3 ms·

I have a lot of sympathy with this. I use some topic specific old school web forums and they feel better all round than the discord channels/forums. I suspect

by ggm 4mo ago

I have a lot of sympathy with this. I use some topic specific old school web forums and they feel better all round than the discord channels/forums. I suspect it's an age/attitude thing. The implicit "My forum my rules" autocracy shows its upsides on a well curated space: trolling and spam dealt with rapidly.

naturalmovement 4mo ago
It notably lacked up/downvoting which is a cancer foisted upon open discussion. Discussions ran chronologically as they would in real life. Imagine having a remote control you could point at people to increase and decrease their speaking volume. That's what voting is.
- ggm 4mo ago
  Remote mute control was contentious in early MBone apps. Lots of good discussion about why they were useful and when. Cisco webex went out the door with one and it's wonderfully "undemocratic" and equally useful. Just stop. Done. Volume, hadn't thought about it like that.
- notabotiswear 4mo ago
  The irony in me pressing the upvote button on this post…
  - socalgal2 4mo ago
    Yea, I think HN should remove the them. Or at least not display them.
    - coldpie 4mo ago
      Years ago, HN used to actually display the score on each comment, like Reddit does. I'm glad they removed it.
  - ErroneousBosh 4mo ago
    > The irony in me pressing the upvote button on this post… this ;-)
- paytonjjones 4mo ago
  That sounds horribly toxic and corrosive for a dinner party. It sounds pretty useful for when you're chatting while waiting for the bus and there's someone on drugs there screaming obscenities. Unfortunately the Internet is both.
  - coldpie 4mo ago
    It is the website owner's decision to allow people on drugs screaming obscenities on their platform. They are allowed to kick those people out, and you're allowed to leave if you don't like the people in that community. Good moderation is a requirement for healthy communities.
- devilbunny 4mo ago
  One thing that Slashdot moderation got right is that you can’t be more than +5 or less than -1. Groupthink is much less forceful with those limitations.
- jusssi 4mo ago
  There's an important distinction: raising / lowering the volume of someone in general, or just a particular thing they just said. The good old "open discussion" at forums, as I remember it, used to manifest verbal lynch mobs, that would often target specific people instead of what they said.
- Little_Kitty 4mo ago
  A problem on forums was people quoting large comments, adding their response of "this" and then an additional signature. Digg and later Reddit moving that junk out of sight and gradually educating people not to do so was a big win.
DocTomoe 4mo ago
The generation before that (yours truly) still remembers the usenet glory days, and the liberal use of the kill file [1]. [1] https://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/kill-file.html https://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/kill-file.html
- Terr_ 4mo ago
  While I recognize the name of the domain, I'm getting some weird TLS cert warnings.
  - naturalmovement 4mo ago
    It's a cleartext http site. No TLS. The link is bad.
    - mr_mitm 4mo ago
      It does offer TLS. The certificate just doesn't contain `www.catb.org` in its SAN. (But dozens of other host names.)
- JamesTRexx 4mo ago
  Browser warning: www.catb.org uses an invalid security certificate.
- ggm 4mo ago
  I think I was on more than I added. I kept seeing these posts which said "plonk" and then.. nothing.
- lyu07282 4mo ago
  it was just a few years before my time, I sometimes read through old threads on usenet it feels like internet archeology. If you still remember it, what do you think about how it compares with today's discussion culture? Killfiles are interesting, but nowadays it seems almost impossible to block everyone crazy on X/Twitter, perhaps more feasible back then a few months ago for example from my usenet archeology: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160709
CM30 4mo ago
I've sometimes suspected it's an investment thing. A Discord server or subreddit is free, can be setup or abandoned at any time, and (on Reddit) can be taken over by the site or another team whenever you move on. So, there's a not much of a reason to care how badly you're running the place. You didn't put any time or effort into its setup, and you're not losing money if the community dies out. Meanwhile a standalone forum costs money to host, and it feels bad to pay $X per month for a ghost town. So, there's at least some level of interest in keeping it running smoothly and fixing issues, since otherwise you're wasting your time and money. Alternatively, having to pay might just mean the average forum owner is an adult with real world experience rather than a kid or teen or internet shut in that's running the community for laugh/sees it as a quick way to get power over people.

