I feel I am building a new Google Wave

(I wonder how I could get it to interface with a Rails app? Would there be problems just connecting it to the app's database, to get/store user accounts and stats, for example?)

Here's the github repo containing the open-source fork of it: https://github.com/cheshirecats/CuriousWall

Thanks cheshirecat, you've done a great thing here.

- There's no reason to have the scroll bar of the thread list on the left. Hiding it unless you hover directly over it is also not a good idea. It should appear when the mouse hovers anywhere over the entire thread list.

- I strongly hate non-browser-native scrolling (scroll by javascript in an effort to style the scroll bar using css and javascript). It never feels right, or fluid. There IS a way to hide the scrollbars until the mouse hovers over the element that requires scrolling. Example: http://www.repcmods.com (abandoned prototype) (hover over the horizontal galleries) It's all done using css :hover and no javascript. The element with the scrollbar is set to overflow:hidden and on :hover it's set to overflow-y:auto; It may or may not work for you. Fix everything else first before coming back to this one.

- It's missing some white space toward the bottom making it feel really cluttered down there. Give the #left_panel and #mid_panel elements a padding-top:12px; and give .xpadbox a margin of margin:0 24px 5px;

- Also give the element #mid a padding-top:9px; so its lined up correctly. You'll have to also move up the links on in the top right of the mid panel to match as well.

- When posting a reply, the "preview" and "post" links should really be buttons not just text and they should be on the left and the text "sign up to bump, Online: 1002 users, etc..." should be on the right.

- When I open up the setting tab in the threads list it needs to stay red so the user knows they need to click it again to close the settings.

- Get rid of the dashed border bottom between threads and posts. It's too visually intrusive. Change it from dashed to dotted, instead.

- Hiding controls under the whole "to top/toggle functions" bar is completely unnecessary. As a young designer I used to hide a lot of elements thinking it would look nice and minimal and clean. Later on I find out it's one of the worst things you can do to your users. Your design is already minimal, it's already clean, don't over do it. Just keep the elements there, don't hide them.

There's a lot of confusing UI here but that's the end of my free consultation.

Technical and design accolades aside, IMHO I would not call this an improvement on existing discussion forums. In Part 4 of his post "Building a Better Online Community", he implies that a major problem is the signal to noise ratio. This web app has not solved that problem.

The extremely low barrier to participation, while inline with privacy ethics and democratic ethics, unfortunately removes important incentives to creating quality content. It is however, successful at enhancing anonymity and removing the (burdensome?) requirement of identifying oneself.

Let's take a step back and re-assess what we're looking at. It's not an improved discussion forum, it's an improved chatroom app, plain and simple. And for that, I credit it with certain innovation.

Here's a screenshot: https://plus.google.com/100419497458726670190/posts

Though I like Ivory's goal and aspirations.

Here's some suggestions, keep in mind these are essentially my personal opinions:

-Try putting some thought into making the functionality a little more intuitive, by this I mean to try and not necessitate having to hover too much to discover functionality. As a designer I know how difficult this is to do without spoiling aesthetics, so good luck (but I think you need to do this).

-Host this as a SaaS and make money, I image businesses would love to use this as a way to gather user feedback and talk to users.

-Categories would be nice. Right now it's just one "board" (in the traditional "online forum" sense where the set hierarchy is forum>board>thread>post). I'd find it cool if I could say visit a "sports" category, or a "Tech" category, and especially a "Hacker news" one. Think subreddits.

-The "navigation" is a little unintuitive, on the left column where it says "Threads", "Lists", "Users". When in threads mode, the other modes are listed underneath it, suggesting that they form a child relationship to Threads, whereas they're really siblings.

-I'd dispense with the little arrows under "Home" on the left column, and move the refresh button onto the same line as the Create and Home links/buttons. It doesn't really add anything. Up and down could be implemented using infinite scrolling and would be more intuitive. Left and right could be replaced by making aggregating all the different views ("My threads", "Users", "Replies", etc.) into a flyout or dropdown list, accessible by hovering the currently active mode title. This would also mean you could dispense with the 3 bottons on the bottom left next to the settings button.

-Speaking of that settings button, it doesn't have much to do with searching, instead I'd move it closer to the "user button", which you don't really have but will definitely need. Opening the user pane on the right, and then clicking the username to reveal "log out", etc. isn't easy to find.

-You probably don't need all the corner hovers, they don't really do anything useful IMHO.

-Fluid layout so it works well on mobile devices

-The reading mode is cool but you probably don't need it everywhere.

Good luck, I love the idea. Hope this goes somewhere.

Scrolling is broken (and slow) on an iPad, it's apparently using some javascript scrolling lib that could be replaced with -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;

[1] http://blog.oak.io/

I've written a progressive enhanced forum (for mobile) and think there's a lot of room for some re-thought ways how forums could work.

But!

I did find navigating around PIvory a little hard work. I definitely had to think and discover. A lot of menu options aren't visible until you click in certain areas. That's great from a clean-design point of view, but frustrating for a new user.

I love the grey scheme, with the only colour being when you hover over icons. That said, hi-lighting your posts (and leaving your image always in colour) would be nice.

It really is an awesome effort. I'm inspired.

Any tactics for blocking repeat trouble makers? You mentioned blocking by IP in your docs.

I've run a forum (1,100 posts/month) for about eight years which also allows anonymous posting as well as accounts/avatars/etc. Users blocked by IP usually reconnect with their ISP to get a new IP and run amok anew. I also have blacklisted words and phrases which can stop some problems, but not all. I end up blocking IP classes from anonymous posting to eliminate troublesome regions.

Any plans/thoughts beyond that?

(Found your forum concept initially confusing, but I greatly admire your effort and the thought that's gone into it. I think you've created something intriguing!)

Other than that, this site seems pretty neat!

I like the idea, though. Looks great on bigger devices.

This a testament as to how the tool does not really matter in good hands.

This must be running on the custom-tailored C++ HTTP server, Ivory: https://github.com/cheshirecats/Ivory

Why did you feel the popular options don't cut it for your needs?

The design is great though, and the formatting on posts is excellent

* Markdown.

* Remove "guest" from the Users list.

* Reading mode should have much larger text. Remember what sites like Instapaper, Readility, ReadItLater have given people.

* Some way of voting up insightful comments. I don't think the shit storm that you're currently experiencing in spam is currently solved...

* Tiny icons hiding lots of features and the awkward way of getting to the 'reply' links is poor usability.

This is what I get when I try to visit the page:

Your browser does not have window.WebSocket object :-(

Try the lastest version of Chrome or Firefox or Safari.

I know that I have to update, but realize that not everyone has the latest/greatest stuff out there. Also, if I visit your page without JS it doesnt show anything (at all).

What's the revenue model here? How's it going to make money?

I like the expand button on the top right. Its nice for longer posts. Definitely keep the good work.

The title sounds inflated but you win me, :)

But design wise, it's simple and clean, I like it :)

The founder himself stayed at my place using airbnb this summer. I'm a YC alum. He has one of the most interesting founding stories I've ever heard. He is a Siberian-Kazakhstani hacking competition winner who knows Judo and runs a series of small businesses in Russia. Bars that partake in sportsbetting-all Legal. He designed the software as a way to manage his businesses with his founders and grew it into something more.