posted
You know what I'd like to see? A web forum which has one single goal and purpose: to be a place where anyone can come and find intelligent, reasoned, civil, thoughtful discourse on all aspects of American life, culture and politics. A forum that doesn't have some side purpose, that isn't affiliated with a particular person, cause or goal. A forum that simply aims to be a national living room or pub or diner for America. Where people can come and talk about America.
The forum technology and ubiquity of the web these days have finally made it possible for there to be a website that simply aims to be a place for people of all ages, races, political views and from all places to come and discuss. It's almost possible for there to be a global forum for that, but I don't think the language technology is quite there so I'll settle for an American one.
Well since I've been unable to find such a place I decided I'd create one. Want to help?
I have it all set up already, it's just missing two things: a domain name, and users. I'll handle the domain name part when I get a little money. I need some help with the users part. I know it's a little sketchy asking for people to populate a forum on another forum, but I figured since this forum aims to be something quite different -- and somewhat bigger -- than Hatrack it wasn't too rude to request aid in creating it here. If people object I can remove the post. I came to Hatrack cause when I thought of the sort of discourse I hoped to have and the sorta people I hoped to have at The General Conversation Hatrack jumped right to mind. So... anyone want to help me?
posted
isn't this effectively what we have here? (admittedly slightly skewed in that most of us are OSC fans, but that hardly enters into most discussions on this side of the board)
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Well that's the thing. Hatrack is pretty much just for OSC fans. The audience is really small and is a select portion of the population: sci-fi readers and Orson Scott Card fans.
Also the Hatrack forums are sorta hard to find. I want to replicate them, only on a much, much larger scale. And with out the connection to a particular author. Basically create a website which is just this forum part of Hatrack.
And yeah, I limited it to America cause I figured aiming beyond that was a little ambitious. Heck aiming for what I'm aiming for is pretty ambitious.
The scale I'm thinking of is imagine if Facebook had one big forum which everyone on Facebook could participate in and did participate in. I'm aiming for something like that. As far as I know, there is nothing like that in existence.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Alcon: Hatrack is pretty much just for OSC fans.
Without "outing" anyone, this is patently false. We have at least a handful of regulars who have read no OSC, and I suspect there may be a lot more than that.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I hate to bring this up, but the world is full of idiots. I tend to find that forums on the smaller side will have more interesting discussions, simply because they don't become overrun with morons.
While I realize this is ripe for jokes, (MightyCow, meet Kettle, Kettle - MightyCow), at least we don't tend to have more than half the discussions here degrade to swearing and L33T speak within 3 posts.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Fair enough, but it's very much OSC's site. The forums are a small corner of it. While we might consider it the best part of the site, the site is not dedicated towards creating a discussion place online. Which is what I'm trying to create.
Don't get me wrong, I love Hatrack and I'm not trying to create something to supplant it. I'm not trying to draw anyone away. I'm trying to create a place on the scale of Facebook where people can do, yes essentially what they do on Hatrack, but which has no other purpose than to be for just that. Hatrack has never aspired to that scale, and I don't think it should aspire to it. It's OSC's living room, nothing more, nothing less. And it's wonderful exactly that way. And as OSC's living room it also has another purpose.
I think creating a forum like Hatrack on that scale can be done, I'd like to see it done, and I'm posting here about it cause I think there are other people here who think it can be done and would like to see it done and might want to help get it started. If I'm wrong I can go away...
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:While I realize this is ripe for jokes, (MightyCow, meet Kettle, Kettle - MightyCow), at least we don't tend to have more than half the discussions here degrade to swearing and L33T speak within 3 posts.
But if you look at the larger forums that have that happened to never really aspired to be like what Hatrack is. In fact they never really tried to be anything but homes for geeks of exactly the nature described. This forum would. I think it could be done, especially in the current election atmosphere. And I'd like to try.
Part of accomplishing it would be having some moderators who are on top of things and let it be well known that posts of l33t speech and flames aren't tolerated -- dealing with both the posts and posters as appropriate.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
It would take time and energy. The only way around that is to have mods that agree with your goals, who will act in your stead.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Well I have one right here. I'm hoping to recruit others as I go along. Though at the moment I'm just asking for people who are interested in seeing something like this come into being and are willing to help in any way shape or form.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Alcon: [QB] Also the Hatrack forums are sorta hard to find. I want to replicate them, only on a much, much larger scale. And with out the connection to a particular author. Basically create a website which is just this forum part of Hatrack. QB]
Is that really possible, though. Once you get past a certain size, it gets really, really hard to keep the forum from being drowned out with noise.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
The thing about smaller communities is that it keeps conversation at a manageable level. If it wasn't for the fact that this forum population had limiting factors no one would be able to keep up with any of the conversation. I've browsed other forums that have much larger user bases or more expansive topic coverage and they've been way too daunting for me to get involved in. I couldn't even imagine the speed of the conversation and the time needed to frequent a forum like the one you're talking about..
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I think maybe part of the problem of what you want to do is a combination of the fact that you want a living room writ large.
