[foolofatom]

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?)

I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, because even if you really disliked each other you had nowhere else to go aside from quitting entirely. Nowadays there are so many options that people don't really commit to communities anymore.

I'm glad this thread was posted. It'll be interesting to read people's thoughts.

[JimboOmega]

I don't know either but I have absolutely had the same experience. Although for me the heyday of IRC was 20 years ago, and even then (in the late 90s) it felt dated and quaint. People at that time were moving on from ICQ to AIM, and IRC was the old, weird place you went to get anime DivX videos in particular.

I do think the maturation of "troll culture" has really devalued a lot of the Internet. Virtually any event or topic has groups around it dedicated to being as loud as they possibly can, and that kind of sucks some of the air out of it. Loudness is way overvalued by the Internet.

I enjoyed going into IRC chats and spamming offensive things when I was 14 (more than 20 years ago), but that phase lasted a few months, if that, for me. It seems to be almost a profession now - my idea of offensive was just repeated curse words and flooding. Trolls these days go all out.

And it's not that I can't ignore them, but it feels the broader world can't, and we have to always fight about what to do about them, and how whatever asshole on twitter said whatever super offensive thing or how somebody doxxed somebody or whatever.

Plus! Wikipedia has gotten old. When I was young I was curious about tons of things but going to the library to look them up was way too much work. Answers at the touch of a button? Links to related content? It was endlessly valuable and interesting but I've kind of exhausted most of the random topics I was interested in. I still spend a lot of time on wikipedia, and I'm still curious about new things, but the backlog isn't what it was then.

It's sort of like 80's music. For a few years in the mid-2000's I kept being shocked how a favorite 80's station would find yet another hit I had never heard but now fell in love with. But the musical content of the decade was indeed finite, and I can't remember the last time I fell in love with a new 80's song (I've moved on to KPop but that's another story).

[arca_vorago]

IRC is still alive and well, and honestly since so many have forgotten about it has become a much more tight knit community, depending on which ones you frequent... people should really try it out.

Don't forget your cloaks!

The real time nature, and the kind of people that hang out there, make it very worth it. I frequently get direct access to a dev on irc... you don't get that on twitter or a bug report.

[grimgrin]

I exist in an IRC channel of about ~40 nicks comprising some bots, some inactives, and maybe 20-25 that talk fairly frequently. Most of us are oriented on computers throughout the day, so there's really always someone chatting -- there are patterns to when people chat, based on timezones, etc.

When any of us are in another person(s) city, we tend to meet up. Some of us sync and travel to certain conferences. There's been a few in-group marriages, a few deaths.

This is a group where the bulk of us have been around for close to a decade or longer. Newcomers are rare, which is good for noise reasons among all else probably.

The only thing I've had similar to this was the core group of friends I had on a MUD in the late 90s till the early 00s.

[memco]

I didn't get into IRC much until about 5 years ago where one of the frameworks I was using was just starting to pick up steam. The dev and several experienced users would hang out in there and would help answer questions. Now, I look for IRC channels as a primary source of support for coding questions and I'm slightly put off when I see a community or project doesn't have an IRC channel. I don't hang out in there as much as I used to, but it's a great place to meet people and learn, even today.

[0xbadcafebee]

Go to Wikipedia and press <Alt><Shift>X. Type it again. And again. And again...

If you want obscure 80's music you can find archives of old 80's comp tapes from everything to folk to punk to experimental techno (https://contortyourself-cy.bandcamp.com/album/80s-undergroun...). I think the 90s+ has way more to offer in terms of just massive amounts of raw weird shit from bands most people never knew to begin with. You can stretch out and find all the sub-genres of a particular type, like electronica (https://beat.media/obscure-genres-of-electronica-you-need-to...) death metal (https://www.listchallenges.com/the-obscure-us-death-metal-10...) 90s UK indie (http://www.nme.com/photos/50-forgotten-90s-bands-who-prove-9...) or random French bands (https://frenchcrazy.com/2014/04/popular-100-french-songs.htm...), or do what most music nerds do and visit a record swap.

My interests have mostly shifted to history, cookery, materials engineering and gardening, so it's impossible to get bored. There's too much left to learn.

[skykooler]

What is this supposed to do? On OSX 'alt' is swallowed up as a character palette key, to it just types '˛'.

[peterwwillis]

Loads a random Wikipedia page

[dchuk]

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day.

Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”.

If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

[dchuk]

Update: Spent the evening researching software options for the "old school" style forums, and it seems like Xenforo is a solid choice in terms of active development, lots of addons/themes, and not crazy expensive. So I think I'll snag a license and put it on a droplet later this week when my wife is out for the evening :)

Also think I found a good domain for it that I'll snag tonight as well.

