[Nerada]

I miss how every hobby had a forum running on phpBB, SimpleMachines, Invision, etc.

HN is great, but it's very point in time. If I find an interesting topic posted over a day ago, it's never getting new replies. It's a snapshot of the thoughts on that topic for that single day, nothing more.

[account42]

As much as I like threaded discussion like on HN I think it makes following discussion over a longer period of time almost impossible as you need to look all over the tree for new replies. Even reddit's highlighting of new posts does not really fix that and is s paid feaure anyway (except in the subs you moderate) so won't have any effect on the nature of the community. Maybe having both a threaded view for the first time you want to read through a thread and a more linear view for updates would make sense.

[Alex3917]

Scoop places a [new] tag next to comments that have been posted since the last time you refreshed the page, so that you can just Ctrl-F. So there have been popular sites doing this for 20+ years, e.g. Kuro5hin and DailyKos. HN just hasn't had features like this due to being limited by single threaded compute for various reasons. Although if the comments were served via an API, this could now be down in the front end with just the timestamp of when each user last refreshed each page.

[rtpg]

Yeah honestly forums counteract soooo much of the weird incentives that lead to a lot of yelling (yes there is still yelling in forums)

I’ve been in two “tiny forums” in the past and honestly I prefer that to the idea of a Twitter clone. Let’s people put in more effort, have real topics (like about events) and isn’t just streams.

[usrusr]

I'm on a number of "large niche" forums (think posts-per-minute not minutes-per-post) and yeah, lots of yelling. But I'm also on a large Facebook group aiming at the same audience (actually a spin-off of the most ancient of those forums), and it's a night and day difference. On the Facebook group everybody with even the tiniest trace of control is self-censoring themselves into total silence, leaving only the chattiest voices outdoing each other with irrelevant posts. The forums are terrible in their own way, but still so much better.

But it's very noticeable how the forum audience is aging, even compared to Facebook which is already the retiree home amongst corporate social media. I can't imagine how lopsided interaction must be on the "influencer platform" generation of social media must be..

[sjg007]

It definitely stops the seagull effect where people Just fly in and shit uninformed opinion all over stuff. Not to mention downvotes by the flock.

[Alex3917]

> I miss how every hobby had a forum running on phpBB, SimpleMachines, Invision, etc.

A lot of sufficiently niche hobbies still do. E.g. if you get into rare fruit growing, a lot of the best information is in various Discourse forums.

[godshatter]

This is exactly what I want. I don't want something federated, I just want to host a small site on a particular topic and have some moderation control. I don't need it to connect to every other social network, I just want it to be a small island that like-minded people can congregate on to talk that also has more modern features than the old phpbb did.

[rambambram]

Also true for me. I'm building something like that, where RSS feeds and RSS readers come together on a small personal website. Not necessarily a group chat or forum, more like a microblog/timeline/webring thing. A lot of individual websites, connected by the technology of modern and traditional internet.

Question: Would the absence of a forum (or some sort of group chat) be a deal breaker for you?

[godshatter]

I like the idea of such a thing, if I'm understanding it. A place to write your thoughts and share them with others while being able to see their contributions? I miss the old geocities sites, even as bad as they looked, because you could create what you want and make it available to others and I miss the old webrings where you could discover new things random people created.

I am interested in a small forum ability as well, but it doesn't have to be in the same application.

[rambambram]

Good to hear. My ideas for such a thing are based on the same sentiment; the internet as it used to be, and should be (?). I agree that some interactive parts like a forum, or even nested comments like here on HN, are necessary. That's what really makes it a two way street. Me having a website and you having a website (and us subscribing to each other's feed) is more like two one way streets.

A webring is also a feature I really like. Good for related - but still random - discovery.

[joe_the_user]

I am still on two different extremely niche forums, one running phpBB (wild skins and all). I sometimes go to other existing forums also. This stuff exists.

[worldofmatthew]

GDPR and the upcoming online safety bill and the EU's digital economy regulations makes it nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum. That is now only possible by big tech.

[upofadown]

Couldn't the person running the forum simply not abuse their users by not exploiting their personal data for commercial gain? How hard is that?

[worldofmatthew]

GDPR is harder than that, there is a bunch of legal stuff and having to have someone legally responsible to follow the more vague parts of the GDPR.

