7 ms·

I feel I am building a new Google Wave

270 points by cheshirecat 14y ago

yehanyin 14y ago
I like the design, simple and clean. The title sounds inflated but you win me, :)
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Thank you. Currently the left pane has realtime update, and I am working on RT update for the right pane which is far more complicated. I find people either really, really hate the design, or like it.
  - natekupp 14y ago
    > I find people either really, really hate the design, or like it. A sign you're doing things right :) great work. Looking forward to seeing more.
agscala 14y ago
If you had nested comments, then maybe you can make the claim of being similar to Google Wave. The design is great though, and the formatting on posts is excellent
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Well it does support nested comments... They are just automatically folded so the appearance is cleaner. Try "#xxxx" (and click it). You can find the post id by clicking the user icon. You can even do self-reference and build an infinite stair.
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    The idea behind threaded comments is they're a separate thread so to have them "folded in" is counter intuitive. It's already evident that this sort of "threading" is a problem, if you look you can see users referring to each other by name which doesn't associate the reply with the parent, which makes the conversation hard to follow. Imagine this with 10,000 replies... If you don't properly thread the comments then you will very much cripple the way a conversation can evolve, I run one of the largest forums and if there's one thing that absolutely sucks it's a lack of proper threading, it seriously restricts how long a topic can survive and how useful it can be.
    - cheshirecat 14y ago
      Ah I got you. I have considered this multiple times, but a flat system still appears better for me. Yes, it is a very important issue and I will try to come up with a better solution, probably hybrid.
      - citricsquid 14y ago
        Something I like is the idea of "forking" topics, conversations evolve and if a new comment thread becomes over a few replies there's generally a good chance it has become its own conversation which can then involve into another conversation etc etc etc. If I was trying to keep the system as "flat" as possible I would consider deciding on an arbitrary cut off point (total replies, or total "levels" of replies) that automatically forks a thread into a new topic and then in the original topic would display in a similar style to a comment but with "this comment has generated a new topic, 2 replies... load preview / go to topic") not sure if that's explained well enough, but I think that would solve the problem.
        acomar 14y ago
        That's a great idea. Maybe it needs good auto-categorization to implement well, but another idea is to not bother with the thresholds at all -- every comment can potentially spawn off a new wave of replies, so why not just fork into separate threads immediately? The top level view gives you the flat view of the top level thread, and by diving in through the replies you can keep flat views of each sub-conversation. If every comment is treated the same, then it truly doesn't matter how old the comment you're replying to is because you could be sparking an entirely new discussion.
    - prawn 14y ago
      Is there any setup that can handle 10,000 replies well? I've always thought of it as an unsolved problem. Even with threading like HN, you have "more" and I almost never click it. I think /. used to have similar paging. Reddit? The idea further down this chain of branching off sub-conversations has some merit IMO.
  - agscala 14y ago
    I couldn't find any nested comments, but I think it would be good to not flatten them so that you can actually see the conversation directly, like we're doing now
    - ximeng 14y ago
      http://pivory.com/#user/3/2498 http://pivory.com/#user/3/2498 they're easy to make.
dreamdu5t 14y ago
It'd be awesome if you used progressive enhancement so it still worked without JavaScript.
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Unfortunately, that'll be very difficult as I plan to make it 100% realtime.
StavrosK 14y ago
I have no idea what it is, but I think I like it. It feels nice.
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Sometimes I think it is only similar to Google Wave in the spirit of having little points :) I plan to use it as a blog first.
swalsh 14y ago
I have no idea what this is, but i'd suggest adding "Categories" The signal to noise ratio here is just to small. Nothing seems relevant...
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  There's a "Lists" function. And it is hidden, to keep the UI ultra-clean. Click the left pane title to show it.
creamyhorror 14y ago
I love this. I love the deliciously clean design, the immediate type-and-post functionality (reminiscent of IRC), the loose feel and structure of the forum that makes it a wonderful base for customisation in any aspect. I wish this were in Ruby/Rails; then I'd set it up on my site. It's precisely the sort of forum I've been looking to implement, especially the two-column format and the IRC-style text entry box. (I wonder how I could get it to interface with a Rails app? Would there be problems just connecting it to the app's database, to get/store user accounts and stats, for example?) Here's the github repo containing the open-source fork of it: https://github.com/cheshirecats/CuriousWall https://github.com/cheshirecats/CuriousWall Thanks cheshirecat, you've done a great thing here.
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  My pleasure. It is very relieving to see people actually like it.
  - muyuu 14y ago
    Well done. Made a user, and I hope to be contributing to your site, especially if you finish that dump procedure I asked for in your site.
- brittohalloran 14y ago
  Yeah this would be a really nice private company chat system, a la Hipchat
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I agree with this too. I, too, am looking for a non-conventional forum that I can integrate into a webapp I am building. I would love for someone to port this into a Rails engine or a Ruby gem or something.
- tammer 14y ago
  I concur in all the above. The application is responsive, powerful, and well designed.
- 14y ago
peterwiese 14y ago
My iPad 3 Herald suffers from a heart attack rendering the site. Scrolling isn nearly impossible. Using chrome though, so no nitro.
mladenkovacevic 14y ago
It's great. I love the math formulas and how you can right click to get them in different formats and change display settings. On further examination I see that this is a function of MathJax, but great job integrating it into your application.
fumar 14y ago
