A little bit on TwitchTV, a little bit on Discord, and a little on Reddit, but, honestly, I feel pretty lonely on the Internet these days.

I've been on Reddit for over 15 years and yeah, it feels quite different than it did early on. I can't really stand browsing r/all or r/popular at all.

I miss the days of having 255 friends on AIM, trout slaps on well-populated mIRC channels, and never-ending threads on niche Ultimate Bulletin Board forums.

> I've been on Reddit for over 15 years and yeah, it feels quite different than it did early on. I can't really stand browsing r/all or r/popular at all.

It's because the age gap, the average redditor is way too young. In a discussion the other day an user sent me to "get bullied at school"... I am in my 40s.

The new layout, putting attached images and videos on the index, ruined Reddit forever. I recently went there to see what thoughts people on there had on a specific subject, only to find nothing but a stream of meme and social media posts. You really can't call it a forum anymore.

> I miss the days of having 255 friends on AIM, trout slaps on well-populated mIRC channels, and never-ending threads on niche Ultimate Bulletin Board forums.

Yeah me too. Another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43409370) expresses a similar dismay at the lack of really engaged discussion.

I have a theory that this phenomenon is largely the result of smartphones and the concomitant constant connection to the internet. Paradoxically, being always connected has made it harder to connect.

It used to be that in order to participate in a real-time conversation, you had to be sitting at your computer. You were ready to chat. You would chat with other people who were also at their computers ready to chat. When you were done you would put up your away message and re-enter the real world.

If you wanted to post on a bulletin board or some other non-real-time forum, again you had to be at your computer. You would post what you wanted to post. When you left and came back later you would check to see if anyone replied and you'd be excited to read their comments. (LiveJournal is the thing that sticks in my mind for this; it was big when I was in college.)

Now, instead of being either online, ready to engage, or offline, engaging in person, people are always half and half. Also, smartphones have driven the proliferation of "notifications", which then have been abused by apps to the point where people are constantly deluged with so many notifications that they can't distinguish the ones they might actually care about. (I've had glimpses of this when I use someone else's tablet or phone for some reason.) Since everyone is assumed to be always reachable, there's no perceived need to say "bye" or indicate when you are temporarily not paying attention to a sync interaction, so those interactions come in unpredictable spurts. And since everyone can always check everything from their phone, responses in async interactions are often dashed off haphazardly. So we get a sort of worst-of-both-worlds mix of sync and async.

Bluesky has some good content if you curate your feeds and algorithm (it's fully customisable). Also spend a lot of time on Twitter but I don't recommend it.

Reddit can be okay if you choose the right niche subreddits -- stay away from the main page subreddits. Among the niche subreddits, I find location-based subreddits and subreddits for podcasts to be good sources for unique communities.

I've been seeing more AI slop being posted on reddit even on smaller subreddits. Whatever people are using to do it likes to somewhat randomly bold certain words to emphasize them so it stands out a bit once you notice it.

It's always wild to me that anyone actually uses reddit by looking at the front page or r/all or whatever. For years when I would go to reddit.com I was like "why is this even a thing". It's only once I found a few small subreddits that I found anything useful there. Most of it is a firehose of garbage.

Many discord servers, each focusing on different interests. The communities are small enough that you can have actual conversations without a lot of noise. I just wish these communities were on a less centralized and less closed platform.

Reddit used to be great, but these days, it's mostly rage bait and state actors astroturfing all of the popular subreddits.

I joined several discords, some of significant size, but I just cannot understand how to start/join a conversation. I just see silence or some random Q&A that dies within a few rounds of back and forth.

I really wanna do some goofy chatting and socialize online in real time, but I must be doing it wrong because it seems like nobody's there. I also tried IRC (went in for the first time in 20 years?!), same story there. Probably I am the problem, but any suggestions?

I have the exact same issue. I'm in a ton of Discord servers but have never found a way to hold a conversation like I used to on IRC in the 2000s. I also assumed that I must be the problem, but now I'm not sure anymore.