[thirdsun]

What's wrong with Discourse? It seems to be a popular choice.

Here are some more ideas: https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted#social-networ...

Flarum looks like a worthwhile option: http://flarum.org/

[KajMagnus]

I like Discourse too. (better than all the others mentioned so far)

There's also Talkyard. It's a bit like Discourse, and has Slack chat features (maybe nice with informal chat channels?) and StackOverflow like Q&A topics. I'm developing it. Open source & beta. https://www.talkyard.io/forum/

[dchuk]

Nothing is wrong with it, it's just a different interpretation of forums that is a departure from the "classic" bulletin boards we are discussing here.

[dx034]

That's one of the main issues with HN. Since there's no notification and/or messaging, few people will look back in this thread once you've actually set it up. A Show HN could at least be seen by some, but I too often miss those as well.

[admg]

Definitely interested if you go ahead!

[taneq]

> Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd?

So HN doesn't count?

[KajMagnus]

To me, HN is rather anti social ( = anti forum), & prevents anything but a bunch of strangers meeting at a cafe, to discuss a piece of news for a brief moment, then leaving, to never see each other again, and being unable to message each other later.

And if you come to the cafe an hour too late, because it was night in your time zone — then it's empty already.

(Explanation: 1) At HN, if you reply to someone a bit later, s/he will never notice, because there are no reply notifications, and in his/her comments & replies list, your comment will get buried far down below other comments s/he has posted, and others' replies. And 2) if you visit a topic that is some days old, and you post a comment — no one will ever see it. Because there's no way for other people, to find the most recent comments (your comment) that have appeared since they were there the last time. Here's a way to fix that?: https://www.talkyard.io/-32/how-hacker-news-can-be-improved-... )

[dchuk]

HN is quite different from forums because of the temporal nature of the content, the voting, and the threaded comments. Forums can foster very long running discussions, HN isn't really meant for that.

Also, there are all the components of user profiles/messaging/signatures/etc that HN completely omits (which is totally fine, but something forums are known for that HN probably will never have).

[pbowyer]

> Forums can foster very long running discussions

This. This is the element the 'modern web' has forgotten in its rush to 'new', 'realtime' and 'current' content.

Just because a conversation happened weeks (or months, or years) ago doesn't mean it's not relevant now. Google search results appear to favour 'fresh' over 'stale'; yet it doesn't say the content is any better, or more useful to me.

Hacker news has some awesome threads and knowledgeable people, but the threads and comments are buried in the archive. Add a comment to an old thread and no one reads it or responds. Which is the HN community's loss.

Blog comments were another: I had discussions that spanned multiple years, as people found it of interest and joined in. Because I wrote for engagement, not for pageviews.

Unless people regain a sense of place in time and realise that immediate doesn't trump everything else, I don't see us going back to longer-term discussions.

[dchuk]

Just so you know, I setup a site here for this experiment: https://hackerforums.co

I'll get a Show HN going tomorrow!

[crankylinuxuser]

No. not compared to where we were.

Usenet was like every HN, phpBB, digg, slashdot, and reddit in one. I await those days again.

[dx034]

Nowadays you have a much larger internet community. 20 years ago, the number of people online was maybe a few hundred million (likely lower), now it's several billion. That increases complexity, any forum that's too broad will attract so many people that you only get noise. HN works well because it's relatively unknown (esp outside of tech). Reddit only works because subreddits are individually managed (and it's a company that can dedicate resources to it).

[dchuk]

UPDATE: Got something up and running here: https://hackerforums.co/

I've tweaked it a bunch, but I'm sure there's a lot more to do. Please take a look if you're still following this HN thread...I'll post a Show HN in the morning for this.

I also have a post with my notes from setting this thing up...suffice to say that DigitalOcean's 1 click installer requires a few more clicks...

[handsomechad]

I think it's a really good idea. At least the spirit of it is correct - HN is a unique community which really helps me crowdsource a lot of wisdom and knowledge, and I think the pseudonymity and ephemerality is a feature more than a bug, but, it would be great to have longer running discussions that aren't swiftly superseded by the next days hot posts, and to have the freedom to post things/quesetions without the fear of getting drowned out (because on HN/reddit you have to be conscious of what is likely to get enough upvotes to even be seen)

[dchuk]

Check it out here! https://hackerforums.co/

[dougmwne]

I really wish we could get this set up, maybe even with some official ycombinator promotion. In my mind HN is the last really great group of strangers on the internet. I have learned so much from these comments sections and I've frequently read someone's post and connected with it to the point where I wish I could sit down for a cup of coffee or a beer.

Unfortunately, without community features it feels like slipping notes into a bottle and tossing them into the sea.

