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Thanks for the response. I suppose my concern is simply that chat room conversation around a topic doesn't seem to scale well without some sort of structure for

by md224 12y ago

Thanks for the response. I suppose my concern is simply that chat room conversation around a topic doesn't seem to scale well without some sort of structure for organizing input. What impresses me about Reddit is the scaffold it provides for growing communities. Subreddits organize at the "broad topic" level, with smaller topics of discussion voted on to surface the best ones. Then you have the comment section itself, which is basically the "chat room" of Reddit, but with branching and voting dynamics allowing a million diverging conversations to occur without overwhelming the user. Chat rooms have a place for small communities, but I fear that they simply don't work for larger ones without more internal structure. But maybe you don't intend Chapp to be a tool for discussions at that scale. Regardless, good luck with your project.

karjaluoto 12y ago
Yep—it could get tricky, particularly as volume increases. I also agree that Reddit's approach works quite well—in part by having the starting post be so specific in nature that it directs the conversation, whereas, Chapp discussions (already) tend to wander off track from the channel topic. Frankly, you could be very right about our approach potentially getting jammed-up just due to the lack of structure. We're still not clear on what's going to happen here, and do consider it an experiment. Although Chapp isn't in any way groundbreaking (it's closely informed by many other formats) we see it as something that could perhaps be a bit of a "new twist." Of course, in building something you don't entirely understand, yet, it's hard to say if you're making the right choices. For example, I would have thought Twitter's 140 character limit was an obstacle, but I think it actually worked to their advantage by allowing for faster, easier interaction for those with something to say but not enough discipline to create longer-format content. From what we've seen during our first week, I think we might be on to something. Early users seem to like the simplicity of the approach, and a few are really taking to it. That said, we could be misreading this entirely. If nothing else, though, it's been fun so far, and we're curious about where it goes from here. And thanks for the well wishes!

by md224 12y ago

karjaluoto 12y ago

Yep—it could get tricky, particularly as volume increases. I also agree that Reddit's approach works quite well—in part by having the starting post be so specific in nature that it directs the conversation, whereas, Chapp discussions (already) tend to wander off track from the channel topic. Frankly, you could be very right about our approach potentially getting jammed-up just due to the lack of structure. We're still not clear on what's going to happen here, and do consider it an experiment. Although Chapp isn't in any way groundbreaking (it's closely informed by many other formats) we see it as something that could perhaps be a bit of a "new twist." Of course, in building something you don't entirely understand, yet, it's hard to say if you're making the right choices. For example, I would have thought Twitter's 140 character limit was an obstacle, but I think it actually worked to their advantage by allowing for faster, easier interaction for those with something to say but not enough discipline to create longer-format content. From what we've seen during our first week, I think we might be on to something. Early users seem to like the simplicity of the approach, and a few are really taking to it. That said, we could be misreading this entirely. If nothing else, though, it's been fun so far, and we're curious about where it goes from here. And thanks for the well wishes!