Show HN: DataTau (HN clone for data science) has been down, so we cloned it | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: DataTau (HN clone for data science) has been down, so we cloned it

datatau.net

87 pointsthegurus73 comments

Hi guys,

DataTau has been down for more than a month. We tried to contact Rohit on Twitter and offered him our help to maintain or host the site, but got no answer, so we understood the project is over and decided to make 'a clone of the clone' on a .net domain.

We have been working on setting up a new version of the site with the same philosophy and Django based. We are not Web devs and although HN frontend looks simple, it has more features than we though. It is still missing some HN features (as original DataTau) but we are working hard to make the site better and bring the community back.

Please give it a try and report any bug you encounter.

Wow guys! Really missed DT! Thanks a lot :D

I got real confused for a second as the top bar color is the same as my HN logged-in color. Good choice!

Medium-well Cyan FTW. And they use a HTML table for that bar. How unsemantic.

Yes, it is very unsemantic. The front is made of tables of tables of tables with lots of deprecated tags and most of the styling is made in the html file instead of a stylesheet :-D. We copied the original HN/DataTau frontend with little changes. In the future, we would like to improve it, keeping the HN simple / old fashioned front

Any chance you'll expose an API?

We are working on it. Wanted to launch asap to give the community a sense of continuity since the original DataTau has been down for too much time (since May 15), so had to give up some features for this early version.

We have to: - fix bugs - improve backend, algorithm to assign karma and sorting posts in frontpage - implement a newsletter with best posts - make an API - opensource the code when it is a bit more polished

Thanks. Looking forward to it.

Can I help out with handlr.sapico.me ?

It has a RSS-feed to item ( which is a link/post/comment for automation

I appreciate that you like the site and want to clone it, but it's extremely poor form (and extremely misleading) to give your clone the same name.

Not sure how it's misleading if it's the same product.

But it is not the same product, because it is not run by the same person. That matters.

So every time a product is bought out by a different company they should have to change the name?

You're making my point for me - that's a legally approved transfer of assets. This is not.

Your claim was that the distinction is that it is run by a different person, not that it wasn't a "legally approved transfer of assets".

I regret using the word "person." luv too be nitpicked on HN

The better version of my argument is "the product is not the same because it was not appropriately transferred between operators."

Of course this is all squishy and grey, since I don't believe DataTau filed a trademark claim, but moving forward with an identically-named product is still poor taste.

It was an already existing product and we wanted to stick to it as much as possible!

I don't think this excuses the cloning.

If you wanted to keep the project running, the first step would be to speak with the real site's maintainer to develop a plan.

We did it. Got no answer in a month.

honestly though looks like Rohit has been MIA for a little since there are a lack of tweets on his personal account since May, etc. Hope he is ok.

Website is broken. I clicked register without putting anything into the fields, and I got a registered account with no user name and password. Now if you click login without anything put in, you get logged in to my account, and if I comment, the username is blank.

Thank you for discovering this bug! We are (hot)fixing it. Had to delete your user though, please sign up again (with a normal username if possible :-D).

Define normal :) i now own the user " " with the password " " you might add trimming special characters and whitespace.

hahaha you're right! we've just setup the ^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]+$ regex for both username and password. Thanks for the pen-testing

Do you really want that regex for passwords also? Am I not allowed to put interesting characters in my password?

Not sure this is ideal either, it rejected the first password my password manager generated. Password should probably just be anything other than all whitespace, no? Maybe a length requirement.

Sorry guys, do you like ^[A-Za-z0-9@#$%^&+=]+$ for your passwords?

You should not regex check your passwords at all. Just check !="" and maybe check the length There is no reason why you should limit symbols for passwords.

This times 1000. Why would you regex check your password? Check for empty string and length and be done with it.

You are right. Django default auth backend handles this perfectly, but we wanted that functionality of login + signup in the same form, and that signup autofill in case login fail, so made our custom auth views and screw up some things (like username and password validation and going back to previous page after login)

Reminds me of [0], a forum for the Arc language (which HN is written in).

[0] http://arclanguage.org/forum

Also the public fork, Anarki[0], which I contribute to, and sometimes break.

[0]https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki

It went down a few times before and I reached out asking if he wanted help too. He did respond fairly promptly (< 2 days) and told me he was fine and about to get it back up. This happens every so often so I am glad you’re doing this.

Are the articles the same as he had? Did you get a snapshot before it went down?

Yes, the main goal of this new edition is a 24/7 up site with the same content :) We have in mind posting some old content since it can be recovered.

Please open source the code? Would love to run my own site (for a different purpose).

