the moderation is fair here. Forums haven't "lost out" when they can still serve to bring people together who have, or want to read unpopular opinions. I could go on about use cases. If there were none, there would be no forums. The takeaway here is that Reddit can be and is considered by a decent proportion to be a dystopian failure, not a "convenience". A black hole of siphoned search traffic that regurgitates a watered down and sanitized imitation of something resembling a community.
- celdon25 3y ago
  Here's an example just from today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuAOYIjieQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuAOYIjieQ