

The open-source "svblte like" blogging platform - simvla
http://simvla.net
Simvla is an open source Publishing Platform and Blogging Network.
======
basseq
Svbtle was apparently "released" as a technical solution, but it quickly
became clear to me that Dustin was more interested in the prestige of the
invite-only "network" than the platform itself.

I haven't dug into Simvla enough to see if it has some of the interesting
backend features—I hope so because otherwise this seems to be an academic
exercise (pointing out on simvla.com that "there're many publishing platforms
out there; hosted or non-hosted solutions are popping out like snails after a
storm").

~~~
simvla
why do not give it a try? there're many nice features in the backend. btw this
what the editor looks like: <http://faaa.at/ObJ7>

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jacobian
Hey simvla - looks good, but to actually be open source you need a license.
Right now the source doesn't have a license, so it defaults to "All Rights
Reserved". If you intended this to be open source as the title claims, can you
add a license please? Thanks!

~~~
simvla
We've added it.

~~~
jacobian
Kick-ass; thanks!

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huytoan_pc
Can somebody tell me what is technically interesting about Svbtle? How is it
different from, say, Tumblr? It seems to be just a normal CMS with a
minimalistic look. It does attract a lot of prominent bloggers in tech, which,
to me, has more to do with Curtis's personal connections than any technical
merits.

~~~
bpatrianakos
I'm pretty sure you answered your own question there. I don't know for sure
but I tend to agree with your assessment. I wondered the same thing for a long
time and I finally realized that this is one of those questions where the
answer is so simple that you refuse to consider it because of how damn simple
it really is.

~~~
nchlswu
Spot on.

Such assessment doesn't answer my personal question about why so many people
are fixated with emulating, comparing and flat out copying Svbtle.

Dustin outlined some very cool design decisions when he first introduced
Svbtle, but the presentation of final content wasn't incredibly unique which
further confuses me. He shared some interesting workflow ideas which people
are free to share, so why insist on publicly using Svbtle as some arbitrary
benchmark?

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edent
I like the svblte look, but I'm stuck with WordPress. So, I use the Open
Source wp-svbtle[0] theme on my blog[1].

Gives me the looks and feel of svbtle for reading and posting without needing
to abandon WordPress.

[0] <https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle> [1]
<http://shkspr.mobi/blog/>

~~~
thomseddon
I feel somewhat similar.

I like how easy it is so get started with wordpress (PHP environment + famous
simple "installer") and I find it's popularity staggering (very high
proportion of ALL new websites)

However, after making custom themes and modules, and trying to hack others,
and doing a fairly lengthy performance review I must say I intensely dislike
it from a development perspective, particularly the architecture (or
comparatively lack of).

I have a vision of a clean, well written and architected MVC blogging platform
that is a joy to use for both users and developers.

It would have to be PHP/MySQL (simvla is Rails and unfortunately this just
cuts off most of the market), I would use an established framework (CakePHP
would be my preference).

I have been debating for about 12 months just writing it (possibly forking
wordpress to help the core developers follow my decisions) but I know adoption
would be governed by users, and do they want to change? No!

I've almost resigned myself to the fact that no matter how good my intentions,
it would just end up another "snail after a storm"

~~~
eertami
I feel it would be easier to write from scratch than to fork Wordpress.

I share your dislikes of Wordpress though, and decided that writing a blogging
platform myself was simpler than trying to hack Wordpress into doing what I
wanted.

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oinksoft
I'm curious, how does this offering compare to
<https://github.com/natew/obtvse> (which I assume you encountered in your
research)? Or is this not a valid comparison?

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neya
Svbtle is a very controversial Blogging platform in my opinion. It says it
strives for quality unlike the rest, yet it is sometimes full of rants[1] by
random people. Heck, it even has MG Seigler (MG is known for shitty quality,
heavily biased content in the tech journalism world) in it. With that being
said, blog networks like these should have a superior, fool-proof rating
system (like Quora), so that people can filter out shitty content written for
pageviews and to gain more subscribers, and focus only on quality-oriented
articles.

As someone over here said, it is best to ignore such 'elitist' blog networks,
because when you tear them apart into pieces, they're _also_ mostly shit, like
any other network and are no different.

Stay away, next time when someone tells you their platform is for 'elitists'
and invite only. The best things in life are the ones that give everyone an
equal opportunity to speak out their mind.

[1]<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4500136>

~~~
quarterto
Dustin Curtis' idea of "quality" is not the same as yours.

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huskyr
Does the 'vla' part have anything to do with the wonderful Dutch dessert?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vla>

~~~
simvla
haha! that's funny, but the name has something to do with this
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simula>

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bpatrianakos
It's great that they think everyone should be heard equally and all but a
closed network isn't such a bad thing just because it's closed. Svbtle
maintains quality _because_ it's closed. Open it up and it becomes the next
Wordpress where everyone and their mom is publishing their half baked
malformed ideas.

Still, I like this and if I weren't already happy with Octopress I'd pick it
up in a heartbeat. I just didn't like their answer to the "Isn't this like
Svbtle?" questions. You know, if you're gonna be a Svbtle copy then own it!
There's absolutely no shame in that at all.

~~~
fudged71
I think it's funny that Svbtle is both closed AND accepts 'kudos' points.

