
Show HN: Twincl – A New Attempt at “Rich Forum” - arthurtw
https://twincl.com/community/*684
======
blakeyrat
> Although rich, interactive contents can be made with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript
> technologies, most Internet users do not possess related programming skills.

Great! Finally someone in the open source forum community designing a UI for
the average user!

> On twincl.com, a piece of rich content (which we called a twinclet,
> pronounced as “twink-lit”) is written with a Markdown fenced code block.

And... they've failed right out of the gate. Face-down in the dirt.

I will never understand the obsession some developers have with Markdown.

~~~
arthurtw
Maybe you are right. But Reddit uses Markdown, too, and people seem OK with
that? Most redditors are not developers.

~~~
blakeyrat
People seem ok with a lot of awful things. I don't see that as an argument for
Markdown.

The question is: has Reddit (or other Markdown users) _actually studied_
Markdown's usability? Even a basic comparative study against a WYSIWYG
equivalent?

It seems like "techy" people just kind of _assume_ Markdown is great and easy
and awesome without ever bothering to actually make any effort to question
that assumption. That's really the part that bugs me most.

And the entire pitch of Markdown is that you can style your text the way you
did back when you were using text-only stuff. Ok. So _this should be
underlined, then_. And /this should be in italics, right?/ And naturally _this
is boldfaced._ Oh wait. Markdown is ZERO FOR THREE.

(Strangely, Markdown doesn't even _have_ underline. Go figure. It's not even
remotely close to feature-parity with the WYSIWYG textboxes we were all using
on the web in 2008.)

~~~
fizzbatter
I'm quite confused with a lot of your dislike for Markdown.

I have a reverse question, what is better than Markdown in your mind? I'm
starting a project that is heavily based around text, and for simplicity i
just wanted plain text. Ie, i have no editor for the project. So for markup, i
need _something_. What do you feel is the right markup language?

Personally i feel Markdown is easiest markup language i've found. Compared to
some, it's quite intuitive. Combined with the fact that it is becoming quite
prominent means users are also learning it. The only downfall with Markdown in
my mind is a lack of a standard, but i think that's being worked on _(there
are some attempts at that, i believe)_.

Anyway.. i would really appreciate your feedback, if you feel there are better
pure text Markup languages :)

~~~
arthurtw
I believe OP means a WYSIWYG editor is _much_ better than Markdown.

In terms of a markup language in pure text, I think Markdown is your best bet.
Folks in CommonMark.org tries to "standardize" Markdown. Our implementation in
Twincl.com follows that standard as much as we can.

~~~
fizzbatter
Appreciate the reply. Honestly though, this confuses me even more. Many sites
have both Markdown _and_ a rich editor.. isn't that sort of required for users
anyway? No matter what language powers your Markup, at the end of the day many
users want an editor.

/shrug.

------
CM30
It's an interesting concept, but what's stopping people from making this as a
plugin for any other forum script? Because nothing in the page seems like it'd
be hard to replicate for a good developer (read, someone who's likely coding
add ons for existing platforms).

Seems like it'd be best just to wait for a version for my existing forum
script. Or get someone to program one.

The use of markdown is questionable too. As mentioned, normal users find it
somewhat awkward. Might work much better with a button/modal driven system to
set up the quiz or Tic Tac Toe game...

To post or comment on Twincl site, just login with a verified Facebook
account. Alternatively, you may register a new Twincl account, and subscribe
to the membership with a minimal fee. (Our point is to make the account less
disposable, which we believe is a key to pleasant community experiences.)

And you're gonna struggle here too.

Many people who use forums do not care for Facebook. They especially do not
care for trying to tie every single account to an identity with their real
name (and likely photo) attached to it.

This is especially true of less 'savoury' subjects, which are some of the
subject areas that forums can work really well for. A forum on say,
psychological issues or relationship problems is pretty much a non starter
with this script. As is any forum in a legally grey area. Or heck, any forum
where you just want a different username for whatever reason or don't want the
staff/members to know every little thing about you.

Or any forum where themed usernames are a big part of the community. No one's
going to pay $5 a year to call themselves say, Mario. Or Master Chief. Or
Pikachu.

So it seems like the registration system basically makes it a non starter for
any forum where people want some anonymity/privacy, any forum about a
fictional universe or series (or where role playing is a thing) or any forum
relating to anything remotely illicit or legally grey.

It has some interesting concepts, but the membership stuff is a problem and
the UI stuff seems like it's both a tad complicated and easily copyable by
your competitors.