Very cool simple design. I clicked around a few things. The only part that seemed "off" was having the "Post" button on the left side. I like the expand button on the top right. Its nice for longer posts. Definitely keep the good work.
MojoJolo 14y ago
I think I'm having some problems with scrolling. But anyways, good job!
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Thank you! The scrolling codes are messy and slow at the moment. I'll rebuild them using vanilla JS. You guys are the reason I can keep working on this.
  - ken 14y ago
    I'm having problems with scrolling, too, but I'm not sure if it's a problem with the code being slow, or that we simply don't know how to use it. The front page says "Click page borders and user icons for functions - feel free to experiment", but I think you need some documentation for people like me who aren't smart enough to figure out what they do. I see different colored rectangles and my cursor turns into a resize-top-border icon (??) and clicking things makes other things jump around or disappear but I can't tell where I am or what I'm doing. A 2-minute tutorial could make the difference between "I'm confused, so I'm leaving" and "this is pretty neat". Of course, it'd be even better if it used controls that I already know how to use, so I didn't need to take a 2-minute tutorial to learn to use scrollbars again. :-)
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    Please use the native scrolling. It was completely unusable on a non-Safari browser on my iPad 2 (even vanilla Safari was so sluggish as to reduce any desire to use it). It looked interesting (and the comments here indicate it is), but the scrolling was so bad, I couldn't check it out. I really hesitated to pint this out, because I hate negative comments when people throw there stuff out here, but this one is just too critical to your potential success.
moondowner 14y ago
There's a fork of Google Wave that's alive and kicking http://rizzoma.com http://rizzoma.com Here's a screenshot: https://plus.google.com/100419497458726670190/posts https://plus.google.com/100419497458726670190/posts Though I like Ivory's goal and aspirations.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Can I integrate Rizzoma in my web app? Or is it just a standalone web app?
  - kobzevvv 14y ago
    Rizzoma embedding will be ready on October. Box version and version for your own Amazon server is going to be in March 2013
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      Cool.
  - deleted 14y ago
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- likeahuman 14y ago
  OOOooo eeeeee rizzoma alive and I love it/ I use it in all sides of my life job vacation discussion planing I don`t use google docs more I trust them & I belive them
- thorax 14y ago
  I really would love it, especially if they add export mechanisms so I won't lose my data if they ever decide to die. Burned once already, unfortunately.
- tluyben2 14y ago
lenkite 14y ago
Google Wave had threads. This appears to be missing.
mauro_oto 14y ago
I really enjoyed the feel of the interface. One suggestion: make it so that IJKL scrolls the right panel, the way WASD works for the left panel.
JacksonGariety 14y ago
Damn I can't go "back" on this site in Safari 6.0
kumarski 14y ago
http://www.rizzoma.com http://www.rizzoma.com is much better. The founder himself stayed at my place using airbnb this summer. I'm a YC alum. He has one of the most interesting founding stories I've ever heard. He is a Siberian-Kazakhstani hacking competition winner who knows Judo and runs a series of small businesses in Russia. Bars that partake in sportsbetting-all Legal. He designed the software as a way to manage his businesses with his founders and grew it into something more.
- tensafefrogs 14y ago
  How is it better? Rizzoma (wave) is so incredibly complicated I feel very overwhelmed when I visit the site. It's like stepping into a fighter jet cockpit.
  - webjunkie 14y ago
    Yet a fighter jet gives you so much power.
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      But requires 20 years of learning to understand how to operate.
  - d0m 14y ago
    I agree.. I've just tried it. It took forever to load and when it was loaded, I felt in an ugly wysiwyg editor with buttons and editable fields everywhere. I was troubled and had no idea where to look or click. I feel that I really didn't give rizzoma a fair tryout but then if the first impression is overwhelming and scary, it's hard to move forward. I'd suggest cutting all the crap and introduce more complex features over time.. or when it's needed.
  - baseh 14y ago
    Same experience here. I think compared to Ops site, Rizzoma is over-engineered out of the wazoo. Once you start adding features for everyone, their grandma and their dog, things are bound to get complicated. The Ops site is such a simple and a breath of fresh air.
mietek 14y ago
Why not Markdown?
Andrex 14y ago
It's a very nice design, but I feel removing dates is a mistake. It may be that older topics lose their value as time goes on, however that's a problem that can be fixed on the community level (by encouraging people to bump old threads, instead of discouraging it -- which is a learned behavior.) I feel like you gain very little in reality by removing dates, and you otherwise lose some very valuable or interesting info.
Mikushi 14y ago
Very nice and simple, I like it. Thanks for answering the questions over there, always curious about the inner workings of such things.
d0m 14y ago
Just to make sure I understand.. It's IRC on the web? Is there anything I am missing? I.e. Compared to grove.io. But design wise, it's simple and clean, I like it :)
binaryjohn 14y ago
I like it; a fresh new look at forum interaction
nerdo 14y ago
Because it's being used to talk about the scrollbars in it?
lis 14y ago
Did not work on my iPhone. Double tapping zoomed in as expected, but afterwards the design resized itself again. The result is quite funny ;) I like the idea, though. Looks great on bigger devices.
state 14y ago
Reminds me a bit of http://are.na http://are.na
davewasthere 14y ago
Spent a little bit of time playing on this and really really impressed. I've written a progressive enhanced forum (for mobile) and think there's a lot of room for some re-thought ways how forums could work. But! I did find navigating around PIvory a little hard work. I definitely had to think and discover. A lot of menu options aren't visible until you click in certain areas. That's great from a clean-design point of view, but frustrating for a new user. I love the grey scheme, with the only colour being when you hover over icons. That said, hi-lighting your posts (and leaving your image always in colour) would be nice. It really is an awesome effort. I'm inspired.
- kobzevvv 14y ago
  Cool we definitely has a problem with: "A lot of menu options aren't visible until you click in certain areas". I hope new version of interface will solve it. Please let me know about other inconveniences or troubles: tw: @kobzevvv fb: http://www.facebook.com/kobzevvv http://www.facebook.com/kobzevvv
