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Signatures? One line is still to much for me, all forums need the option to turn off displaying signatures. Real names? Hmm. That kills basically all but talki

Signatures? One line is still to much for me, all forums need the option to turn off displaying signatures. Real names? Hmm. That kills basically all but talking about pets or whatever. No forums for whistleblowers, abuse victims, with alternate sexuality and/or religion and the problems arising thereof in certain areas of the world, no place for really nutty art. It's also trivial to make a fake facebook profile I'm sure, so in the end it might offer a false sense of security more than any actual security. The "flamewar control" stuff.. Yup, definately too nosy to me. Wouldn't know the difference between flaming and a burst of creativity and all around merryness, either. Have you ever been member of a really wild forum, I wonder? Why seek technical solutions to social problems? And then comes "tagging". Just to increase user engagement, because that's useful for the site owner, not because it's useful for the users :/ I don't mean to be negative though; built it, it's bound to be useful for someone, just not me. If anything, it would make for a neat "facebook-like" forum (facebook, last time I checked, was completely broken for complex discussions, and the forum apps are ugly and slow). All the complaints I have about this forum I would also have about facebook, so they shouldn't be a negative to "that crowd". I'm simply not the target market, but I am a forum user since I'm a web surfer, and I do care about them a lot, so I have to ramble. A next generation forum of my taste would have complete moderator action transpareny and accountability. How's that for a radical new idea? Or hey, how about making page views and ad revenue visible to the people providing it? Maybe allow users to tag and organize content like they want it, with a bayesian filter suggesting stuff they might like. My next generation forum would focus LESS on real-time and "current" and "popular", and make all that just one of many factors. It would be not for ants to pass the time, but for ants to build weird little palaces over time, with many twisted passages, and if they so choose, to refactor and straighten out the bits that turn out to be most useful, to build a library; be it of knowledge, fun, friendship or anecdotes. Instead of more tools to use on the users, more tools for the users. And of course, it can't be hosted; gimme the source or I'm not interested in the least.

chaosprophet 14y ago
> Signatures? One line is still to much for me, all forums need the option to turn off displaying signatures. Ofcourse, there will be an option to completely disable all signatures. >Real names? Hmm. That kills basically all but talking about pets or whatever. No forums for whistleblowers, abuse victims, with alternate sexuality and/or religion and the problems arising thereof in certain areas of the world, no place for really nutty art. It's also trivial to make a fake facebook profile I'm sure, so in the end it might offer a false sense of security more than any actual security. The real name is not for any notion of 'security'. It's a psychological thing, to remind users to be civil to each other. >The "flamewar control" stuff.. Yup, definately too nosy to me. Wouldn't know the difference between flaming and a burst of creativity and all around merryness, either. Have you ever been member of a really wild forum, I wonder? Why seek technical solutions to social problems? Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places. >And then comes "tagging". Just to increase user engagement, because that's useful for the site owner, not because it's useful for the users :/ Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often. >And of course, it can't be hosted; gimme the source or I'm not interested in the least. Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS.
- PavlovsCat 14y ago
  The real name is not for any notion of 'security'. It's a psychological thing, to remind users to be civil to each other. Oh, but wouln't flowers also work? Real names also remind some people in some situations that they cannot talk about certain things openly, and it could be argued to make it less civil in that case. Personally, I post under my real name a lot, and real name or handle has nothing to do with how civil I am, at least that's my (biased?) impression. Some of the worst things I said on Facebook actually :P Or on slashdot, where I have been using my real name for years. What is considered civil or not is up to each community; but the fact that you cannot post certain (perfectly legitimate, if not important) things to a public forum under your real name applies to any and all communities. Some communities may not want that stuff, but the others don't even have the option of using this for that reason, I think. Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places. Well okay, it depends on the thresholds I guess. If those are configurable, even better. Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often. Yes, that I totally understand; but doesn't "tagging" someone imply something other than a direct reply? But sure, I guess it could be useful, for example: "I want to travel to X, any suggestions", tagging a few users you remember to have mentioned to have been to X before.. if you used that as a use case, not just "increase user engagement" I would have reacted very differently I think. But maybe also allow users to block certain other users from tagging them if they overdo it. Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS. Well as I said, I only speak for myself... of course there are more people who would like to have a forum than there are people willing to set up a server, so it's not really a criticism of your idea, just one of the reasons why I personally wouldn't be super hot for it. Take all of that in that spirit and good luck, okay?
- yaddayadda 14y ago
  > Signatures? Glad to hear there will be an option to turn off, but it wasn't in your slidedeck so it wasn't an "Ofcourse" [sic] when @PavlovsCat made his comment. > Real names @PavlovsCat highlights several areas where user 'security' trumps psychological civility reminders. Personally, I won't use systems that require real names for this reason alone. If someone wants to use their real name, good for them. But systems that require it aren't for me. > "flameware control" Sounds like some other systems I know that get in the way of actual conversation (e.g., I'm trying to respond to individual posts individually, and manage to do so too quickly). If the controls aren't too aggressive, I can see the benefit, but if they're too aggressive I feel like I'm being punished for being able to touch type, and subsequently avoid those forums. (I haven't hit any such limits in HN, so if they're here, they're a good gauge for not too aggressive.) > "tagging" I happen to be a big fan of tagging. Although some systems do limit to existing tags, which I'm not a big fan of. > hosted versus source As an end user, I use both. When I'm setting up a system, open always gets preference over closed. There are several packages that have hosted service as their primary offering, but if you read through their FAQs they still have their source opened on bitbucket, github, or an accessible self-hosted system. Such dual-offerings provide the ease of hosted, with the myriad of benefits that come from open sourcing the code.