GDPR is not just "not exploiting their personal data for commercial gain" but a lot of busy work with massive fines if you make any mistakes. How is most community forums going to work with that?

[donmcronald]

If I don't collect any PII, even to the point of not bothering with analytics, and the only cookies I use are for auth or other absolutely necessary functionality, are there GDPR rules I need to worry about?

[estaseuropano]

No. Various 'consultancies' will tell you otherwise, but the only thing you really need to provide is a chance for users to delete their data. Ideally also an option to extract/download it, but I don't think anyone has ever really been hassled for that.

Contrary to all the BS the tech lobby says, you don't even have to have a cookie banner today I'd you don't collect datat beyond what is technically needed.

[pjc50]

Fines are proportional to turnover, and you don't get fined if you don't have any turnover. People are very scared of GDPR in a way that doesn't reflect the actual enforcement!

You do have to avoid leaking, though; it's effectively a requirement to do information security.

[worldofmatthew]

Its a max amount or a percentage of turnover, whichever is higher.

[pbhjpbhj]

I don't buy it -- GDPR is about protection of PII. Don't collect it, you're done.

OK, slightly flippant might take half an afternoon of training for all staff.

https://gdpr.eu/checklist/

[Zababa]

I don't understand why that would be the case. GDPR is mostly about personal data (that you don't really need for a forum). The online safety bill would at worst get your forum get blocked in the UK, but I haven't been able to find clear expectations for a forum outside of what I would call "regular moderation". I also didn't find much about the EU's digital economy regulations. Would you mind expanding on why it's nearly impossible for almost anyone to run a forum now?

[worldofmatthew]

People can post a lot of personal information to an internet forum without asking the owner and even email addresses count as personal information.

Labour and the Tories are trying to extend The online safety bill to put forum owner in prison if found to be causing harm (whatever that means) and you would have to pay for staff to monitor the forums 24/7 (no one is going to help out if they risk going to prison). All with a fuck ton of vagueness that can millions of pounds of fines.

That will make it impossible for anyone but big tech to run online forums.

[BeFlatXIII]

Even if that UK bill passes, why can’t Americans and third world residents simply ignore it? If the UK requires ISPs to block the domain, that’s one thing, but how can they realistically enforce prison time on a foreign forum owner? A country that honors such an extradition request is one that is in need to violent replacement with a legitimate government.

[Zababa]

Thank you for the explanation. From what you said, blocking the UK looks like the most sane thing to do if you run a forum, though I'm not even sure if that would be enough for them.

[Grumbledour]

People posting their PI on their own in public is however not something the GDPR really covers and so would not affect a forum operator. Leaking users email addresses is another thing of course, but was undesirable before there was GDPR. (Though it might be totally possible to run a forum without requiring email if one is really worried)

You are not wrong though that running forums or any website with user generated content is becoming increasingly difficult for individuals, though the real culprits here on EU level are the recent copyright reform which requires you to remove infringing content quickly and the upcoming Anti-Terror regulation which requires removing content in one hour. Though it might be true, that many of these laws might be toothless against individuals or non-profits, even though they do not specially exclude them. But it really seems lawmakers don't think much of the internet beyond facebook, twitter and google.

[estaseuropano]

These have thresholds though, so if you're just a random person running a small forum you'll likely never feel any effect.

[BeFlatXIII]

If you’re a private American with no EU-based assets, why should you care about GDPR? A US Congress that would enforce an EU fine is a Congress that no longer has legitimately to govern the US.

[hosteur]

Why is that?

Don’t you basically just need to stop collecting any data that is not put up there by the user itself? At least with regards to gdpr.

I am in the process of starting a forum so I am quite curious to know if I am wrong in this?

[kingnothing]

Why would a non-European forum operator care about GDPR?

[voakbasda]

Exactly. If my US-based sites get a GPDR complaint, GeoIP blocks will go up and the entire EU can suck a lemon.

[BeFlatXIII]

Or just say, “sure fine us another €40million. How do you plan to make us pay?”

[voakbasda]

I have no idea of the status of potential treaties that cover these matters. If I start getting harassed, it’s much easier and safer to block them, rather than escalating things in a direction that could end up in extradition. I would not trust the US government to protect me.

But I like your sentiment.