It depends on the server. The best discussions I've found are ones targeted at hobbies which have both a lot of new people looking to get started and some old timers who provide advice and guidance and answer questions.

Yes, this has been my experience. There are Programming language or framework servers, but they typically don't have a great social scene. People just drop by to ask questions or to discuss features. The ones around hobbies and interests are more vibrant for socializing.

Mastodon and RSS feeds. I’m also trying to write more long form stuff, and that definitely helps keeping conversations going.

I check out Lemmy maybe once or twice a month.

lemmy is pretty sparse outside of tech-ish instances. hard to get excited about it sometimes.

double edged sword of platform adoption -- no one is there so you dont go, but if you don't go no one is there.

What RSS feeds do you subscribe to?

A friend of mine mentioned RSS a few months ago. I asked him for a copy of his feed, and he gracefully sent me a curated list of about 30-50 blogs, job boards, and news.

I’ve removed some and added some. Anytime I come across an interesting blog post (here, Lemmy, Masto) I add the blog’s feed to my RSS reader. If the long-term content doesn’t match my taste I remove it unceremoniously.

FreshRSS can actually subscribe to a hosted OPML file, so you can share a curated blog list (or multiple) easily.

> A friend of mine mentioned RSS a few months ago. I asked him for a copy of his feed, and he gracefully sent me a curated list of about 30-50 blogs, job boards, and news.

Post the list. It could be a good starting point for people new to RSS.

Do you mind giving some insight into what you like/dislike about the RSS reader you’re using?

Every Mastodon account has an RSS feed built into it.

Bluesky and a couple discord channels related to entomology and botany. I really like each at the moment. My usage is pretty limited, and the quality of time spent is really high. I feel like HN is the same. Since dropping Reddit and Twitter my internet usage has been a lot more positive.

I found the discord channels somewhat by chance. When you’re into specific things and ask a lot of questions, inevitably you’ll wind up meeting similar people.

As for Bluesky, I was just too burned out on Twitter and was willing to give something else a shot. My feed was initially a bunch of mycological photography, birding photography, far more moderate and constructive politics, and some lists of people in tech that I seeded my following list with. It was so much easier to read and engage with, and the transition was very natural. I’m glad I made the change.

Bluesky has led to discovering a few substacks that I enjoy a lot too. I definitely wouldn’t have found them on Twitter.

What do you mean when you say that Reddit is too mainstream for you?

I mostly read RSS feeds and hang out on Mastodon. I don't really chat anywhere anymore, not since I left the last IRC channel years ago. I occasionally miss it, but haven't found anything that comes close enough.

Not sure if this is what they meant, but Reddit is just Facebook for younger people. The outrage is the same, the click bait, the like hunting and the general attention seeking. There's some good stuff, absolutely, but the same is true for Facebook.

If you're not part of a sub-culture, and a narrow one at that, then Reddit content is pretty much your run of the mill click bait. Just like with Facebook, I think that the good Reddit content is either in private or really niche sub-reddits. Things like AskReddit, Politics, AITA or any of the subreddits linked at the top of site, they are all pretty Facebook like content, just spewing out much faster.

I don't know; reddit still has long-term, threaded discussions without character limit and a forum-like interface if you are using ~sane reddit~ sorry, I mean "old reddit". That is quite different from facebook, niche groups or not.

My theory is that they keep old.reddit.com around to generate training data for the AI companies.

If they know what is good for them, they will keep it for that reason at least. Because trying to read and write long form discussions in the "new" interface is a joke.

I installed a Chrome extension that converts reddit URLs to old.reddit, because reading an entire discussion on new reddit is almost impossible, and clearly not something they intend you to do.

the day that old.reddit stops working is the day I never use the platform again

I'm not sure what this word salad is trying to say. I've read it several times now, and I still don't get it. Your reference to "proper societies" and "broken skulls" is a bit worrysome.

No prob! I will rephrase - just be aware that a "salad" is not structured, and what you read above is quite the opposite. My difficulty is that it is not clear what may not be clear to you.