caycep 14y ago
hopefully it fares better than wave - good luck!
thedangler 14y ago
I was looking at the git repo and I couldn't seem to figure out how it was doing all the asyc connections. I looked at his source code and he is using websockets which I don't believe is in the git repo. Correct me if im wrong.
asynchronous13 14y ago
I would like to evaluate the site, but it is nearly impossible to view from my phone (iphone, safari). If I zoom in on an area, the page resizes itself and remains unreadable.
- kobzevvv 14y ago
  web-Mobile makeup for rizzoma will be ready on next week.
hnriot 14y ago
The back button seems to be broken/disabled by this which is very annoying to break default browser behaviour.
- kobzevvv 14y ago
  Browser "back" should work in the same way. (every topic has own link). Our back button has different feature it play your last changes back (like back button in ms word). May be we should change the icon?
lmirosevic 14y ago
This is great, I love the feel of this and the value it creates (which I'd describe as "live structured conversations"). Here's some suggestions, keep in mind these are essentially my personal opinions: -Try putting some thought into making the functionality a little more intuitive, by this I mean to try and not necessitate having to hover too much to discover functionality. As a designer I know how difficult this is to do without spoiling aesthetics, so good luck (but I think you need to do this). -Host this as a SaaS and make money, I image businesses would love to use this as a way to gather user feedback and talk to users. -Categories would be nice. Right now it's just one "board" (in the traditional "online forum" sense where the set hierarchy is forum>board>thread>post). I'd find it cool if I could say visit a "sports" category, or a "Tech" category, and especially a "Hacker news" one. Think subreddits. -The "navigation" is a little unintuitive, on the left column where it says "Threads", "Lists", "Users". When in threads mode, the other modes are listed underneath it, suggesting that they form a child relationship to Threads, whereas they're really siblings. -I'd dispense with the little arrows under "Home" on the left column, and move the refresh button onto the same line as the Create and Home links/buttons. It doesn't really add anything. Up and down could be implemented using infinite scrolling and would be more intuitive. Left and right could be replaced by making aggregating all the different views ("My threads", "Users", "Replies", etc.) into a flyout or dropdown list, accessible by hovering the currently active mode title. This would also mean you could dispense with the 3 bottons on the bottom left next to the settings button. -Speaking of that settings button, it doesn't have much to do with searching, instead I'd move it closer to the "user button", which you don't really have but will definitely need. Opening the user pane on the right, and then clicking the username to reveal "log out", etc. isn't easy to find. -You probably don't need all the corner hovers, they don't really do anything useful IMHO. -Fluid layout so it works well on mobile devices -The reading mode is cool but you probably don't need it everywhere. Good luck, I love the idea. Hope this goes somewhere.
- damncabbage 14y ago
  - Host this as a SaaS and make money, I image businesses would love to use this as a way to gather user feedback and talk to users. A little tweaking and it might make a good Campfire replacement as well. :) (Even with a smaller team, a collection of conversational "threads" could be really useful.)
pestaa 14y ago
Wow I'm speechless, this is wonderful. Going through the code, I see the widest spectrum of issues I hate about PHP in just these few files, yet the result is absolutely fascinating. This a testament as to how the tool does not really matter in good hands. This must be running on the custom-tailored C++ HTTP server, Ivory: https://github.com/cheshirecats/Ivory https://github.com/cheshirecats/Ivory Why did you feel the popular options don't cut it for your needs?
tsurantino 14y ago
The only real problem with this website is the navigation. I usually just get very lost on which parts of the site I am on because there is very little of indication of such info. Other than that, this site seems pretty neat!
ricardobeat 14y ago
Reminds me of the deceased oak.io[1]. Scrolling is broken (and slow) on an iPad, it's apparently using some javascript scrolling lib that could be replaced with -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; [1] http://blog.oak.io/ http://blog.oak.io/
brador 14y ago
I hate to be that guy, but you called it a startup so... What's the revenue model here? How's it going to make money?
ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
Magnificent. Simply wonderful. This feels like a prototype for the future of forums. It's got its little UI flaws here and there but I understand why and almost all of them can be fixed easily. Very nice work. So much potential. - There's no reason to have the scroll bar of the thread list on the left. Hiding it unless you hover directly over it is also not a good idea. It should appear when the mouse hovers anywhere over the entire thread list. - I strongly hate non-browser-native scrolling (scroll by javascript in an effort to style the scroll bar using css and javascript). It never feels right, or fluid. There IS a way to hide the scrollbars until the mouse hovers over the element that requires scrolling. Example: http://www.repcmods.com http://www.repcmods.com (abandoned prototype) (hover over the horizontal galleries) It's all done using css :hover and no javascript. The element with the scrollbar is set to overflow:hidden and on :hover it's set to overflow-y:auto; It may or may not work for you. Fix everything else first before coming back to this one. - It's missing some white space toward the bottom making it feel really cluttered down there. Give the #left_panel and #mid_panel elements a padding-top:12px; and give .xpadbox a margin of margin:0 24px 5px; - Also give the element #mid a padding-top:9px; so its lined up correctly. You'll have to also move up the links on in the top right of the mid panel to match as well. - When posting a reply, the "preview" and "post" links should really be buttons not just text and they should be on the left and the text "sign up to bump, Online: 1002 users, etc..." should be on the right. - When I open up the setting tab in the threads list it needs to stay red so the user knows they need to click it again to close the settings. - Get rid of the dashed border bottom between threads and posts. It's too visually intrusive. Change it from dashed to dotted, instead. - Hiding controls under the whole "to top/toggle functions" bar is completely unnecessary. As a young designer I used to hide a lot of elements thinking it would look nice and minimal and clean. Later on I find out it's one of the worst things you can do to your users. Your design is already minimal, it's already clean, don't over do it. Just keep the elements there, don't hide them. There's a lot of confusing UI here but that's the end of my free consultation.