by ggm 4mo ago

naturalmovement 4mo ago

It notably lacked up/downvoting which is a cancer foisted upon open discussion. Discussions ran chronologically as they would in real life. Imagine having a remote control you could point at people to increase and decrease their speaking volume. That's what voting is.

ggm 4mo ago
Remote mute control was contentious in early MBone apps. Lots of good discussion about why they were useful and when. Cisco webex went out the door with one and it's wonderfully "undemocratic" and equally useful. Just stop. Done. Volume, hadn't thought about it like that.
notabotiswear 4mo ago
The irony in me pressing the upvote button on this post…
- socalgal2 4mo ago
  Yea, I think HN should remove the them. Or at least not display them.
  - coldpie 4mo ago
    Years ago, HN used to actually display the score on each comment, like Reddit does. I'm glad they removed it.
- ErroneousBosh 4mo ago
  > The irony in me pressing the upvote button on this post… this ;-)
paytonjjones 4mo ago
That sounds horribly toxic and corrosive for a dinner party. It sounds pretty useful for when you're chatting while waiting for the bus and there's someone on drugs there screaming obscenities. Unfortunately the Internet is both.
- coldpie 4mo ago
  It is the website owner's decision to allow people on drugs screaming obscenities on their platform. They are allowed to kick those people out, and you're allowed to leave if you don't like the people in that community. Good moderation is a requirement for healthy communities.
devilbunny 4mo ago
One thing that Slashdot moderation got right is that you can’t be more than +5 or less than -1. Groupthink is much less forceful with those limitations.
jusssi 4mo ago
There's an important distinction: raising / lowering the volume of someone in general, or just a particular thing they just said. The good old "open discussion" at forums, as I remember it, used to manifest verbal lynch mobs, that would often target specific people instead of what they said.
Little_Kitty 4mo ago
A problem on forums was people quoting large comments, adding their response of "this" and then an additional signature. Digg and later Reddit moving that junk out of sight and gradually educating people not to do so was a big win.

DocTomoe 4mo ago

The generation before that (yours truly) still remembers the usenet glory days, and the liberal use of the kill file [1]. [1] https://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/kill-file.html https://www.catb.org/jargon/html/K/kill-file.html

Terr_ 4mo ago
While I recognize the name of the domain, I'm getting some weird TLS cert warnings.
- naturalmovement 4mo ago
  It's a cleartext http site. No TLS. The link is bad.
  - mr_mitm 4mo ago
    It does offer TLS. The certificate just doesn't contain `www.catb.org` in its SAN. (But dozens of other host names.)
JamesTRexx 4mo ago
Browser warning: www.catb.org uses an invalid security certificate.
ggm 4mo ago
I think I was on more than I added. I kept seeing these posts which said "plonk" and then.. nothing.
lyu07282 4mo ago
it was just a few years before my time, I sometimes read through old threads on usenet it feels like internet archeology. If you still remember it, what do you think about how it compares with today's discussion culture? Killfiles are interesting, but nowadays it seems almost impossible to block everyone crazy on X/Twitter, perhaps more feasible back then a few months ago for example from my usenet archeology: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160709

CM30 4mo ago

I've sometimes suspected it's an investment thing. A Discord server or subreddit is free, can be setup or abandoned at any time, and (on Reddit) can be taken over by the site or another team whenever you move on. So, there's a not much of a reason to care how badly you're running the place. You didn't put any time or effort into its setup, and you're not losing money if the community dies out. Meanwhile a standalone forum costs money to host, and it feels bad to pay $X per month for a ghost town. So, there's at least some level of interest in keeping it running smoothly and fixing issues, since otherwise you're wasting your time and money. Alternatively, having to pay might just mean the average forum owner is an adult with real world experience rather than a kid or teen or internet shut in that's running the community for laugh/sees it as a quick way to get power over people.