The open-source "svblte like" blogging platform
simvla.net
Simvla is an open source Publishing Platform and Blogging Network.
simvla.net
I haven't dug into Simvla enough to see if it has some of the interesting backend features—I hope so because otherwise this seems to be an academic exercise (pointing out on simvla.com that "there're many publishing platforms out there; hosted or non-hosted solutions are popping out like snails after a storm").
Such assessment doesn't answer my personal question about why so many people are fixated with emulating, comparing and flat out copying Svbtle.
Dustin outlined some very cool design decisions when he first introduced Svbtle, but the presentation of final content wasn't incredibly unique which further confuses me. He shared some interesting workflow ideas which people are free to share, so why insist on publicly using Svbtle as some arbitrary benchmark?
Gives me the looks and feel of svbtle for reading and posting without needing to abandon WordPress.
[0] https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle [1] http://shkspr.mobi/blog/
I like how easy it is so get started with wordpress (PHP environment + famous simple "installer") and I find it's popularity staggering (very high proportion of ALL new websites)
However, after making custom themes and modules, and trying to hack others, and doing a fairly lengthy performance review I must say I intensely dislike it from a development perspective, particularly the architecture (or comparatively lack of).
I have a vision of a clean, well written and architected MVC blogging platform that is a joy to use for both users and developers.
It would have to be PHP/MySQL (simvla is Rails and unfortunately this just cuts off most of the market), I would use an established framework (CakePHP would be my preference).
I have been debating for about 12 months just writing it (possibly forking wordpress to help the core developers follow my decisions) but I know adoption would be governed by users, and do they want to change? No!
I've almost resigned myself to the fact that no matter how good my intentions, it would just end up another "snail after a storm"
I share your dislikes of Wordpress though, and decided that writing a blogging platform myself was simpler than trying to hack Wordpress into doing what I wanted.
As someone over here said, it is best to ignore such 'elitist' blog networks, because when you tear them apart into pieces, they're also mostly shit, like any other network and are no different.
Stay away, next time when someone tells you their platform is for 'elitists' and invite only. The best things in life are the ones that give everyone an equal opportunity to speak out their mind.
Still, I like this and if I weren't already happy with Octopress I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. I just didn't like their answer to the "Isn't this like Svbtle?" questions. You know, if you're gonna be a Svbtle copy then own it! There's absolutely no shame in that at all.
What quality? Most posts (over all aggregated contributors) are BS. 1 in 15 is maybe worth it.
As an user, if I want to read high quality stuff I go here on HN, or to specific sub reddits: news aggregators are solving the problem of quality for me.
Instead it seems that the idea of having a closed network helps more to solve the problem of bloggers to have a quality, like-minded, audience.
If the goal is to promote good quality posts, then it could be open, and only promote the top voted posts.
Or if this list of bloggers are so great at blog posts, why do they need these achievements adorning their posts?
Look at the Gemfile, which was committed as a conflicted file.
https://raw.github.com/iamues/Simvla-Network/c316e42ad85dcb1...
If you're going to duplicate Svbtle, part of that is understanding the Dustin Curtis™ way of thinking. Simple, uncluttered, straightforward. This is just an absolute hackjob with a layer of paint to give the illusion of Svbtle. The essence is not there.
the Dustin Curtis™ way of thinking. Simple, uncluttered,
straightforward.
http://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html#hostname=https://...
edit: Sorry that is simvla.com, but my point still stands.
edit: Sorry, I missed the typo there, but it's still invalid for SIMVLA.com as well.
I think the signup page asks for far too much. First name, last name, email are fine, but then it asks for profession, icon, bio and a network color. I don't even know what a network color is, and I don't see that anywhere that it is explained.
The admin panel has a few inconsistent UI choices and I think falls victim to the notion that a simple color palette = minimalism. The writing panel is cluttered in my opinion, and doesn't seem to have had much thought put into it aside from copying what Svbtle has publicized. That isn't necessarily horrible as an MVP of course, but this doesn't show any improvement or uniqueness. That also isn't a crime, but I think that the changes made for the sake of being different were just that, and weren't evaluated for placement or use case studies.
This may seem overly critical, but it isn't intended to be so, but I think this shows telltale signs of being a copycat without having given much thought to the reasons WHY Svbtle is so appealing.
To paraphrase somebody (perhaps Kevin Smith) -- the reasons that most (movie) sequels fail are because they're copying the wrong thing. Most people look at Jaws and see a shark and a boat, but in reality, there's a love story there, there are ties of camaraderie, a tale of obsession, yadda yadda. Remakes capture the bit about the shark, and not much else, and I feel that's where this is falling down.
That isn't to say that it can't be turned around, but I recommend to the author to watch how people use it and try to make some decisions that aren't based on the Svbtle screenshots.
It's a good-looking project that shipped, and I feel like a lot of the criticism here isn't terribly constructive, and I hope that this is (but maybe it isn't). Grats to the author and good luck, but I think that the path to success is maybe a little more involved.