- killnine 14y ago
  I like constructive criticism. Its okay from somebody without the credentials. It's even better from somebody with the credentials. After reading your post my thought was who f$&^ does this guy think he is. After reading your web site - I can reduce it down to: IMO your post sounds like you employ the pivory dev. I am sure you do not. Without an "IMO" , "I suggest" , or something along the lines of that you just sound like know it all dick. "should be" , "needs to" , "get rid of" , "its missing" - how do you know any of this? How do you know the dev didn't purposely make it this way? You don't. Not unless you are the dev.
mcgwiz 14y ago
I don't want to be misconstrued a "bad HN commenter", so I'll say first of all, technically amazing. Also, UX is consistent and aesthetically pleasing (though admittedly incomplete; lots of actions are unexplained... e.g. what's the difference between Focus and Shift). Technical and design accolades aside, IMHO I would not call this an improvement on existing discussion forums. In Part 4 of his post "Building a Better Online Community", he implies that a major problem is the signal to noise ratio. This web app has not solved that problem. The extremely low barrier to participation, while inline with privacy ethics and democratic ethics, unfortunately removes important incentives to creating quality content. It is however, successful at enhancing anonymity and removing the (burdensome?) requirement of identifying oneself. Let's take a step back and re-assess what we're looking at. It's not an improved discussion forum, it's an improved chatroom app, plain and simple. And for that, I credit it with certain innovation.
- javajosh 14y ago
  I agree that it is more chat than forum, especially because of the limited (that is, non-existent) support for threaded conversations. (The only thing I could find was a hash-number style referral shortcut). Personally, I also disagree with removing timestamps. Although HK (presumably the author) is correct in that people can tend to ignore 2-year-old posts, this is an entirely n00b tendency, as old-hands know that there is gold in older content. That said, old-hands can very quickly filter for relevance when hunting for timely news. Removing timestamps removes that facility.
  - sgdesign 14y ago
    Quick note: "HK" stands for "Hong Kong", it's not the author's name.
orangethirty 14y ago
Feedback This is what I get when I try to visit the page: Your browser does not have window.WebSocket object :-( Try the lastest version of Chrome or Firefox or Safari. I know that I have to update, but realize that not everyone has the latest/greatest stuff out there. Also, if I visit your page without JS it doesnt show anything (at all).
- mansoor-s 14y ago
  As a web-dev I see these kinds of comments a lot. There is a simple solution: Step 1) Upgrade your browser. Step 2) Enable JavaScript. You can't strip down your browsers functionality and expect the web to conform to it. Thats like saying this website won't load on my potato! EVIL EVIL potato haters!
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    As an engineer focusing on web software I also see these comments a lot. I also know how it drives people (buying customers) away from websites. Yet it is rather surprising how people like you make such comments. "Upgrade your software, you fool!" seems to be the norm. But, how much does it cost to add a few lines of code like the following: <noscript>Please enable javascript. If you have any questions how to do so, please click on this <a href="#">link.</a></noscript> In fact, I'll license that code right there under the GNU WTFPL license, so web devs like you can use it to their advantage. In terms of browsers, allow me to ask you some questions. Do you know which is the second most used browser in the USA? Firefox. Which version? Not the latest. People are always at least one or two updates behind. Not making a website available to a majority is just bad business sense.
    - mansoor-s 14y ago
      I'm sorry. I couldn't read your comment. My hammer and chisel can't render that text properly. Not everyone has a computer you know! Please provide proper support.
francov88 14y ago
Amazing. Use it. That is all.
lhnz 14y ago
This is what my TODO list would look like if I was you: * Markdown. * Remove "guest" from the Users list. * Reading mode should have much larger text. Remember what sites like Instapaper, Readility, ReadItLater have given people. * Some way of voting up insightful comments. I don't think the shit storm that you're currently experiencing in spam is currently solved... * Tiny icons hiding lots of features and the awkward way of getting to the 'reply' links is poor usability.
gwern 14y ago
Hah, it's funny (Baader-Meinhof style) that I'm suddenly running into pivory.com here on Hacker News - my first introduction to it was a few hours earlier today as part of a little Bitcoin extortion scheme: https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/5p1G9CZPBxR https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/5p1G9CZP...
l0c0b0x 14y ago
Dear sir, your prototype (really?) is just beautifully awesome!
prawn 14y ago
Hi cheshirecat, Any tactics for blocking repeat trouble makers? You mentioned blocking by IP in your docs. I've run a forum (1,100 posts/month) for about eight years which also allows anonymous posting as well as accounts/avatars/etc. Users blocked by IP usually reconnect with their ISP to get a new IP and run amok anew. I also have blacklisted words and phrases which can stop some problems, but not all. I end up blocking IP classes from anonymous posting to eliminate troublesome regions. Any plans/thoughts beyond that? (Found your forum concept initially confusing, but I greatly admire your effort and the thought that's gone into it. I think you've created something intriguing!)
- cheshirecat 14y ago
  Probably the best method is to give more power to your users and let them be MODs - probably vote-to-exile? Yes, it could be abused just like the case of Socrates. But it's definitely better than blocking IP class which hurts innocent users and useless against trolls under proxy.
  - prawn 14y ago
    I currently have two classes of moderator - one with edit/delete access, and a lower one with the power to hide a post in a "Sin Bin" until a higher-level moderator can judge it. But with anonymous accounts, I need to provide greater incentive for people to sign in - karma, etc. Thanks for the reply.