Maybe an instance? That website is divided in sections, each with its own population, and you will easily find many of the form "Those who believe that the moon should be rebuilt with cheese can come here to support each other in this blind persuasion, chanting hooligan choirs (intellectual arguments will be out of place here) against the rest (the "profligates", the "heretic" etc.), so the community can feel strong".

So, you will find hooligans vocally expressing their persuasions (not defending it - just shouting it), proposing world views that would instead require some intellectual defense (hence the mention of Popper), and interpreting phenomena according to the dogma of that world view, painting the world accordingly ("to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail").

I do not know what you could not understand, so I can only rephrase the other post.

> worrysome

Good, in general - people today are so relaxed! So relaxed they abuse their freedom. If you visited the site in question, you would find an abundance of participants that out of their "relaxation" will abuse you, protected by the distance of the web page. If the abusers went directly to some group of people in person, physically in front of the abused, what would follow would either be restrained violence and the Social effort, expressed in verbal and non verbal communication, to put the offender back in the framework of proper behaviour, or finally that actual violence that was once called "teaching a lesson".

Edit: addendum: the moderation you can find in that place is of the form "Sorry to hear that an apparent minor is taunting you, would you like us to hide its posts?". Normal, correct reply: "No, I want you to correct the brat and teach it manners, as duly in a supposed community".

That's a lot to write to just say that there is online disinhibition effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect

Thank you! Owing to some contingent stressors, I currently can't get out of overly analytical language.

But note that the user asked for explanations in both posts, so a concise formula like "online disinhibition effect" probably leaves questions instead of answering them.

And in fact, it is not «just» disinhibition: it is the intent to promote "guts" as opposed to "brains".

--

"The president has said that the moon moves the seas, what a belch, roar, roar, rise!" // "Actually it does." // "Down with the defender of the president!"

"The president has just saved a child falling from a skyscraper, pouring out love and the wrath of his enemies, should not we feel elated!" // "Are you sure that happened?" // "Down with the opposer of the president!"

That is a sample of what you may find there. If you were a humorist without ideas, maybe...

This question comes up from time to time, only to prove on each iteration there is nothing like HN.

Surely there's a sampling bias here.

The most likely people to respond on a thread like this are those spending the most time on HN, and thus least likely to be spending it elsewhere. The user sharing time between 5 communities might not even see the thread.

My favourite is a private local slack group. It is a group of mainly software devs who chatted on public groups and dealt with a couple of trolling / bad behaviour situations, so we made a private invite only slack. It's really nice, it's super active compared to even much larger interest based chat groups I'm in. It's a safe place, it has about 60 members, I've met a lot of people in it in person. There are some other employees of the place I work on there, which is a little awkward because I'm a team lead and I goof off there a bit, but there are private channels (private within private!) for the core group.

Are you ever worried that someone in the group will get mad and start leaking conversations?

Sure but you might get worried that any friend would do the same if you communicate in a way that can be recorded.

Honestly, reddit. There is loads of garbage but some subreddits are just gold, like the data engineering subreddit.

could you and some others list some of the subreddits worth visiting?

Are you looking for sharp wit or to learn things? Has a huge influence on which subreddits to recommend.

Which subs would you recommend for sharp wit?

Sharp wit: r/redscarepod, and it's spinoff subreddits (e.g. /r/rs_x) are quite snarky and ironic. r/TimAndEric. r/DecodingTheGurus.

Intelligent content: r/slatestarcodex, r/EzraKlein, r/ReproducibilityCrisis, r/wikipedia, programming language subreddits, occasionally r/interestingasfuck.

learn things, personally

Private Slack, WhatsApp and Signal groups are the most valuable to me.

Ditto Signal. In my local city some Burning Man regulars created a giant Signal group for sharing parties and events. Nearly a thousand members in the same city who post about something to do any night of the week. It's lovely. To join you just need somebody within the group to vet you and you're in.

Group chats reign supreme once you are in good ones.

