8 ms·

This is quite cool, but I'm wondering why we need to re-invent the wheel for all those threaded discussion platforms. The OG is definitely email. What would re

This is quite cool, but I'm wondering why we need to re-invent the wheel for all those threaded discussion platforms. The OG is definitely email. What would really rock would be an IMAP gateway which you subscribe to with your favorite email client which then gives you threading, read/unread markers etc. It could abstract different front-page days as folders and each submission as the root of a thread. Then you could use whatever email client you like the most, with all their decades of polishing. It could even support replying to threads. And it could support different "backends", like HN, reddit, whatnot. Anybody? That's something I'd pay for. Or do I need to keep dreaming?

ciex 3y ago
Email has terrible thread navigation and I consider old.reddit.com with reddit enhancement suite the best in class.
- kevincox 3y ago
  > Email has terrible thread navigation This doesn't make sense. Email is a protocol, not a UI. It would be fairly easy to make a UI that displays email like Reddit threads (the hardest part is probably stripping quoted replies). Thunderbird can display the discussion tree, but doesn't inline the message content. GMail inlines message content but linearizes the thread. I am not aware of any clients that inline the discussion content in a tree view.
- hugatest 3y ago
  Then you need a better mail client.
salted-fry 3y ago
I've been using an incredibly stupid bash script to do this; you've finally given me the push to publish it here: https://github.com/krsiehl/hn2mdir https://github.com/krsiehl/hn2mdir Run mkdir -p /path/to/some/directory/{cur,new,tmp}, then ./hn2mdir.bash /path/to/some/directory/, and it'll crawl Algolia's HN API to dump a bunch of emails, one for each post/comment. You can read it with mutt -f /path/to/some/directory. Syncing with IMAP left as an exercise to the reader (I'm using mbsync). Note that it gets large, fast, and may break your IMAP server; I periodically run find ~/Mail/HN -type f -mtime +30 -delete to clear it out. Edit: should clarify, this is read-only, I've never bothered to set up any kind of response functionality
- hugatest 3y ago
  Wow, this is brilliant!
kalleboo 3y ago
For me the OG for threaded discussions is Usenet. I remember reading threads using a UI like this (not my screenshot but this is the client I used, MacSOUP): http://www.fen-net.de/mac/bilder/macsoup/Thread.gif http://www.fen-net.de/mac/bilder/macsoup/Thread.gif There were also keyboard shortcuts to make navigating efficient. Having a Usenet gateway seems like it would make a lot more sense from a technical standpoint than an email gateway
- tpmx 3y ago
  You're technically correct, but aren't Usenet gateways a bit out of date? I thought Usenet was primarily used for, eh distributing linux isos these days. I made a bidirectional gateway to/from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LysKOM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LysKOM protocol (based on the design of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOM_(BBS) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOM_(BBS)) back when Netscape included a decent Usenet client. It worked surprisingly well since Usenet has robust support for threading. (Your Swedish-sounding username inspired me, everyone else: sorry.) https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050014/http://community.roxen.com/kom/lyskom.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050014/http://community.... https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050050/http://community.roxen.com/kom/nntp.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050050/http://community....
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    I am indeed Swedish, but I studied at LTH >:)

ciex 3y ago

Email has terrible thread navigation and I consider old.reddit.com with reddit enhancement suite the best in class.

kevincox 3y ago
> Email has terrible thread navigation This doesn't make sense. Email is a protocol, not a UI. It would be fairly easy to make a UI that displays email like Reddit threads (the hardest part is probably stripping quoted replies). Thunderbird can display the discussion tree, but doesn't inline the message content. GMail inlines message content but linearizes the thread. I am not aware of any clients that inline the discussion content in a tree view.
hugatest 3y ago
Then you need a better mail client.

salted-fry 3y ago

I've been using an incredibly stupid bash script to do this; you've finally given me the push to publish it here: https://github.com/krsiehl/hn2mdir https://github.com/krsiehl/hn2mdir Run mkdir -p /path/to/some/directory/{cur,new,tmp}, then ./hn2mdir.bash /path/to/some/directory/, and it'll crawl Algolia's HN API to dump a bunch of emails, one for each post/comment. You can read it with mutt -f /path/to/some/directory. Syncing with IMAP left as an exercise to the reader (I'm using mbsync). Note that it gets large, fast, and may break your IMAP server; I periodically run find ~/Mail/HN -type f -mtime +30 -delete to clear it out. Edit: should clarify, this is read-only, I've never bothered to set up any kind of response functionality

hugatest 3y ago
Wow, this is brilliant!

kalleboo 3y ago

For me the OG for threaded discussions is Usenet. I remember reading threads using a UI like this (not my screenshot but this is the client I used, MacSOUP): http://www.fen-net.de/mac/bilder/macsoup/Thread.gif http://www.fen-net.de/mac/bilder/macsoup/Thread.gif There were also keyboard shortcuts to make navigating efficient. Having a Usenet gateway seems like it would make a lot more sense from a technical standpoint than an email gateway

tpmx 3y ago
You're technically correct, but aren't Usenet gateways a bit out of date? I thought Usenet was primarily used for, eh distributing linux isos these days. I made a bidirectional gateway to/from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LysKOM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LysKOM protocol (based on the design of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOM_(BBS) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOM_(BBS)) back when Netscape included a decent Usenet client. It worked surprisingly well since Usenet has robust support for threading. (Your Swedish-sounding username inspired me, everyone else: sorry.) https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050014/http://community.roxen.com/kom/lyskom.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050014/http://community.... https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050050/http://community.roxen.com/kom/nntp.html https://web.archive.org/web/20010427050050/http://community....
- kalleboo 3y ago
  I am indeed Swedish, but I studied at LTH >:)