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Comment by streamofdigits | Hacker News Reader

How different is really microblogging from forums? Given how simple this entire domain (we are really talking about different database views of rather simple sets data points) it should be really easy to structure things so that people get the "slice" and experience they are interested in and comfortable with.

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>How different is really microblogging from forums?

From user standpoint?

Significant.

No any "modern" approach, let it be - reddit, twitter, hackernews, fb groups, discord, mailing lists maybe? gets even close when it comes to quality/merit of discussions that forum can enable

I mean from a technical server / client perspective.

I agree that from a user perspective it can create very different "illusions" and (over the long run) even modify people's behavior - which is scary if you think about it: simple choices at the technical level can change society

If you added "Categories" to HN (group by business, startups, programming, yada yaa)

added notifications on reply

removed three-like structure

and allowed threads to be bumped

then you'd have forum which would mean that you'd have longer and deeper discussions

There's a view that takes a hybrid approach and utilises microblogs (typically Twitter or Mastodon) to provide / curate comments on blog posts or essays. To that extent, the approaches are complements.

I'm very leery of unmoderated comments these days, but combining focus of a blog with reach of microblogging seems a reasonably decent match.

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