

Show HN: Village – Hacker News for people who care about their cities - steve-benjamins
http://www.itsonvillage.com/
Hey everyone,<p>I started Village because I couldn&#x27;t find a place online with reasonable, civil discussion about my city, Toronto.<p>On Reddit, r&#x2F;toronto could be a bit harsh and was pretty heavy with downvoting. Local blogs had comments sections that were mean and insulting.<p>Village is an experiment. It&#x27;s a place that- while honest about the challenges my city faces- tries to celebrate and share what&#x27;s awesome about Toronto too. It&#x27;s a place for reasonable and civil discussion. It&#x27;s a place to discover awesome and interesting things in Toronto.<p>I custom wrote the software for Village but I feel like the software for creating a social news website is pretty trivial at this point. If you want, it only takes 5 minutes to set one up using Telescope. The hard part is cultivating a community.<p>But in the same way that you can’t design a users experience (because it implies a sense of control over what a user will experience), you also can’t design a community. Instead, you can only hope to cultivate a community.<p>That&#x27;s what I&#x27;m hoping to do with Village :)<p>PS - If you&#x27;re interested, you can read more about my thoughts on how to cultivate community here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.itsonvillage.com&#x2F;design-tips
======
steve-benjamins
Hey everyone,

I started Village because I couldn't find a place online with reasonable,
civil discussion about my city, Toronto.

On Reddit, r/toronto could be a bit harsh and was pretty heavy with
downvoting. Local blogs had comments sections that were mean and insulting.

Village is an experiment. It's a place that- while honest about the challenges
my city faces- tries to celebrate and share what's awesome about Toronto too.
It's a place for reasonable and civil discussion. It's a place to discover
awesome and interesting things in Toronto.

I custom wrote the software for Village but I feel like the software for
creating a social news website is pretty trivial at this point. If you want,
it only takes 5 minutes to set one up using Telescope. The hard part is
cultivating a community.

But in the same way that you can’t design a users experience (because it
implies a sense of control over what a user will experience), you also can’t
design a community. Instead, you can only hope to cultivate a community.

That's what I'm hoping to do with Village :)

PS - If you're interested, you can read more about my thoughts on how to
cultivate community here: [http://www.itsonvillage.com/design-
tips](http://www.itsonvillage.com/design-tips)

~~~
kolev
Great design and software. Any plans to open-source the code?

~~~
steve-benjamins
Thank you! I hadn't really thought about it because I don't see the code as
being anything great (maybe that's just me being hard on myself though). From
a code standpoint, it's really standing on the backs of some great gems (three
in particular: acts_as_votable, acts_as_tree, cancancan).

And the algorithm is Reddit's open sourced algorithm. A ruby version can be
found here:
[https://gist.github.com/jrochkind/2636355](https://gist.github.com/jrochkind/2636355)

~~~
kolev
No code is perfect and I'm sure there could be many other sort of niche
communities that can benefit and help you build this into a greater platform.

------
girinambari
AOL had a service called Patch, this is more than just about the place, it
pools all news local to the community. Is that what you are trying to achieve
with Village?

I liked design and domain name. Good luck!

~~~
steve-benjamins
Thank you!

Yes, I remember Patch. I was always rooting for it. Village is similar: for
example, in addition to posting links, users can create photos, maps and
essays (sort of similar to the self-publishing of Patch). In some ways,
Village is sort of a mix between Patch and Hacker News.

~~~
fibbery
Patch still exists. Are you talking about it in past tense because it isn't
good anymore?

~~~
steve-benjamins
Err. I thought it had been closed- but you're right, it still exists. Earlier
this year AOL sold it to Hale Global
([http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230414940...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304149404579322912487687196)),
maybe that's where I got confused.

------
avbrink
Good idea! I'd be interested to see this "coming to a city near me!"

As a west coaster it been too long since ive heard anything but Rob Ford news
come out of TO :)

~~~
steve-benjamins
Haha :) ... Luckily our mayor elections are a month away, so hopefully you
won't be hearing too much more.

Thanks!