After we resolve all bugs we want to opensource it. If you give us your email we'll let you know when it is available. Here is our GitHub page: https://github.com/TheGurus

justin {at} cloudflaredotcom

Thanks!

p.s. I thought it was lobsters, but it doesn't appear to be ...hence I asked. :)

Consider https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters?

This seems to be what is being used.

What is DS?

Edit: based on one of the posts I assume data sciences

Data Science (yeah we had to shorten the title and made it a bit confusing)

Honestly due to lack of knowledge of the field or term my mind immediately actually jumped to supporting HN on the ancient Opera-based Nintendo DS browser - which, due to HN's text-only base - I figured was realistic.

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't. :P

Please add RSS on your todo list ;-)

Done. https://datatau.net/feed/

another try to comment edited

What is DS? Distributed systems? Data Science? That doesn’t feel like a commonly used acronym for either.

It is Data Science! You are not the only one asking :-D

I’m curious why you wouldn’t just setup a copy of the Lobste.rs system if you want threaded discussions about posted links.

Do you mean the frontend? In this case we choose to make a copy of HN because we really LOVE its retro frontend :)

No. I mean, lobste.rs is a complete working open source system that provides link sharing and discussion of said links, and is objectively better than HN’s functionality. Why didn’t you just install a copy of it?

Wow, to be honest we had no idea that it even existed. Thank you for the info, I imagine the idea was cloning: https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters and setting up with DataTau domain and custom .css to make it feel like HN

Could you explain why you believe Lobsters is objectively better than HN's functionality?

Downvotes require a reason; admin edits are logged for transparency; tagging; just to name a few off the top of my head.

I'm really not trying to derail the discussion. But this isn't a very compelling argument.

Does anyone know of a good write up comparing the two?

Then I’d suggest you need to pay more attention to the meta discussions on HN.

Sanctioned downvote misuse creating an echo chamber has always been a huge complaint.

For the case in hand it doesn’t even matter: HN is not open source, you can’t install it yourself so you can’t expect to mirror the algorithms for ranking etc.

Lobste.rs is open source.

That doesn't actually answer my question.

Sanctioned downvote misuse creating an echo chamber has always been a huge complaint.

That actually doesn't fit with my experience at all. I've been here nearly 10 years. (I mean it actually being an echo chamber. I'm aware people complain it is.)

I have a lobsters account. I don't spend much time there. I was collaborating with someone on an HN clone when I joined lobsters.

We talked a bit about some of the features on lobsters and whether or not to incorporate them into our site.

We had already added a tagging system.

The fact that you like lobsters better than HN is not some kind of objective measurement.

I'm not adequately knowledgeable to give my own list or rebut your opinion, nor am I trying to start drama. I'm genuinely curious as to how the two compare in some meaningful way, beyond your short blurb, which boils down being to your opinion.

In the interest of not derailing this discussion further, if anyone knows of a good write up, please let me know. My email is in my profile.

Thanks.

HN downvotes effectively hide comments from view.

HN policy is that "down vote for disagreement" is acceptable.

That is literally a recipe for creating an echo chamber. That isn't an opinion its fucking logic.

You are awfully quick to cuss at someone for merely having a difference of opinion about something that could be viewed as trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Ironic given that you are decrying the evils of a forum supposedly becoming an echo chamber.

I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the HN leader board.

I spent nearly six years homeless and was an active participant here during that time. I was quite open about being homeless.

I'm firmly against UBI when UBI is a fairly popular idea around here.

I'm critical of what I frame the "pro vax" crowd, which is a highly controversial position.

I've been thrown off of multiple forums or simply left because it wasn't productive.

Although I have a lobsters account, I barely spend any time there in part because of the gestapo like inquiry from the moderating staff concerning why the hell I had joined given that I don't yet know how to code. The moderating staff made it quite clear my nefarious interest in a coding forum as a non programmer combined with "unusual behavior" -- probably largely rooted in being a demographic outlier -- meant they absolutely had their eye on me.

This made me feel distinctly uncomfortable in a way I have never felt on HN. It also suggests a dramatically lower tolerance for social differences than HN has.

Your view of HN vs Lobsters and mine aren't remotely on the same page. And cussing at me about how you have logic on your side utterly fails to overturn the weight of my first-hand experience with both forums.

> You are awfully quick to cuss at someone for merely having a difference of opinion about something that could be viewed as trivial in the grand scheme of things.

I didn't swear because you have a different opinion. I swore because "well I don't think it is" is not a valid response to the logic posted.