If the goal is to promote good quality posts, then it could be open, and only
promote the top voted posts.

Or if this list of bloggers are so great at blog posts, why do they need these
achievements adorning their posts?

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whalesalad
The code for this is pretty messy/gross.

Look at the Gemfile, which was committed as a conflicted file.

[https://raw.github.com/iamues/Simvla-
Network/c316e42ad85dcb1...](https://raw.github.com/iamues/Simvla-
Network/c316e42ad85dcb1b65419660c21b021b45deef11/Gemfile)

If you're going to duplicate Svbtle, part of that is understanding the Dustin
Curtis™ way of thinking. Simple, uncluttered, straightforward. This is just an
absolute hackjob with a layer of paint to give the illusion of Svbtle. The
essence is not there.

~~~
untog
The simple, uncluttered thing (which, let's face it, Curtis is hardly the
first to think of...) is the design. Who knows what the code for Svbtle is
like?

~~~
sp332
It's not like Dustin claimed to be the first to think of an uncluttered
design. He did put a lot of effort into making it work, and look really good
though. (You probably know what I mean if you've tried to visually simplify
something while enhancing its functionality!)

~~~
untog
I wasn't saying that he claimed to be- it was the OP's statement that it is
the "Dustin Curtis™ way of thinking" that led me to say it.

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MikeKusold
I would suggest an increase to the left padding on the text. Currently there
is a thin colored bar that is between the content and the bio, and the content
runs into it. Adding some space between them would make posts easier to read.

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calvinlough
Anyone else notice the subtle typo in the title of this post? (At the time I
am writing this, the title is: The open-source "svblte like" blogging
platform).

~~~
avree
I don't see a typo. He's referring to <https://svbtle.com/>.

~~~
calvinlough
The title says Svblte instead of Svbtle.

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zachh
Can you use a custom domain with the hosted version?

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simvla
sure.

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simvla
signup to our hosted solution if you like <https://simvla.com/join/index>

~~~
MichaelApproved
Looks like an interesting product. I noticed a typo on this sentence "someone
else are hidden under the hood." I think you mean "some others are hidden..."

~~~
simvla
yeah! thank you very much, thanks for letting me know!

~~~
mkelley
Also, the input box inside the Drafts div, where you are supposed to enter the
Post title (which is not very clear/intuitive) - the input box continues
expanding overflowing the bounds of the containing div and all that. Need a
max-length, word-wrapping solution there.

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cmwelsh
Your SSL certificate on simvia.com is not valid.

edit: Sorry that is simvla.com, but my point still stands.

~~~
simvla
simvia.com isn't our domain.

~~~
cmwelsh
Then why do you link to it on your website? Look at "Signup to our Hosted
Solution" a little closer. :(

edit: Sorry, I missed the typo there, but it's still invalid for SIMVLA.com as
well.

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bmelton
So, I like the idea of a Svbtle-like blogging platform (and recently launched
a closed beta of something vaguely like this, but not really very like this at
all), but I think that there are a few cases where this misses the point.

I think the signup page asks for far too much. First name, last name, email
are fine, but then it asks for profession, icon, bio and a network color. I
don't even know what a network color is, and I don't see that anywhere that it
is explained.

The admin panel has a few inconsistent UI choices and I think falls victim to
the notion that a simple color palette = minimalism. The writing panel is
cluttered in my opinion, and doesn't seem to have had much thought put into it
aside from copying what Svbtle has publicized. That isn't necessarily horrible
as an MVP of course, but this doesn't show any improvement or uniqueness. That
also isn't a crime, but I think that the changes made for the sake of being
different were just that, and weren't evaluated for placement or use case
studies.

This may seem overly critical, but it isn't intended to be so, but I think
this shows telltale signs of being a copycat without having given much thought
to the reasons WHY Svbtle is so appealing.

To paraphrase somebody (perhaps Kevin Smith) -- the reasons that most (movie)
sequels fail are because they're copying the wrong thing. Most people look at
Jaws and see a shark and a boat, but in reality, there's a love story there,
there are ties of camaraderie, a tale of obsession, yadda yadda. Remakes
capture the bit about the shark, and not much else, and I feel that's where
this is falling down.

That isn't to say that it can't be turned around, but I recommend to the
author to watch how people use it and try to make some decisions that aren't
based on the Svbtle screenshots.

It's a good-looking project that shipped, and I feel like a lot of the
criticism here isn't terribly constructive, and I hope that this is (but maybe
it isn't). Grats to the author and good luck, but I think that the path to
success is maybe a little more involved.

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rymith
Because of the whole elitest nature of svblte, I actively go out of my way to
ignore it. When the 'cool kid' in school doesn't want you to be in his group,
you don't mimic him and try to be like him. You say fuck 'em, I'm going to do
my own thing.

~~~
themckman
While I understand the sentiment; I do. Svbtle is nothing more than a network
of blogs by various authors that one man (dcurtis) thinks have good substance.
Your argument is roughly equivalent to me saying I'm starting my own newspaper
because the Chicago Tribune won't print my article and wasting my time being
all angry about it. Not worth it.

~~~
gazrogers
Given the quality of some of the svbtle output, I think that the Chicago
Tribune comparison is overly generous.