HN is the restaurant at the end of the internet.

[dchuk]

I'm going to tackle setting something up tonight and tomorrow night. I don't know anyone at ycomb so can't speak towards making anything official, but at the very least we can give it a shot and see if it can gain some traction/community.

I'll post a Show HN when it's ready.

[dchuk]

Just so you know, I setup a site here for this experiment: https://hackerforums.co

I'll get a Show HN going tomorrow!

[noyesno]

How about creating an Usenet newsgroup for HN?

[zafiro17]

In a way, it exists: visit comp.misc where a small group of devoted usenet fans discuss HN-type things, and where a fair number of HN stories have been linked and discussed. Visit misc.news.internet.discuss for non-computer tech discussion (and some fluff), and visit sci.misc for science articles and discussion. Among those three newsgroups you have the sum total of HN and Slashdot, and a nice crowd of Usenetters.

[CalRobert]

Is there anywhere we can see this progress? I suppose I'll see this comment of mine when I look in HN (I do often) but would love to know when anything is up and running.

BTW, I'd strongly, strongly discourage vBulletin.

[dchuk]

I'll reply to everyone here when it's online, and will post a Show HN. Hopefully it will get some traction.

[dchuk]

Here you go! I'm sure it still needs tweaks, but it's a start: https://hackerforums.co

[bobsoap]

Great idea.

Since we're reminiscing, unless I have you mistaken for someone else, I suspect that we both may have been a part of the same community way back when. Regardless, I look forward this; sounds like it could be fun.

[dchuk]

You're probably suspecting correctly :)

[ryan-allen]

Facebook Groups offer that to a certain degree. I get a lot of value out of small facebook groups I'm a member of, but they are not the same as the old forum-style, and it's on Facebook.

[greggyb]

Feel free to tap me to help mod if you'd like some assistance. I can give a few hours a week.

Ninja edit: wording

[PhasmaFelis]

That could be interesting.

[dchuk]

I’m going to try and fire something up this week. I’ll do some research on software for it, I’m fine spending money on xenforo or vbulletin but it looks like there are quite a few options out there.

I’ll announce it here when it’s ready!

[organsnyder]

Use Discourse. It's not only the most advanced from a tech perspective, but it also aims to promote strong communities.

[eitland]

Am I the only one who is totally confused by discourse?

Maybe it's because rhe demo instance was reset way to often or something but I've never really seen a really working discourse instance. (I think both Mozilla and Canonical (has?) run one but they weren't to active either IIRC.

Anyone has examples of a working discourse community?

[flaviocopes]

- https://discourse.mozilla.org/latest

- https://platform.github.community/latest

- https://forum.golangbridge.org/

[organsnyder]

The subject matter may not appeal to some on HN, but here's an installation I set up at a previous employer over three years ago, that is thriving: https://discourse.biologos.org/

[ravloony]

I think https://purescript-users.ml is running on Discourse. It's quite young though.

[dchuk]

No doubt that discourse is really nice software, and I will give it a go, but it does lack the “nostalgia” referred to by the original comment I replied to with this idea. All options are valid at this point though!

[varrock]

I am a huge fan of Simple Machine Forums

- https://www.simplemachines.org/

[tluyben2]

I think it is important to curate it, but I applaud the idea. I would say; only allow people with over a certain karma score on HN (>1000)? That way you benefit from the quite strict moderation here.

But indeed I remember the days on vBulletin forums; all my remarks against ‘you cannot make friends over 30’ that I uttered here come from there: most my current friends and one of my best friends I met on forums. It just worked well.

[jgalentine007]

Dude, I've been on reddit since 2006 and I don't even have 1000 karma. Don't exclude the lurkers! (Who are too busy programming to post.)

[tluyben2]

Maybe you are right but how to prevent it from becoming a sales/recruitement/troll/showoff fest again?

[itchynosedev]

Now it sounds more like an elitist club. Weren’t most of forums free for all?

[tluyben2]

Yes, but there were only a few people around and they were tech savvy and often entrepreneural especially in tech forums... Now when a forum gets any sort of uptake, it is jumped on by marketers and other spammers. So elitist, I guess but it was automatically back then I guess.

[sincerely]

most, but one of the best ("most influential on internet culture", maybe?) had a 10$ entry fee

[robotresearcher]

Free for a heavily selected group of people with internet access and specialist knowledge of how to find stuff. So: elitist in a sense of resources weighted by interest.

[int0x80]

A good thing of forums is that you get everything as is. As raw as it gets. If you don't like something or someone you just block it.

You can also have privileged threads/subforums that are read only if you don't meet some requierments.