> Ironic given that you are decrying the evils of a forum supposedly becoming an echo chamber.

I didn't silence you, or hide your comment from others. Please learn what irony is.

> I, I, I, <snip>

How is any of that relevant. Please discuss the facts. How you or I or the neighbours dog live is irrelevant.

> Although I have a lobsters account, I barely spend any time there in part because of the gestapo like inquiry from the moderating staff concerning why the hell I had joined given that I don't yet know how to code. The moderating staff made it quite clear my nefarious interest in a coding forum as a non programmer combined with "unusual behavior" -- probably largely rooted in being a demographic outlier -- meant they absolutely had their eye on me.

Given that Lobste.rs makes moderation actions public, please provide some references.

> how you have logic on your side utterly fails to overturn the weight of my first-hand experience with both forums.

Lets cut straight to the facts:

HN approves and agrees with "downvote to show disagreement". Fact.

HN by-default completely hides, and even with that option off, uses styling to reduce readability of any comment that is down voted. Fact.

Lobste.rs requires an actual reason to downvote, specifically to counter the type of things that occur on HN and other sites with similar features. Fact.

Lobste.rs does not "hide" down voted comments.

So please, tell me again how your anecdotal evidence is more relevant than the simple logic of how each site is designed to function?

Given that Lobste.rs makes moderation actions public, please provide some references

Contrary to how you believe the site operates, they private messaged me.

> Contrary to how you believe the site operates, they private messaged me.

Who is "they"? What comments/posts was it in reference to?

After I declined to publicly answer his overly personal inquiry, pushcx messaged me the following:

Hey Doreen,

After chatting with you about the text on the invite page I’m curious, what brought you to Lobsters? I can’t imagine it being especially interesting to people who aren’t developers or sysadmins. Why did you want to sign up and participate, what does Lobsters have that’s interesting to you?

It is, of course, extremely superficially polite. Except he asked me a question publicly. I declined to answer his personal question publicly. So he publicly stated that I was welcome to message him privately about it. I said no thanks, I'm good and then he messaged me privately.

So, in, other words, it wasn't an invitation. I wasn't allowed to decline to discuss it with him. I was actually required to answer his invasive questions.

Conversation he's referencing is here:

https://lobste.rs/s/sfzmwr/proposal_set_everyone_s_invite_co...

I don't intend to discuss this further with you.

But, in short, social issues are people problems and tech is merely a tool. Tech doesn't per se solve social problems. That's not actually how that works.

(In case it actually needs to be said, my handle over there is Doreen.)

Crossing into personal attack will get you banned here, regardless of how you feel about HN. You've unfortunately done this repeatedly and we've had to warn you repeatedly in the past.

Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and using this site as intended while you're here, even if it isn't your favorite?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Where did I attack her? I argued that anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

For one thing, "Please learn what irony is" is a personal swipe and you can't do that here.

More generally, can you please just not argue so aggressively on HN? It's not necessary, it invites worse from others, and it's a gigantic bummer.

Ok, duly noted. I should have said “that isn’t irony”. I’ll refrain from asking people to learn the meaning of the words they use in future.

> HN is not open source

That rather contradicts the submission you're commenting under.

So, by that logic if I make a desktop window manager that looks just like Windows, Windows is then Open Source?

I mean, really, what kind of argument is this? X builds a thing. Y copies the appearance of X's thing. An employee of X then claims that is evidence of X being open source.

If you want to refute my claim, where is the source code for HN?

An early version of HN is bundled with http://arclanguage.org/install.

One of these years we'll release an update that incorporates how HN has evolved over the years. But we have several other projects to get out first. Also we wouldn't do it without pg's blessing.

Wow, it derived in a meta discussion about HN/Lobste.rs.

We have been talking about implementing it, but our final decision is sticking to the original code and make it open source asap to make it better.

Our main reason is that lobste.rs is written in Rails and we would have to learn a new framework to adapt it to our needs, while Python (Django) is more extended among the Data Science practitioners (main target of DataTau and potential contributors).

An open sourced Python alternative may also be interesting for many people.

I was briefly involved with running an HN clone earlier this year. It had tagging and we talked about adding some of the features we liked from lobsters.

Best of luck with your project.

I've been looking for a good HN-type OSS for a long time. There have been a number of clones on Github but seem unreliable or unmaintained. Surprisingly, this is the first I've heard of lobsters, and it looks great. I really wish the project description actually contained the words "Hacker News" or even "Reddit" and "board/discussion board" so that people could actually find the project when searching for it!

The site was explicitly created by a dude banned from HN (an action since regretted by pg) so don’t hold your breath.

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