Once you make it that big, it's no longer a living room, it's an auditorium, and their drastically different in the terms of the debate you want to have.
In any event, if it's even a different to you, you don't want a living room like Hatrack. You want a water cooler. Living rooms in the sense of an internet forum are far more personal and in our case have a sense of community. You're talking more along the lines of the proverbial water cooler, where people who generally don't know each other that well, and never will, come together to talk about what they heard on the news the other day, or about whatever big thing is going on in the nation at the moment.
I think your scale is just too unwieldly. You want 1,000 small forums before you want one giant one. The internet is a fantastic way for people from all over to have the types of conversations you want to have, and that's a noble effort, however, imagine 1,000 office buildings with 1,000 water coolers and 1,000 sets of people having conversations. Now imagine all of that stuffed into a single room. 10,000 people all crawling over each other to respond will make threads unreadable. You want smaller threads like on Hatrack where a real dialogue can open up in a meaningful back and forth that spectators can follow along with and form their own opinions on. I'd suggest almost doing it like a chat rooms, in that you create a large number of forums but cap the amount of people that can join a forum, and then maybe every so often, so people aren't always arguing with the same people, you throw everyone's name into the mixer and spit out new forums so they can interact with more people, assuming you ever got near the numbers you really want.
Like others have said, if you want to keep the discussion readable, you have to keep it smaller, or else people aren't going to wade through 10 pages of thread before they get a chance to post, it's not a dialogue at that point.
I'd really suggest a single site but with a large number of forums that have capped membership where people are assigned to a certain place. Maybe you could even design a system where people don't give their names, but do give some very basic details about themselves like gender, age, political affiliation if any, race and religion, then make each forum as diverse as possible. Then shake things up every now and then like when they shuffle up the tables at the World Series of Poker, and people are always meeting new people, seeing new points of view and getting involved in new discussions. It'd be the best chance for them to have actual conversations with people whose viewpoints they may never have encountered before.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Some of the challenges, just to reiterate: 1. If there's no starting point for a sense of community (such as being OSC fans) what will get people interested? Note even Facebook segments their user community by school or employer or city.
2. If it's on a huge scale how will the number of topics and speed of conversation be manageable? Think about how hard it might be to get someone to engage in your thread about biofuels if there have been 18 threads about the same thing in the last 3 days.
3. Why would I go to a general conversation forum to discuss a movie when I can go to a movie discussion site to discuss a movie?
4. (some overlap with above) If you aren't targeting a specific community or demographic, what unique value proposition can you offer that will make your site attractive?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I think it's a cool idea to try, and I wish you luck with it. I'll just mention a story, and you can take from it what you will.
I knew a guy in college who wanted his own BBS. Most of the people I knew were already part of several existing Bulletin Boards, but we figured we'd give the new one a try, to see if it would offer anything new and exciting.
It was fun for a week, but then more and more people started showing up, and it started to get a little messy, with unnecessary flaming, racism, and the like. Unfortunately, the guy who ran the board only had himself and two friends as moderators, and none of them wanted to devote 8 hours a day to moderating their project.
Faced with the choice of making what was supposed to be a fun place to chat online into a full-time job, or finding another way to keep things working, he opted to tighten restrictions. He and the other admins started deleting threads and posts, and suspending users with extreme prejudice. They got rid of most of the trouble makers, but they also frustrated the good users.
Pretty soon, it wasn't worth hanging out there, because the losers kept coming back to exact vengeance for not being allowed to trash the place, the regulars got tired of the increasingly draconian rules, and the newbies often got kicked for minor infractions because the admins thought they might be trouble makers.
I suppose the morals I would like to share are that it's probably going to be a lot of work keeping things running, and you had better have admins who you can trust to work hard, and not go power-mad.
Hopefully, you'll have a much better experience with your place.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:The scale I'm thinking of is imagine if Facebook had one big forum which everyone on Facebook could participate in and did participate in.
This has been attempted many times before. In most cases, such a forum grows rapidly until they realize they need professional, full-time moderators, at which point they either give up or find a way to monetize it.
There is a reason that Facebook doesn't have one big forum. It's because a big forum in which everyone on Facebook participated would suck.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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My point being that making the theoretical forum American lets out a lot of other people who aren't from, well, America. It seems restrictive and... I can't think of the right word. But hey, your forum, you can do whatever you want.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I wouldn't mind two different forums, an international and an America, as personally I really do think there are some conversations that need to be had with and between Americans that others just wouldn't be able to help with, but, at the same time, I'd hate to leave out outside points of view that might add something to the mix.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:My point being that making the theoretical forum American lets out a lot of other people who aren't from, well, America. It seems restrictive and... I can't think of the right word. But hey, your forum, you can do whatever you want.
Well I originally thought of making a global one, but two things came up: 1) an American one is ambitious enough that, as you can see, most people don't seem to think it could be done. A global one is magnitudes of scale larger and harder. And 2) the language barrier even with the current software is hard to over come to make it truly international.