chaosprophet 14y ago

> Signatures? One line is still to much for me, all forums need the option to turn off displaying signatures. Ofcourse, there will be an option to completely disable all signatures. >Real names? Hmm. That kills basically all but talking about pets or whatever. No forums for whistleblowers, abuse victims, with alternate sexuality and/or religion and the problems arising thereof in certain areas of the world, no place for really nutty art. It's also trivial to make a fake facebook profile I'm sure, so in the end it might offer a false sense of security more than any actual security. The real name is not for any notion of 'security'. It's a psychological thing, to remind users to be civil to each other. >The "flamewar control" stuff.. Yup, definately too nosy to me. Wouldn't know the difference between flaming and a burst of creativity and all around merryness, either. Have you ever been member of a really wild forum, I wonder? Why seek technical solutions to social problems? Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places. >And then comes "tagging". Just to increase user engagement, because that's useful for the site owner, not because it's useful for the users :/ Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often. >And of course, it can't be hosted; gimme the source or I'm not interested in the least. Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS.

PavlovsCat 14y ago
The real name is not for any notion of 'security'. It's a psychological thing, to remind users to be civil to each other. Oh, but wouln't flowers also work? Real names also remind some people in some situations that they cannot talk about certain things openly, and it could be argued to make it less civil in that case. Personally, I post under my real name a lot, and real name or handle has nothing to do with how civil I am, at least that's my (biased?) impression. Some of the worst things I said on Facebook actually :P Or on slashdot, where I have been using my real name for years. What is considered civil or not is up to each community; but the fact that you cannot post certain (perfectly legitimate, if not important) things to a public forum under your real name applies to any and all communities. Some communities may not want that stuff, but the others don't even have the option of using this for that reason, I think. Believe it or not this actually exists on our very own HN (and discussions here do get 'wild' once in a while). And if it works for HN I don't see why it shouldn't work in other places. Well okay, it depends on the thresholds I guess. If those are configurable, even better. Actually, this would be very useful to users in conjunction with notifications. There have been many times when I have posted on a particular thread and then forgotten all about it, and so I miss it when somebody responds to me. This has happened annoyingly often. Yes, that I totally understand; but doesn't "tagging" someone imply something other than a direct reply? But sure, I guess it could be useful, for example: "I want to travel to X, any suggestions", tagging a few users you remember to have mentioned to have been to X before.. if you used that as a use case, not just "increase user engagement" I would have reacted very differently I think. But maybe also allow users to block certain other users from tagging them if they overdo it. Why (just curious)? A hosted version is to make it easy for your regular Joe Forum-master. I suspect not many of them would want to learn to manage a VPS. Well as I said, I only speak for myself... of course there are more people who would like to have a forum than there are people willing to set up a server, so it's not really a criticism of your idea, just one of the reasons why I personally wouldn't be super hot for it. Take all of that in that spirit and good luck, okay?
yaddayadda 14y ago
> Signatures? Glad to hear there will be an option to turn off, but it wasn't in your slidedeck so it wasn't an "Ofcourse" [sic] when @PavlovsCat made his comment. > Real names @PavlovsCat highlights several areas where user 'security' trumps psychological civility reminders. Personally, I won't use systems that require real names for this reason alone. If someone wants to use their real name, good for them. But systems that require it aren't for me. > "flameware control" Sounds like some other systems I know that get in the way of actual conversation (e.g., I'm trying to respond to individual posts individually, and manage to do so too quickly). If the controls aren't too aggressive, I can see the benefit, but if they're too aggressive I feel like I'm being punished for being able to touch type, and subsequently avoid those forums. (I haven't hit any such limits in HN, so if they're here, they're a good gauge for not too aggressive.) > "tagging" I happen to be a big fan of tagging. Although some systems do limit to existing tags, which I'm not a big fan of. > hosted versus source As an end user, I use both. When I'm setting up a system, open always gets preference over closed. There are several packages that have hosted service as their primary offering, but if you read through their FAQs they still have their source opened on bitbucket, github, or an accessible self-hosted system. Such dual-offerings provide the ease of hosted, with the myriad of benefits that come from open sourcing the code.