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Comment by tomdale | Hacker News Reader

I've been beta testing Discourse for a few months now, and can tell you that this is going to have a huge impact on how we have discussions online.

Jeff Atwood has more insights into how humans communicate in an hour than I do in a year. Those insights are built right into the software, and I think that will help many communities take off that would otherwise collapse under the weight of trolls and apathy.

On a more selfish note, I'm excited to have an open source Ember.js app available from two of the best JavaScript developers in the world—Robin Ward and Sam Saffron. It's a great resource for the Ember community. If you haven't yet, make sure you head over to GitHub and check out what a modern Ember app looks like.

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What problem does Discourse solve that Hacker News doesn't solve right now?

EDIT: Obviously it has a modern, nice interface. That's a win. But I mean more specifically, what problem of human dynamics does it solve that Hacker News doesn't solve?

It's GPL, so I can plug it into my own nefarious schemes and makes miiiiiiiillions.

You realize Discourse isn't just for the hacker crowd?

Yes, but Jeff's post seems to suggest that there's something special in the design that contributes to more civilized discussion. I'm curious as to what that is. For example, does having a modern interface do that all by itself? Is there something special about the moderation interface? Little tricks isomorphic to the way HN makes you wait before replying to replies, and so on?

Whether used by hackers or not, these design features interest me greatly.

Community moderation based on increasing levels of trust worked well for StackOverflow and appears to be implemented for this as well. It's not unique to SO, but it works really well there and not (IMO) for Slashdot, so perhaps there is some difference that matters.

HN relies on a panel of hand-picked moderators, right? It works for HN, but perhaps not in other contexts.

Isn't that what karma thresholds are for on HN?

I guess I don't have enough Karma to know how much moderation I could get in HN -- thought it was limited to downvoting. In SO, it gets quite thorough and you also get prompted to do some moderation (approve edits, etc).

A lot of the moderation stuff and trust metrics isn't visible on the surface. And to be honest, we've only implemented the first two (new user, not-new user) and final (appointed moderator) trust levels at the moment.

One way to think of this is as follows: what happens when posts get flagged? What's the sequence, who knows about it, and how? For that matter, who can flag?

We do have basic rate limits throughout the app, and they're all configurable as well.

Much of this has to evolve. I'd love your input on it, too!

I think the one word answer to Reginald's question is: curation.

I really think you are onto something. If you can bring the goodness from StackOverflow (automaticly gaining privileges based on how you interact etc) and provide a place for interesting discussions (yes, it seriously bugs me when several of the best answers i find on SO are marked as "Closed as not constructive.")

Looking forward to see it in use. Hopefully this will provide a more modern way to ask all those important questions that needs discussion.

Wait, your saying how awesome its trust metric is and how it will change everything. Then you say no one can see it. Then you admit that its not implemented yet.

This looks to be a technical solution to a social problem. What exactly is wrong, from a participant's perspective, with existing forum software? Sure, EE and phpBB et al are terrible technologies, but are the needs of the various communities really not being met? If so, how is Discourse an improvement?

HN isn't meant to solve the same problems as Discourse. Both attack on a common problem, which is making discussion meaningful, but the context is widely different. HN isn't meant to be used as a forum, it is a news discussion board, topics loose relevancy after just a couple days. Try adding lots of value to a topic by posting a reply after 48 hours, chances are, almost no one will see it, and even less people will reply to it. Forums don't work that way, you get discussions in forums which can last sometimes even years.

And considering other forum options, Discourse has probably a killer feature, which is "Best of" a thread. Forums are horrible for documentation, after a meaningful discussion topics usually go dead, and if you want to read an old topic (but relevantt to you) with 500 pages (or even just 20), it is painful, you don't need to read every single comment, and Discourse's "Best of" will (should) fix that. That is powerful.

HN has the problem that a high-voted comment that floats to the top, that might have a whole tree of less interesting discussion under it, keeps everything else stuck miles down the page.

So one persons comment can effectively derail most of the people viewing the thread into a cul-de-sac of discussing one specific point.

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