

Forrst v3 Launched Today - philtoronto
http://blog.forrst.com/post/2387937011/the-new-forrst

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huhtenberg
I've been a member of Forrst for a while and my enthusiasm has taken a nose
dive in a past couple of months. The main problem is not the site design. It
is the fact that Forrst is overrun with kids. "I am an aspiring 13 old
designer, and here is something I did in a couple of hours because I was
bored". That's not to say that are no gems in the feed, but these are
typically cross-posts from Dribbble. Trying to build the designer _and_ the
developer community that is also friendly and helpful to the beginners is a
noble undertaking. But it does not work. It is an utopia as it has very little
appeal for professional designers and developers. Noobs wooting noobs on
mediocre designs is not exactly a fostering environment. Still might work as
an ad platform and a promotion vehicle of course.

~~~
citricsquid
I've always felt that the _real_ good people don't have time for these
secretive communities, they'd rather be _doing shit_ so you'll always have the
middle ground between mediocre and amazing. I'm sure the "best" (with regards
to what they do) hackernews members rarely (if ever) comment because they're
too busy being the best, you don't get to the top by talking about it.

~~~
steveklabnik
This is sometimes true, sometimes not. I know a few amazing designers that are
on Dribble all the time, because it's an outlet for fun things they're making
that have nothing to do with client work.

By the same token, if you check out /leaders, lots of people at the top _are_
killing it. There are obviously tons of successful people that aren't on HN,
but "commenting on HN means you're unsuccessful," is trivially disproven.

~~~
citricsquid
> _but "commenting on HN means you're unsuccessful," is trivially disproven._

but I didn't even say that, you just pulled that quote out of thin air. Of
course posting here doesn't make you unsuccessful, but if you are successful
you're less likely to be posting here. I at no point claimed the former...

~~~
krainboltgreene

        but if you are successful you're less likely 
        to be posting here

Anything to back that up?

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wushupork
I really like Forrst. It's got a good mix of code and design for a generalist
like me. I think I get something out of it. Perhaps that speaks to my level of
competency but I find it useful since I am a jack of all trades. If I have a
really hard coding problem, StackOverflow is going to be where I go. For a
stream of new stuff or latest techniques I may not be aware of, Forrst is for
me.

Also I think Kyle has done a great job as developer/designer. I was impressed.
If someone doesn't like it, they are welcome to create a better version.

As for the monetization, I have to agree w/ steveklabnik that
designer/developers are a hard bunch to squeeze money out of since they aren't
used to paying for these sort of services. I could be wrong.

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kmfrk
I feel very selfish or insulated using Forrst. I only see it as a venue to get
help and flaunt my work - which is fine to me. In some cases, I think you
could liken it a StackExchange of design.

But it doesn't feel like a community. The dashboard makes it feel more like
Twitter or Tumblr than DeviantArt and Dribbble.

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didip
Hi Kyle,

If I may ask for 1 feature request (programmer specific):

Really good GitHub and BitBucket and Google Code integration. In particular,
newsfeed-like thing that keep track of:

* Who is working on what...

* New comments on issue tracker...

* pull requests from github or bitbucket or others...

My biggest need when it comes to programming community is keeping up
(communication-wise or code-wise) with all the OSS libraries I use. GitHub
does much better job than the others, but they do only git.

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davidjhamp
I would have liked to apply for membership but it seems like a twitter account
is required which I don't have, Disappointing.

~~~
kylebragger
You can just leave a fake one - oversight on my part; it shouldn't be
required.

~~~
davidjhamp
I tried "@faketwitter" as the twitter user name and it complained about it.
I'm not too familiar with twitter user names but I thought that should work.

edit: removed the @ sign and it worked.

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steveklabnik
I'm interested to see how buying acorns works. It's sort of like a combination
of virtual goods and advertising... I see programmers as being a hard crowd to
sell to, (for example, see the second paragraph of this recent comment by
patio11: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2018880>) but maybe I'm wrong...

~~~
code_duck
I'm interested in seeing how it works out, too.

I'm not sure what the motivation is to pay to promote the types of content you
can post on Forrst, other than job ads. I guess I'll have to watch and see
what people are using it for.

~~~
martin_sunset
For me it's about promoting my site when it's ready for the next beta phase.
The stream is great, but you don't get that much exposure as normal posts are
pushed down fast.

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innonate
im pumped for the forrst ppl. as a n00b RoR hacker i've just been blown away
by how helpful and supportive the community is over there.

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lubos
design nice, product name not so...

