> I've often wondered why people use Reddit for stuff like this since the information and conversation management and organizational tools seem vastly inferior to most any pre-Reddit forum software.
Phpbb-style forums are a mess. Simultaneously too ordered and not ordered enough - you don't get threaded replies, but you do have to put everything in the right topic and the right forum. No notifications that do the right thing.
For years I remember forum makers refusing to offer a "just notify me when someone's replied to my question, otherwise don't bother me" feature on the grounds that it would destroy participation. IMO the main reason Reddit won is that it offered just that.
As a way to create a community "I want to ignore anything that isn't a direct answer to a specific question" is something of an anti-feature.
I've never made lasting connections with people from Reddit/HN for exactly that reason.
I wonder if that's gonna work against the boycott here. If for most people Reddit is more StackOverflow question+answer + TV (mindless background scrolling) than a sticky community/communities, than that will make mass migration that much harder to coordinate and manage.
Phpbb-style forums are a mess. Simultaneously too ordered and not ordered enough - you don't get threaded replies, but you do have to put everything in the right topic and the right forum. No notifications that do the right thing.
For years I remember forum makers refusing to offer a "just notify me when someone's replied to my question, otherwise don't bother me" feature on the grounds that it would destroy participation. IMO the main reason Reddit won is that it offered just that.