Doc Edward Morbius ⭕<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://metalhead.club/@mariusor" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>mariusor</span></a></span> Off the top of my head:</p><p>The basic problem is being the kind of forum where people who <em>want to</em> and <em>can</em> make significant contributions <em>will</em>. Which means not pissing them off / annoying them / frustrating them, and making it easy for them to shine. Without scaring off absolutely everyone else, or becoming yet another Internet cesspit (which would of course piss off, annoy / frustrate your target cohort).</p><p><strong>Search.</strong> Finding relevant content, and <em>especially</em> finding <strong>MY OWN EARLIER CONTENT</strong> is an absolute must have. I'm aware that search can also generate some unpleasant effects (brigading, harassment, etc.), but on balance I think it's necessary. HN's Algolia search (and some recent suggestions for enhancements above that) is a key strength of that platform. It's also a key reason I've abandoned Diaspora*: over a decade on it still lacks this. And yeah, I've <a href="https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/d9abf9f05459013a0103448a5b29e257" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">gone to insane lengths to make up for this</a> (that's a manually-curated set of significant posts).</p><p><strong>Exposure to General Web Search.</strong> I'm ... less enamoured of this than I was (No I Do Not Want To Feed Your AI Dragon), but discoverability remains key. Another death-knell for Diaspora* is that the site is nearly/entirely invisible to general Web search (Google, Bing, DDG, etc.). Winking in the dark...</p><p><strong>Markdown.</strong> Formatting content is a huge win, and of the various options (raw HTML, Markdown, other LWMLs), Markdown is both <em>generally sufficient</em> and <em>most widely adopted</em>. It makes for the difference between primitive wall-o-text posts and well-structured content. There are a few additions to the basic feature set I'm fond of, most especially endnotes. Diaspora* does well here, see for example <a href="https://diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/60cf1410e72f013a68ef448a5b29e257" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">diaspora.glasswings.com/posts/</span><span class="invisible">60cf1410e72f013a68ef448a5b29e257</span></a>. (This toot itself makes heavy use of Markdown, part of GlitchSoc's featureset. View it from toot.cat for the full effect.)</p><p><strong>Editing.</strong> I'm not perfect, and make all kinds of errors in posts, toots, comments, etc. <strong>Let me edit my content.</strong> Yeah, there's abuse issues, so note edits and maybe show edit histories (for non-critical disclosure bits at any rate.)</p><p><strong>Abuse defences.</strong> Past a certain critical mass, discussion sites live or die on how well they can address abuse. This includes harassment, brigading, shilling, spam, propaganda, bots, various vice content (CSAM, drugs/guns/contraband, criminal and gang activity, village and/or Internet idiots, etc.) <strong>Sites ultimately require multiple levels of defence, you cannot presume that system-level/centralised tools will suffice, or that putting everything in the hands of end-users works. Both are needed.</strong> Oh, and the anti-abuse system itself, if sufficient to combat abuse, becomes a mechanism for transacting abuse itself (censorship, content flagging, account banning/loss, etc.). There's a fine balance between too little, just right, and too much moderation, as well as how it's performed.</p><p><strong>Content moderation.</strong> Necessary, but difficult to do well, and It's Complicated!!! Non-brief thoughts: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200629055317/https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28jfk4/content_rating_moderation_and_ranking_systems/#" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">web.archive.org/web/2020062905</span><span class="invisible">5317/https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28jfk4/content_rating_moderation_and_ranking_systems/#</span></a>. I'm increasingly convinced that the ability to block individuals en masse is also essential, though with varying forms. (Mastodon ... actually does this fairly well.) Some form of moderation delegation may also be required, as well as the ability to lock (manually or automatically / timed) threads to prevent late fly-by spamming / trolling. That is, I could name several close contacts as approved moderators on my posts. Doing <em>that</em> also requires a moderation log for things to remain sane.</p><p><strong>Groups.</strong> I think that these are useful, though complicated. HN is interesting in insisting on <em>no</em> groups, everything is posted to one flat page. Lobste.rs is interesting in that it provides tags, similar for Tildes.net. Back on G+, I found groups <em>mostly</em> useless, save for some smaller private ones I'd created. What I long wanted there was the ability to use the <em>intersection</em> of a Topic and some sort of member list ("Circle") to filter through discussions. Ping me for more thoughts on this. One key concept is that there are different <em>kinds</em> of groups, and those which are <em>really</em> aimed at conversation <strong>DO NOT SCALE</strong>. Somewhere between, say, 5--50 people is really the sweet spot. You might be able to go <em>somewhat</em> above that (more registereds, but a small fraction active). Somewhere in the 100--1,000 member space shit goes all to hell.</p><p><strong>Sane discussion presentation.</strong> Again, Diaspora* does nicely here, see again <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200629055317/https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28jfk4/content_rating_moderation_and_ranking_systems/#" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">web.archive.org/web/2020062905</span><span class="invisible">5317/https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28jfk4/content_rating_moderation_and_ranking_systems/#</span></a> and note the side-by-side placement of article and comments.</p><p><strong>Notifications.</strong> I don't have a current example of this,b ut at various points in their evolution, Google+, Ello, and Imzy (remember that?) all had a really useful Notifications pane which made it possible to interact with comments on posts / replies to threads / mentions, <strong>without having to leave the notifications pane itself</strong>. Thinking about it, Mastodon's own presentation <em>in this particular regard</em> is relatively good, though Mastodon lacks the notion of a post/comments thread hierarchy. Another key element was that <em>all</em> participants in a given thread (up to pretty generous limits) were notified of <em>any</em> additional activity, unless they muted the thread. This meant that individual discussions could continue for days, weeks, months, and even years, though this required robust moderation by the discussion host.</p><p><strong>The early/late dichotomy of Problems With Online Forums.</strong> Early on, you're simply Trying To Let It Not Die. Growth or even simply sustaining activity is the challenge. 99.9999967% of all new forum attempts die in this stage, it's simply the consequence of winner-take-all dynamics. <strong>Once a forum gains scale</strong> the problem switches <em>often more or less instantly</em> to <strong>not getting drowned in shit</strong>. The transition can be intensely rapid, but at the same time trying to solve problems of scale <em>before you have scale</em> is pretty fatal. This was, I think, one of Imzy's problems.</p><p><strong>Addressing a range of discussion levels/interests.</strong> I prefer finding discussion that's illuminating and insightful. Many people just want to be entertained, troll the normies, or whatevs. You've either got to define your use-case / target audience, or design a system which addresses multiple needs. Both are challenging.</p><p><strong>Viable founding cohort.</strong> The initial class of forum members sets tone, culture, norms, and a whole lot else, and is absolutely critical to wider success. Usenet and Facebook both started with highly-selective university students, and that was a key to both their initial successes. Both stumbled badly as they grew to general population platforms, for multiple reasons. I've written on Why Usenet Died, see: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_usenet_died/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">web.archive.org/web/2024000000</span><span class="invisible">0000*/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c3xyu/why_usenet_died/</span></a>. (I may be wrong on some or all of that, though I think there are at least some valid points, it recapitulates some of the themes in this toot.)</p><p><a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Forums" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Forums</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Discussions" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Discussions</span></a> <a href="https://toot.cat/tags/Conversation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Conversation</span></a></p>