270 points by cheshirecat 14y ago

yehanyin 14y ago

I like the design, simple and clean. The title sounds inflated but you win me, :)

cheshirecat 14y ago
Thank you. Currently the left pane has realtime update, and I am working on RT update for the right pane which is far more complicated. I find people either really, really hate the design, or like it.
- natekupp 14y ago
  > I find people either really, really hate the design, or like it. A sign you're doing things right :) great work. Looking forward to seeing more.

agscala 14y ago

If you had nested comments, then maybe you can make the claim of being similar to Google Wave. The design is great though, and the formatting on posts is excellent

cheshirecat 14y ago
Well it does support nested comments... They are just automatically folded so the appearance is cleaner. Try "#xxxx" (and click it). You can find the post id by clicking the user icon. You can even do self-reference and build an infinite stair.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  The idea behind threaded comments is they're a separate thread so to have them "folded in" is counter intuitive. It's already evident that this sort of "threading" is a problem, if you look you can see users referring to each other by name which doesn't associate the reply with the parent, which makes the conversation hard to follow. Imagine this with 10,000 replies... If you don't properly thread the comments then you will very much cripple the way a conversation can evolve, I run one of the largest forums and if there's one thing that absolutely sucks it's a lack of proper threading, it seriously restricts how long a topic can survive and how useful it can be.
  - cheshirecat 14y ago
    Ah I got you. I have considered this multiple times, but a flat system still appears better for me. Yes, it is a very important issue and I will try to come up with a better solution, probably hybrid.
    - citricsquid 14y ago
      Something I like is the idea of "forking" topics, conversations evolve and if a new comment thread becomes over a few replies there's generally a good chance it has become its own conversation which can then involve into another conversation etc etc etc. If I was trying to keep the system as "flat" as possible I would consider deciding on an arbitrary cut off point (total replies, or total "levels" of replies) that automatically forks a thread into a new topic and then in the original topic would display in a similar style to a comment but with "this comment has generated a new topic, 2 replies... load preview / go to topic") not sure if that's explained well enough, but I think that would solve the problem.
      - acomar 14y ago
        That's a great idea. Maybe it needs good auto-categorization to implement well, but another idea is to not bother with the thresholds at all -- every comment can potentially spawn off a new wave of replies, so why not just fork into separate threads immediately? The top level view gives you the flat view of the top level thread, and by diving in through the replies you can keep flat views of each sub-conversation. If every comment is treated the same, then it truly doesn't matter how old the comment you're replying to is because you could be sparking an entirely new discussion.
  - prawn 14y ago
    Is there any setup that can handle 10,000 replies well? I've always thought of it as an unsolved problem. Even with threading like HN, you have "more" and I almost never click it. I think /. used to have similar paging. Reddit? The idea further down this chain of branching off sub-conversations has some merit IMO.
- agscala 14y ago
  I couldn't find any nested comments, but I think it would be good to not flatten them so that you can actually see the conversation directly, like we're doing now
  - ximeng 14y ago
    http://pivory.com/#user/3/2498 http://pivory.com/#user/3/2498 they're easy to make.

dreamdu5t 14y ago

It'd be awesome if you used progressive enhancement so it still worked without JavaScript.

cheshirecat 14y ago
Unfortunately, that'll be very difficult as I plan to make it 100% realtime.

StavrosK 14y ago

I have no idea what it is, but I think I like it. It feels nice.

cheshirecat 14y ago
Sometimes I think it is only similar to Google Wave in the spirit of having little points :) I plan to use it as a blog first.

swalsh 14y ago

I have no idea what this is, but i'd suggest adding "Categories" The signal to noise ratio here is just to small. Nothing seems relevant...

cheshirecat 14y ago
There's a "Lists" function. And it is hidden, to keep the UI ultra-clean. Click the left pane title to show it.

creamyhorror 14y ago

I love this. I love the deliciously clean design, the immediate type-and-post functionality (reminiscent of IRC), the loose feel and structure of the forum that makes it a wonderful base for customisation in any aspect. I wish this were in Ruby/Rails; then I'd set it up on my site. It's precisely the sort of forum I've been looking to implement, especially the two-column format and the IRC-style text entry box. (I wonder how I could get it to interface with a Rails app? Would there be problems just connecting it to the app's database, to get/store user accounts and stats, for example?) Here's the github repo containing the open-source fork of it: https://github.com/cheshirecats/CuriousWall https://github.com/cheshirecats/CuriousWall Thanks cheshirecat, you've done a great thing here.

cheshirecat 14y ago
My pleasure. It is very relieving to see people actually like it.
- muyuu 14y ago
  Well done. Made a user, and I hope to be contributing to your site, especially if you finish that dump procedure I asked for in your site.
brittohalloran 14y ago
Yeah this would be a really nice private company chat system, a la Hipchat
marcamillion 14y ago
I agree with this too. I, too, am looking for a non-conventional forum that I can integrate into a webapp I am building. I would love for someone to port this into a Rails engine or a Ruby gem or something.
tammer 14y ago
I concur in all the above. The application is responsive, powerful, and well designed.
14y ago

peterwiese 14y ago

My iPad 3 Herald suffers from a heart attack rendering the site. Scrolling isn nearly impossible. Using chrome though, so no nitro.

mladenkovacevic 14y ago

It's great. I love the math formulas and how you can right click to get them in different formats and change display settings. On further examination I see that this is a function of MathJax, but great job integrating it into your application.

fumar 14y ago

Very cool simple design. I clicked around a few things. The only part that seemed "off" was having the "Post" button on the left side. I like the expand button on the top right. Its nice for longer posts. Definitely keep the good work.