In order of precedence.

0. Meatspace.

1. IRC, mostly on rizon and a bit on libera.

2. Imageboards that don't require accounts.

3. General web, via some shell scripts I've written that give me pseudorandom content from various aggregators.

4. HN

5. Discord, but it I try to avoid as much as possible for ideological reasons.

6. Public unix system micro-blogs/gopher-holes.

Thanks! This is a fun list with a lot I want to read further on

I am working on a slashdot alternative. Link is in my profile. I’m in no hurry to grow the user base really.

What I’m trying to do is understand the world a bit better and encourage civil discussion.

I’m building this without relying on the internet behemoths.

Constructive criticism welcome.

In my house and at friends houses, sometimes in cafes or the local maker space.

Mainly The Guardian and Mastodon

Other sites include 404Media, Wired, The Newyorker, BBC News.

Private Signal groups, and my own BBS: https://bbs.sneak.berlin.

Discord for online hobbies.

Real life (and associated group chats) for social interaction. Board game group, local motorcycling group, some other friends.

Bluesky Reddit ArsTechnica

Mastodon never catched on for me

The rest is local news or sports

I browse Australia and New Zealand tech topics on Scratch News Australia. https://scratchnews.io

Their Bluesky is weirdly entertaining to subscribe to. https://bsky.app/profile/scratchnews.io

For sorting the full throttle new Hacker News content, when browsing time is limited, I'm a big fan of https://hckrnews.com

I know you put an explainer in there... but sorry, this looks like a phishing attack to get my HackerNews password.

But i don't even need your hn password. You create a completely new account on my page. To prove ownership of your account all you have to do is put a key into your public profile which i check via the public hn api. At no point i ask for your hn password.

Would probably help if you would add an explainer somewhere. I have no idea what the site is or does.

Sure, it's actually exactly what the domain name suggests. You need an hn account to sign up* and then you can write personal messages to other (signed up) users.

*the registration process requires you to put a key into your public profile, to make sure it's your account. This key can be removed once signup is completed. There is no need of an email and i do not collect any data whatsoever.

IRL

I don’t. This my go to.

Tildes and Lobste.rs. And I’m hopeful for the Digg revival to take off in the right direction.

Both of those look neat! How did you get an invite?

Didn't know about Tildes, seems interesting.

They are part of the "smolnet" if I am using that terminology correctly (including the Gemini protocol https://geminiprotocol.net/). Other sites I will browse or lurk include, Lemmy (join-lemmy.org) Reddit alternative, Mastodon, BlueSky, SDF.org 's IRC, Matrix, some Telegram communities, lobste.rs, HN and ideally IRL at 2600 meetings https://www.2600.com/meetings, conferences, Linux User Groups (LUGs) etc. I still browse Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram occasionally. For 1:1 communication I most often use SMS texting/iMessage, regular phone calls, FaceTime video, and Facebook Messenger to talk to other American friends, family, etc. To talk with technical people and folks abroad, I'll use email, Telegram, Viber, Skype, Signal, WhatsApp, and rarely Instagram Messenger, all of which I need to get better at staying on top of.

Can pidgin be configured to work with all of those messengers?

Some of them, yes. See https://pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=Protoco... for a list of third party protocol plugins.

can you please refer me for Tildes account

What is this and what does it have to do with tildes?

If you take the definition of tilde from tilde.verse {tildes are pubnixes in the spirit of tilde.club, which was created in 2014 by paul ford} then it should be relatively straightforward to see why that address is related.

Lobste.rs

Same

Basically a second chance front-page for days old HN news.

even if it's the same stuff, it's interesting to see different comments

I think a lot of the time, I find more value in the comments and discussion than the actual article

I often find stuff on Lobste.rs a few days before it hit HN.

Mostly lobste.rs, since it's more programming focussed than HN.

rdrama.net

Discord for specific hobbies and groups.

Tildes, Lobste.rs and Lemmy for generic content

Mastodon and BlueSky for more personal things.