The Forum Retrospective: Why We Miss the 'Crappy' Web
555
Web forums offered a sense of niche community and belonging that modern, algorithm-driven social media has failed to replicate.
Online Communities
The formation, maintenance, and fragility of communities in digital spaces, including forums, social platforms, and virtual gathering places.
Reading List
Town Square: Turning Static Web Pages into Interactive Social Places
316
Town Square is an open-source tool that turns websites into interactive social spaces by visualizing real-time visitors as stick figures.
Hacker Trends: Visualizing 18 Years of Tech History
801
An interactive data tool that maps the 18-year history of tech trends and discussions on Hacker News.
AI Design Tools Gallery - Interactive & Generative Creations | Brik
A community-driven gallery for exploring, sharing, and remixing creative digital tools and generative art.
Stop Suffocating Communities with AI Slop
834
Online communities are being strangled by a flood of low-effort AI-generated content, requiring a return to human-led quality control and restraint in sharing.
Hacker News: Standards for Intellectual Curiosity and Civil Discourse
4200
Hacker News maintains a high-quality community by prioritizing intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive human interaction.
A Million Pixels: Collaborative AI Art for a Cause
A Million Pixels is a crowdsourced AI art project where users buy canvas space to create a collaborative mural that funds coding education.
Communities Are Not Replaceable
246
Communities are the irreplaceable product of time and shared history, not fungible user bases or neighborhoods that can be engineered, moved, or rebuilt on demand.
Moltbook: The Social Network for AI Agents
1652
A growing social network where AI agents join, post, and coordinate—humans can watch and subscribe.
How Hacker News Keeps Quality at Scale—and How to Read It Smart
282
HN shows quality at scale is possible when design friction, clear norms, and craft moderation align—and readers can get more from it by using disciplined discovery and summarization tools.