MojoJolo 14y ago

I think I'm having some problems with scrolling. But anyways, good job!

cheshirecat 14y ago
Thank you! The scrolling codes are messy and slow at the moment. I'll rebuild them using vanilla JS. You guys are the reason I can keep working on this.
- ken 14y ago
  I'm having problems with scrolling, too, but I'm not sure if it's a problem with the code being slow, or that we simply don't know how to use it. The front page says "Click page borders and user icons for functions - feel free to experiment", but I think you need some documentation for people like me who aren't smart enough to figure out what they do. I see different colored rectangles and my cursor turns into a resize-top-border icon (??) and clicking things makes other things jump around or disappear but I can't tell where I am or what I'm doing. A 2-minute tutorial could make the difference between "I'm confused, so I'm leaving" and "this is pretty neat". Of course, it'd be even better if it used controls that I already know how to use, so I didn't need to take a 2-minute tutorial to learn to use scrollbars again. :-)
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Please use the native scrolling. It was completely unusable on a non-Safari browser on my iPad 2 (even vanilla Safari was so sluggish as to reduce any desire to use it). It looked interesting (and the comments here indicate it is), but the scrolling was so bad, I couldn't check it out. I really hesitated to pint this out, because I hate negative comments when people throw there stuff out here, but this one is just too critical to your potential success.

moondowner 14y ago

There's a fork of Google Wave that's alive and kicking http://rizzoma.com http://rizzoma.com Here's a screenshot: https://plus.google.com/100419497458726670190/posts https://plus.google.com/100419497458726670190/posts Though I like Ivory's goal and aspirations.

marcamillion 14y ago
Can I integrate Rizzoma in my web app? Or is it just a standalone web app?
- kobzevvv 14y ago
  Rizzoma embedding will be ready on October. Box version and version for your own Amazon server is going to be in March 2013
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    Cool.
- deleted 14y ago
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- deleted 14y ago
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likeahuman 14y ago
OOOooo eeeeee rizzoma alive and I love it/ I use it in all sides of my life job vacation discussion planing I don`t use google docs more I trust them & I belive them
thorax 14y ago
I really would love it, especially if they add export mechanisms so I won't lose my data if they ever decide to die. Burned once already, unfortunately.
tluyben2 14y ago

lenkite 14y ago

Google Wave had threads. This appears to be missing.

mauro_oto 14y ago

I really enjoyed the feel of the interface. One suggestion: make it so that IJKL scrolls the right panel, the way WASD works for the left panel.

JacksonGariety 14y ago

Damn I can't go "back" on this site in Safari 6.0

kumarski 14y ago

http://www.rizzoma.com http://www.rizzoma.com is much better. The founder himself stayed at my place using airbnb this summer. I'm a YC alum. He has one of the most interesting founding stories I've ever heard. He is a Siberian-Kazakhstani hacking competition winner who knows Judo and runs a series of small businesses in Russia. Bars that partake in sportsbetting-all Legal. He designed the software as a way to manage his businesses with his founders and grew it into something more.

tensafefrogs 14y ago
How is it better? Rizzoma (wave) is so incredibly complicated I feel very overwhelmed when I visit the site. It's like stepping into a fighter jet cockpit.
- webjunkie 14y ago
  Yet a fighter jet gives you so much power.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    But requires 20 years of learning to understand how to operate.
- d0m 14y ago
  I agree.. I've just tried it. It took forever to load and when it was loaded, I felt in an ugly wysiwyg editor with buttons and editable fields everywhere. I was troubled and had no idea where to look or click. I feel that I really didn't give rizzoma a fair tryout but then if the first impression is overwhelming and scary, it's hard to move forward. I'd suggest cutting all the crap and introduce more complex features over time.. or when it's needed.
- baseh 14y ago
  Same experience here. I think compared to Ops site, Rizzoma is over-engineered out of the wazoo. Once you start adding features for everyone, their grandma and their dog, things are bound to get complicated. The Ops site is such a simple and a breath of fresh air.

mietek 14y ago

Why not Markdown?

Andrex 14y ago

It's a very nice design, but I feel removing dates is a mistake. It may be that older topics lose their value as time goes on, however that's a problem that can be fixed on the community level (by encouraging people to bump old threads, instead of discouraging it -- which is a learned behavior.) I feel like you gain very little in reality by removing dates, and you otherwise lose some very valuable or interesting info.

Mikushi 14y ago

Very nice and simple, I like it. Thanks for answering the questions over there, always curious about the inner workings of such things.

d0m 14y ago

Just to make sure I understand.. It's IRC on the web? Is there anything I am missing? I.e. Compared to grove.io. But design wise, it's simple and clean, I like it :)

binaryjohn 14y ago

I like it; a fresh new look at forum interaction

nerdo 14y ago

Because it's being used to talk about the scrollbars in it?

lis 14y ago

Did not work on my iPhone. Double tapping zoomed in as expected, but afterwards the design resized itself again. The result is quite funny ;) I like the idea, though. Looks great on bigger devices.

state 14y ago

Reminds me a bit of http://are.na http://are.na

davewasthere 14y ago

Spent a little bit of time playing on this and really really impressed. I've written a progressive enhanced forum (for mobile) and think there's a lot of room for some re-thought ways how forums could work. But! I did find navigating around PIvory a little hard work. I definitely had to think and discover. A lot of menu options aren't visible until you click in certain areas. That's great from a clean-design point of view, but frustrating for a new user. I love the grey scheme, with the only colour being when you hover over icons. That said, hi-lighting your posts (and leaving your image always in colour) would be nice. It really is an awesome effort. I'm inspired.

kobzevvv 14y ago
Cool we definitely has a problem with: "A lot of menu options aren't visible until you click in certain areas". I hope new version of interface will solve it. Please let me know about other inconveniences or troubles: tw: @kobzevvv fb: http://www.facebook.com/kobzevvv http://www.facebook.com/kobzevvv

caycep 14y ago

hopefully it fares better than wave - good luck!