English speakers who wish to discuss America, even if they aren't from America are certainly welcome. And heck I've got no issue with making some international forums... Hmm... Maybe split it up a General Category, an American one and an International one?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Because it was mentioned twice, I checked it out. The Well costs $6.50 a month ($10 a month regularly) or $9.50 a month ($15 regularly) depending on what membership package you choose. You use your real name, not an anonymous handle. And you can't see what it's really like until you pay the bucks to get in.
Personally, I have no problem with the non-anonymous bit, although I know that would bother some people, and I can understand why. However, I do have a problem with paying for something that you can't test drive first. Or even look at.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Maybe if you're a person that would have a problem with paying for something sight unseen, you're not the sort of riff-raff they want mucking about their forum. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Back when Salon bought the Well, it was free to Salon members for a while. I didn't find it worth my time, mainly because enough of its members are convinced that they're building a better society to make the whole experience pretty tiresome.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Instead of catering your forum to Americans specifically, you might want to just say that it's a forum in English. That way you avoid the multilingual problems you were worried about, and you don't unnecessarily exclude anybody.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by quidscribis: Because it was mentioned twice, I checked it out. The Well costs $6.50 a month ($10 a month regularly) or $9.50 a month ($15 regularly) depending on what membership package you choose. You use your real name, not an anonymous handle. And you can't see what it's really like until you pay the bucks to get in.
Personally, I have no problem with the non-anonymous bit, although I know that would bother some people, and I can understand why. However, I do have a problem with paying for something that you can't test drive first. Or even look at.
I'm not advocating The Well; I don't have a membership there myself. The constellation of on-line communities that I currently participate in is large and satisfying enough that I don't feel any need to pay money to join another, and I don't know that I'd have enough time to make it worth my while without leaving forums filled with people I already know and care about, in which I have already established myself. It's just that it's about the closest thing that exists to what Alcon is trying to accomplish.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I guess what bugs me is that it is a giant hassle to drive and/or fly halfway (or more) across the country to visit people. I've met a few people from other online foums, but I've had to be hugely motivated to do so, and in most cases, there were other reasons to go to those places. I met a couple of friends from the healing tao forum in NYC, back in 2003. However, I was already going to Michigan anyway (starting from my home in NC), and I had also met a girl on an online dating site from NYC. I wouldn't have gone to NYC just to meet those guys. I enjoyed my time with them, but...I don't know, for me to connect with people, I've got to see them and shake their hands and watch their faces, etc., and I've got to feel like I might actually see them again. I don't like the thought that I'm not important to somebody who is important to me, and without geographical proximity, I worry that I could cease being as important. I don't know. whatever.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Maybe if you're a person that would have a problem with paying for something sight unseen, you're not the sort of riff-raff they want mucking about their forum.
posted
As for The Well... it is sorta the closest thing to what I'm trying to accomplish I guess. Except that it's commercial. It's exclusionary cause you have to pay for it. Pay quite a bit. And that kinda beats the point...
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
The thing is, the sort of site you're envisioning is going to have to be funded somehow. If it were successful it would eventually require teams of full time moderators. You could fund it through advertising though, I suppose.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:The thing is, the sort of site you're envisioning is going to have to be funded somehow. If it were successful it would eventually require teams of full time moderators. You could fund it through advertising though, I suppose.
I'd like to think that the community itself could act as a moderator of sorts. Much the same as it does here at Hatrack.
I really do have faith that for the most part, people want something like this. It's just that it's not the way most web forums work. So they aren't expecting a forum like that when they arrive. Just as a lot of newbies used to come here and act like they do on other web forums until people here taught them how we like to interact here.
Another way to do it would be to simply have a lot of moderators rather than a few full time. Could make it so that once you've earned a certain status on the forum and proved you care about it's ideas you gain a moderator alt. There'd have to be some sort of vetting process to be sure you don't give moderator powers to someone who'll abuse it, and obviously there'd have to be a hierarchy to make sure that moderators don't go crazy.
But I mean, we do well enough with a single moderator here, what if we had 20 Papa Janitors?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: I'm not advocating The Well; I don't have a membership there myself. The constellation of on-line communities that I currently participate in is large and satisfying enough that I don't feel any need to pay money to join another, and I don't know that I'd have enough time to make it worth my while without leaving forums filled with people I already know and care about, in which I have already established myself. It's just that it's about the closest thing that exists to what Alcon is trying to accomplish.
Again, worth repeating.***
It's worth repeating because it's worth knowing about in greater detail (e.g., the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article trace some detailed history) -- and this because, as Noemon said, it's the closest thing I know of out there. One can learn from what happened in developing and maintaining that site. No need to reinvent the wheel; might as well work on launching a rocket whilst one is at it.
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***(I used to think I'd like to carry Noemon around in my pocket to speak for me. Now I think I'd be just fine with being carried around in his. He could still do all the speaking -- I'd just be along for the ride.)
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Edited to add: Hey, thanks, steven. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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