You can even have an option to only show comments/posts for users with karma > N, if thats what you want.

[dchuk]

I think to kick things off it will be best to allow anyone to sign up and potentially lock it down in the future if things get out of hand. Usually forums have features like limiting new thread creation to users with enough karma/comments, so that can help a bit in keeping quality up.

[tluyben2]

Drop me an email if you need help anyway. I tried many existing options and have not found any good so far.

[dx034]

I wouldn't set the karma threshold that high. If you want to avoid spammers, a threshold of 50-100 is likely enough. That excludes any cheap spamming attempts.

[happertiger]

Second vote for discourse!

[dchuk]

Check it out! https://hackerforums.co/

[CookieMon]

> I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though.

It was a place by and for enthusiasts, and now it isn't.

So not just the people or the technology maturing, the demographic fundamentally shifted. I suspect it's also become the strongest whirlpool/second-life for people trying to fill a hole inside.

People always say <thing> was better before it was popular, and I never really bought into that, but my assumption that 'gatekeeping is bad' causes cognitive dissonance in the face of how the Internet changed.

But hey, I don't envy the kids who'll have to use this place once my generation is geriatric. Like hell I'm just going to sit in a chair and stare at a wall as I go senile - I'll be here, improving the place. Kids today will reminisce about the days when the Net wasn't a way of keeping senior citizens occupied.

[__alias]

I often fondly look back at my initial online gaming memories, where games like Runescape and the early Halo series offered a huge online community feel. As Runescape/Halo series developed and time went on the feelings of the games changed, and people in Runescape were more focused on efficient Exp gaining or competitive playing in Halo. I have yet to experience the same kind of online communities that were present on online gaming in 2006ish

[Dunedan]

Runescape will always have a special place in my heart.

Aside from its community it was the first browser-based game with really good 3D graphics, at a time where table-based browser games were the norm. And it was even free!

For a non-native English speaker like me in hindsight Runescape helped me a lot with English vocabulary, granted a lot of it wasn't really helpful thanks to its fantasy setting, but still it helped to improve my English skills significantly.

[heckanoobs]

I imagined myself on a forum like the old days, freely typing my thoughts into the void. First thing that came to mind was who owns this content? Second thing was can I get a bigger audience posting it somewhere else?

The internet's broken and it broke me with it

[TangoTrotFox]

A big part of the change has been a mass influx of extremely low information users. In the early years of the internet people that were on it were high information tech enthusiasts. Now we've reached the point that there are more Facebook users than internet users... At least if you ask them [1]. The average level of intelligence on the internet has dropped dramatically.

And I think this is bringing out the predators in mass. Those predators run the gamut from the guy feverishly hacking away in Eastern Europe to the greying man in the 25th story in NYC wearing Armani. Exploiting these people is the latest gold rush. That exploitation could be for financial ends, political ones, or just simply for the lulz. It all makes a lot of the internet very fake. Any community that gains any size starts to experience massive levels of astro turfing and various image management teams (professional and amateur) trying to sway opinion one way or the other.

And then every site has to have voting features of some sort or another. Ostensibly it's about content prioritizing come filtering, yet go look at all of the extremely interesting things that get left to die in "new" even on here. Or the phenomena where something will get submitted 9 times, be ignored, and the 10th time explode. It has very little to do with content filtering. The vote systems are just a tool for growth as it creates an addictive feedback mechanism. But at the same time it also is like a dream come true for those that would like to manipulate or sway others artificially.

Finally there is outrage culture. I'm still not sure if this emerged organically or not, but it's certainly been a drain on the internet. There are lots of people trying their hardest to be offended by anything, and spin everything is the worst possible way imaginable. And since a certain sort of people just thrive on drama, this nonsense spreads like wildfire. Did you hear a coffee shop called the police on two people that refused to buy anything or leave? "OH NO THEY DIDN'T!!?!? THIS WILL BE OUR TIANANMEN!" Or something...

[1] - https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-id...

[bfuller]

> felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs.

that sense of community is present in smaller subreddits with subscribers in the low thousands

[bcaa7f3a8bbc]

There was a joke being said frequently on online forums and messageboards about flame wars and trolls on the Internet, "the internet was serious business!", but now nobody even refers to the joke anymore, because it has actually been turned into one, or is not a fun place anymore.

[kk_cz]

I feel the same and I believe it's definitely because of age. When I was younger I had hours each day to invest into online interactions. sure it was fun, but it's over.

Kids nowadays have it the same, they just use snapshat or instafram or something entire else to create their unique online experience (that they will miss in 15 years)

[gaius]

maturation of people

If anything it’s the opposite. The old golden rule used to be “what goes online stays online”. Now people call the police if they are “offended”.