thedangler 14y ago

I was looking at the git repo and I couldn't seem to figure out how it was doing all the asyc connections. I looked at his source code and he is using websockets which I don't believe is in the git repo. Correct me if im wrong.

asynchronous13 14y ago

I would like to evaluate the site, but it is nearly impossible to view from my phone (iphone, safari). If I zoom in on an area, the page resizes itself and remains unreadable.

kobzevvv 14y ago
web-Mobile makeup for rizzoma will be ready on next week.

hnriot 14y ago

The back button seems to be broken/disabled by this which is very annoying to break default browser behaviour.

kobzevvv 14y ago
Browser "back" should work in the same way. (every topic has own link). Our back button has different feature it play your last changes back (like back button in ms word). May be we should change the icon?

lmirosevic 14y ago

This is great, I love the feel of this and the value it creates (which I'd describe as "live structured conversations"). Here's some suggestions, keep in mind these are essentially my personal opinions: -Try putting some thought into making the functionality a little more intuitive, by this I mean to try and not necessitate having to hover too much to discover functionality. As a designer I know how difficult this is to do without spoiling aesthetics, so good luck (but I think you need to do this). -Host this as a SaaS and make money, I image businesses would love to use this as a way to gather user feedback and talk to users. -Categories would be nice. Right now it's just one "board" (in the traditional "online forum" sense where the set hierarchy is forum>board>thread>post). I'd find it cool if I could say visit a "sports" category, or a "Tech" category, and especially a "Hacker news" one. Think subreddits. -The "navigation" is a little unintuitive, on the left column where it says "Threads", "Lists", "Users". When in threads mode, the other modes are listed underneath it, suggesting that they form a child relationship to Threads, whereas they're really siblings. -I'd dispense with the little arrows under "Home" on the left column, and move the refresh button onto the same line as the Create and Home links/buttons. It doesn't really add anything. Up and down could be implemented using infinite scrolling and would be more intuitive. Left and right could be replaced by making aggregating all the different views ("My threads", "Users", "Replies", etc.) into a flyout or dropdown list, accessible by hovering the currently active mode title. This would also mean you could dispense with the 3 bottons on the bottom left next to the settings button. -Speaking of that settings button, it doesn't have much to do with searching, instead I'd move it closer to the "user button", which you don't really have but will definitely need. Opening the user pane on the right, and then clicking the username to reveal "log out", etc. isn't easy to find. -You probably don't need all the corner hovers, they don't really do anything useful IMHO. -Fluid layout so it works well on mobile devices -The reading mode is cool but you probably don't need it everywhere. Good luck, I love the idea. Hope this goes somewhere.

damncabbage 14y ago
- Host this as a SaaS and make money, I image businesses would love to use this as a way to gather user feedback and talk to users. A little tweaking and it might make a good Campfire replacement as well. :) (Even with a smaller team, a collection of conversational "threads" could be really useful.)

pestaa 14y ago

Wow I'm speechless, this is wonderful. Going through the code, I see the widest spectrum of issues I hate about PHP in just these few files, yet the result is absolutely fascinating. This a testament as to how the tool does not really matter in good hands. This must be running on the custom-tailored C++ HTTP server, Ivory: https://github.com/cheshirecats/Ivory https://github.com/cheshirecats/Ivory Why did you feel the popular options don't cut it for your needs?

tsurantino 14y ago

The only real problem with this website is the navigation. I usually just get very lost on which parts of the site I am on because there is very little of indication of such info. Other than that, this site seems pretty neat!

ricardobeat 14y ago

Reminds me of the deceased oak.io[1]. Scrolling is broken (and slow) on an iPad, it's apparently using some javascript scrolling lib that could be replaced with -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; [1] http://blog.oak.io/ http://blog.oak.io/

brador 14y ago

I hate to be that guy, but you called it a startup so... What's the revenue model here? How's it going to make money?

ChrisNorstrom 14y ago

Magnificent. Simply wonderful. This feels like a prototype for the future of forums. It's got its little UI flaws here and there but I understand why and almost all of them can be fixed easily. Very nice work. So much potential. - There's no reason to have the scroll bar of the thread list on the left. Hiding it unless you hover directly over it is also not a good idea. It should appear when the mouse hovers anywhere over the entire thread list. - I strongly hate non-browser-native scrolling (scroll by javascript in an effort to style the scroll bar using css and javascript). It never feels right, or fluid. There IS a way to hide the scrollbars until the mouse hovers over the element that requires scrolling. Example: http://www.repcmods.com http://www.repcmods.com (abandoned prototype) (hover over the horizontal galleries) It's all done using css :hover and no javascript. The element with the scrollbar is set to overflow:hidden and on :hover it's set to overflow-y:auto; It may or may not work for you. Fix everything else first before coming back to this one. - It's missing some white space toward the bottom making it feel really cluttered down there. Give the #left_panel and #mid_panel elements a padding-top:12px; and give .xpadbox a margin of margin:0 24px 5px; - Also give the element #mid a padding-top:9px; so its lined up correctly. You'll have to also move up the links on in the top right of the mid panel to match as well. - When posting a reply, the "preview" and "post" links should really be buttons not just text and they should be on the left and the text "sign up to bump, Online: 1002 users, etc..." should be on the right. - When I open up the setting tab in the threads list it needs to stay red so the user knows they need to click it again to close the settings. - Get rid of the dashed border bottom between threads and posts. It's too visually intrusive. Change it from dashed to dotted, instead. - Hiding controls under the whole "to top/toggle functions" bar is completely unnecessary. As a young designer I used to hide a lot of elements thinking it would look nice and minimal and clean. Later on I find out it's one of the worst things you can do to your users. Your design is already minimal, it's already clean, don't over do it. Just keep the elements there, don't hide them. There's a lot of confusing UI here but that's the end of my free consultation.