~~~
arthurtw
Forum anonymity (or more precisely, disposable account) is the source of
moderation pain and the reason of suboptimal forum content quality. It's one
of the main issues I want to address from day 1. If FB account puts a lot of
people off, I may consider adopting SMS verification sooner, or change the
yearly subscription to a one-time small fee.

It seems Markdown editing is a red flag for broader adoption. I've thought
about a dual approach before: allow casual users to edit with GUI, and provide
the Markdown editing capability for pro users.

I do not have a fool-proof way to prevent plugin copying. If somehow it's
widely copied, it's not a bad thing (to most people), too.

~~~
CM30
As someone who's run a ton of forums, I disagree it's the source of suboptimal
forum content quality. If I had forced real names and identities, I would have
lost a significant amount of users and activity. And not just trolls and
spammers either.

A lot of people like to keep identities separate. Any system that tries to
remove the anonymity site of things will end up stifling quite a few people
who worry about their personal information being misused or who don't want
everyone to know about their every activity online. That's not a bad thing,
especially not in a world where intelligence agencies want to spy on
everything you do, you could lose your job because of some comments on
Facebook or Twitter and being swatted is sadly quite common.

Not everyone wants their friends and family to know they're an active member
on say, Donald Trump Fan Forums. Or that they're posted leaked content from an
upcoming game, like quite a few people on 4chan or Reddit. Or that they're
interested in setting up a Tor node.

As for markdown, yeah, your solution there is exactly the solution. A GUI for
new users, a raw editing text box for pro users. It's like how a lot of forum
editors switch between BB code/raw text and a WYSIWYG editor.

Plugin copying is a good thing here (because the features mentioned could be
good in other scripts), but I'm just warning you'll need quite a bit more if
you want to differentiate themself enough from competitors in the market (of
which there are thousands).

------
daveloyall

        > To post or comment on Twincl site, just login with a
        > verified Facebook account. Alternatively, you may register
        > a new Twincl account, and subscribe to the membership with
        > a minimal fee. (Our point is to make the account less
        > disposable, which we believe is a key to pleasant community
        > experiences.)
    

$5/year or $2/three months.

If you live forever, that's an infinite amount of money.

cf. metafilter, which charges $5 one time to prevent disposable accounts.

~~~
arthurtw
You can use a verified Facebook account to join Twincl site for free. Ideally,
we should use our own SMS verification process to prevent disposable accounts
- maybe when we have money. Since Facebook does a decent job of fraud account
prevention, we leverage their work for now.

Thanks for your comment. We'll take that into account.

~~~
daveloyall
I fully understand your desire to use FB to vet user identities.

I like the idea of twincl. Keep up the good work!

The overlap between the set of people that like twincl and the set of people
that don't like facebook may be large.

You know what accounts I don't mind linking? These:

    
    
        * https://gitlab.com/u/sebboh
        * https://github.com/daveloyall/
        * https://stackexchange.com/users/2248650/daveloyall
        * https://plus.google.com/113507487161654826344
    

...Not that I'm a fan of G+, but I am happy to use that google account
identity to sign into other services.

It's because that google account identity is tied to a work email account,
too... You know what doesn't go on there? What I do on the weekends. That ends
up on facebook even if I don't put it there... So leave that account alone.

~~~
daveloyall
It's worth noting that I am permitted more than one Google account, but not
more than one Facebook account.

...There MAY be some rule about not having more than one G+ account, right?
But, I don't really use that service. It was only included here because it's
the only "profile" page I know of for that account.

~~~
arthurtw
Exactly. That's why we did not use Google identity service. Google accounts
are disposable, while Facebook enforces one-account-per-person policy.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Google accounts are disposable, while Facebook enforces one-account-per-
> person policy.

Facebook might claim to, but they don't do much of a job of it.

~~~
arthurtw
At least you must be careful when using multiple Facebook accounts from the
same computer. It might cause your main Facebook account locked, and take you
a while to have Facebook unlock it for you.