killnine 14y ago
I like constructive criticism. Its okay from somebody without the credentials. It's even better from somebody with the credentials. After reading your post my thought was who f$&^ does this guy think he is. After reading your web site - I can reduce it down to: IMO your post sounds like you employ the pivory dev. I am sure you do not. Without an "IMO" , "I suggest" , or something along the lines of that you just sound like know it all dick. "should be" , "needs to" , "get rid of" , "its missing" - how do you know any of this? How do you know the dev didn't purposely make it this way? You don't. Not unless you are the dev.

mcgwiz 14y ago

I don't want to be misconstrued a "bad HN commenter", so I'll say first of all, technically amazing. Also, UX is consistent and aesthetically pleasing (though admittedly incomplete; lots of actions are unexplained... e.g. what's the difference between Focus and Shift). Technical and design accolades aside, IMHO I would not call this an improvement on existing discussion forums. In Part 4 of his post "Building a Better Online Community", he implies that a major problem is the signal to noise ratio. This web app has not solved that problem. The extremely low barrier to participation, while inline with privacy ethics and democratic ethics, unfortunately removes important incentives to creating quality content. It is however, successful at enhancing anonymity and removing the (burdensome?) requirement of identifying oneself. Let's take a step back and re-assess what we're looking at. It's not an improved discussion forum, it's an improved chatroom app, plain and simple. And for that, I credit it with certain innovation.

javajosh 14y ago
I agree that it is more chat than forum, especially because of the limited (that is, non-existent) support for threaded conversations. (The only thing I could find was a hash-number style referral shortcut). Personally, I also disagree with removing timestamps. Although HK (presumably the author) is correct in that people can tend to ignore 2-year-old posts, this is an entirely n00b tendency, as old-hands know that there is gold in older content. That said, old-hands can very quickly filter for relevance when hunting for timely news. Removing timestamps removes that facility.
- sgdesign 14y ago
  Quick note: "HK" stands for "Hong Kong", it's not the author's name.

orangethirty 14y ago

Feedback This is what I get when I try to visit the page: Your browser does not have window.WebSocket object :-( Try the lastest version of Chrome or Firefox or Safari. I know that I have to update, but realize that not everyone has the latest/greatest stuff out there. Also, if I visit your page without JS it doesnt show anything (at all).

mansoor-s 14y ago
As a web-dev I see these kinds of comments a lot. There is a simple solution: Step 1) Upgrade your browser. Step 2) Enable JavaScript. You can't strip down your browsers functionality and expect the web to conform to it. Thats like saying this website won't load on my potato! EVIL EVIL potato haters!
- orangethirty 14y ago
  As an engineer focusing on web software I also see these comments a lot. I also know how it drives people (buying customers) away from websites. Yet it is rather surprising how people like you make such comments. "Upgrade your software, you fool!" seems to be the norm. But, how much does it cost to add a few lines of code like the following: <noscript>Please enable javascript. If you have any questions how to do so, please click on this <a href="#">link.</a></noscript> In fact, I'll license that code right there under the GNU WTFPL license, so web devs like you can use it to their advantage. In terms of browsers, allow me to ask you some questions. Do you know which is the second most used browser in the USA? Firefox. Which version? Not the latest. People are always at least one or two updates behind. Not making a website available to a majority is just bad business sense.
  - mansoor-s 14y ago
    I'm sorry. I couldn't read your comment. My hammer and chisel can't render that text properly. Not everyone has a computer you know! Please provide proper support.

francov88 14y ago

Amazing. Use it. That is all.

lhnz 14y ago

This is what my TODO list would look like if I was you: * Markdown. * Remove "guest" from the Users list. * Reading mode should have much larger text. Remember what sites like Instapaper, Readility, ReadItLater have given people. * Some way of voting up insightful comments. I don't think the shit storm that you're currently experiencing in spam is currently solved... * Tiny icons hiding lots of features and the awkward way of getting to the 'reply' links is poor usability.

gwern 14y ago

Hah, it's funny (Baader-Meinhof style) that I'm suddenly running into pivory.com here on Hacker News - my first introduction to it was a few hours earlier today as part of a little Bitcoin extortion scheme: https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/5p1G9CZPBxR https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/5p1G9CZP...

l0c0b0x 14y ago

Dear sir, your prototype (really?) is just beautifully awesome!

prawn 14y ago

Hi cheshirecat, Any tactics for blocking repeat trouble makers? You mentioned blocking by IP in your docs. I've run a forum (1,100 posts/month) for about eight years which also allows anonymous posting as well as accounts/avatars/etc. Users blocked by IP usually reconnect with their ISP to get a new IP and run amok anew. I also have blacklisted words and phrases which can stop some problems, but not all. I end up blocking IP classes from anonymous posting to eliminate troublesome regions. Any plans/thoughts beyond that? (Found your forum concept initially confusing, but I greatly admire your effort and the thought that's gone into it. I think you've created something intriguing!)

cheshirecat 14y ago
Probably the best method is to give more power to your users and let them be MODs - probably vote-to-exile? Yes, it could be abused just like the case of Socrates. But it's definitely better than blocking IP class which hurts innocent users and useless against trolls under proxy.
- prawn 14y ago
  I currently have two classes of moderator - one with edit/delete access, and a lower one with the power to hide a post in a "Sin Bin" until a higher-level moderator can judge it. But with anonymous accounts, I need to provide greater incentive for people to sign in - karma, etc. Thanks for the reply.