
Monocle - maccman
http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/monocle
======
sthatipamala
> "quality content with a focus on... anything that appeals to the inquisitive
> mind"

This is a source of a lot of uncivil behavior on HN. Startup founders/tech
geeks are intellectually interested in a lot of topics but unqualified to
discuss them in any detail. This results in comment threads full of knee-jerk
reactions and bikeshedding.

~~~
pg
It's fine for people who aren't officially credentialled experts in something
to talk about it. The best insights often come from outsiders. The problem
comes when people express their ideas intemperately, either by making extreme
statements that should be more qualified and tentative, or by being uncivil to
one another.

I believe I've finally come up with a solution for that, incidentally, after
years of searching. It will require surprisingly little new code. I almost
started implementing it during the 4th of July holiday, but I started writing
a new essay instead.

~~~
spartango
> It's fine for people who aren't officially credentialled experts in
> something to talk about it.

Sometimes this is true, but sometimes undertrained perspectives can be quite
detrimental. The most clear-cut example is that of medical discussions;
medical commentary or speculation from under-qualified individuals can do real
harm. Many communities on the web have recognized this and have taken measures
to protect users[1].

Medical advice is a pretty extreme example as far as detrimental discussions,
but there are some shades of gray that I've seen show up on HN. As a
biologist, the ones I've found most grating are those that reflect poor
training in the the life sciences, where HNers make pseudoscientific or
unscientific claims. It's easy to call these things "opinions", but they are
actively harmful when most users will not be able to tell that they are
incorrect.

There are certainly other cases where underinformed commenters end up doing
harm, from legal speculation to "get your pitchforks" outrage attacks.

Note that I'm not arguing against free and open discussion in forums such as
HN; people should be physically able to post whatever they want. My point is
instead that the community should be sensitive to underqualified commentary in
disciplines beyond its expertise. Less accepting, in a way.

Credentialing is but one way this has been done, but understandably not the
best one here.

[1][http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s4chc/meta_medic...](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s4chc/meta_medical_advice_on_askscience_the_guidelines/)

~~~
__--__
> The most clear-cut example is that of medical discussions; medical
> commentary or speculation from under-qualified individuals can do real harm.

The same could be said for credentialed experts, especially in the medical
field. Taking steps to prevent users from freely discussing topics under the
guise of protecting them can prevent unpopular but correct opinions from
seeing the light of day. If somebody says something you can refute, then
correct them in a civil way. That's how lots of people learn and grow - they
put their theories out into the world and see how well they hold up to
scrutiny. Making it "less accepting" to say something you believe is true
because you're not sufficiently credentialed is actively suppressing free and
open discussion.

~~~
MDS100
A lot of unpopular opinions are terribly wrong. What are you referring to?

~~~
__--__
A lot of popular opinions are also terribly wrong. I'm referring to the fact
that popular opinion should not prevent people from reading an alternate
viewpoint to begin with. If all we're allowed to read and discuss are popular
opinions, there's a lot of potentially valuable information we're missing.
People here can read, discuss facts, debunk falsehoods and make up their own
minds.

------
onosendai
> Social accountability is provided by linking your Twitter or GitHub accounts

I never understood the reasoning behind this kind of social login. If you're
dead set on being an ass, then you'll be one regardless, even if it takes
creating a burner Twitter or GH account. Anything short of demanding proof of
identity and linking your real name is useless (and now you have two
problems.) All this achieves is forcing people to sign up to another service
in order to use your own. A low barrier to entry with community moderation is
enough to keep the value of the comments high, while keeping noise to a
minimum.

~~~
janardanyri
> I never understood the reasoning behind this kind of social login. If you're
> dead set on being an ass [...]

The purpose is to influence people who exist on the spectrum somewhere between
angelic and dead set on being an ass.

~~~
onosendai
I understand the purpose, I'm questioning its efficacy.

~~~
cwilson
Is the offline version of this strategy efficient? By that I mean if we're
standing in a room together are you less likely to be an asshole to me than
when you're behind a keyboard?

This method is simply trying to replicate the offline version of the
experience by adding a face to the name. I'm not saying it's the perfect
solution, but it's probably a step in the right direction.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The offline version of this is requiring everyone to wear a "Hello my name is
__________" sticker but not actually checking that they put their real name on
it.

------
jgrahamc
At my default browser size I can see 8 items on Monocle at a glance and 21 on
Hacker News. I'd suggest, at least, reducing the size of the information about
the submitter, number of points, etc. When scanning HN I very rarely look at
those.

I don't find avatars add to the conversation mostly because I don't first look
to see who said something. If I read something interesting I might look to see
who wrote it.

I'm not sure what the thumbnail graphics from the article are adding.

One thing I like about HN is the choice I make between reading the comments
and reading the article with no framing.

~~~
danielweber
Excessive attention to identity can really destroy a discussion site. There
are communities where I know everyone, but knowing the topic being discussed I
already know what each and every person is going to say. Zero information
content there.

~~~
StavrosK
That's not because of the attention to identity, though, it's because there
aren't that many people there.

------
machinagod
The application looks good with interesting articles at the time of writing.

As a note though, I opened the link because I thought it was related to
Monocle magazine ([http://monocle.com/](http://monocle.com/)) which also
provides high quality content (albeit not community-sourced). Maybe reviewing
the name is in order?

Edit: phrasing

~~~
personlurking
As a reader of Monocle, I thought the same. Being that they both play in the
publishing content world, I'd think Monocle the magazine would come down on
the OP legally. Aside from all that, I'm eager to check it out.

~~~
petercooper
High five to my fellow Monocle readers (subscribers?) ;-) Just as a FWIW, I'd
totally love a Hacker News-style site for Monocle-esque topics (i.e. the blend
of culture, design, business)..

------
forrestthewoods
"an experiment in creating a friendly and intelligent community around sharing
quality content"

Ugh. I'm tired of people trying the same old crap to curate content. They're
all roughly the same and none are that good. Upvotes suck and we need to move
past them.

If someone wants to take the next step in internet content curation then they
need to adapt a netflix style algorithm. Anything short of that I just don't
care about.

~~~
tlrobinson
_Ugh. I 'm tired of people trying the same old crap to curate content._

I think it's hilarious this is one of the top comments about a site which has
"Criticism is kept to the constructive variety" as one of it's goals.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
I see that comment as being constructive criticism, without a doubt.

It concisely points out at least three very relevant ideas:

1) There's nothing particularly innovative about this proposed approach.

2) The past attempts haven't necessarily been successful, and taking the same
(or a very similar) approach one more time also likely won't lead to any more
success.

3) The lack of success in the past is very likely due to problems inherent to
the approach itself.

------
jbail
I don't understand how using your Twitter handle will elevate the level of
discourse. Twitter itself is full of trolls. Also, you can create anonymous
Twitter accounts that don't use your real name, so accountability goes out the
window too.

For what its worth, it looks like a modern tech discussion forum built using
modern tools. Nothing wrong with that, but that's how it should be branded.
The feel good aspect without any real technical backend to enable it falls a
bit flat.

~~~
freehunter
I wish I could log in, but I don't use Twitter or Github. Why would I want to
set up an account on Site A when all I want to use is Site B?

~~~
angersock
It's like you don't even understand social. _God_.

~~~
camus
it's more like social auth is a pain in the a __.

------
ZoF
Looks like the emberjs tutorial got seeded with some articles and comments.

You might consider loading your scripts after the base html is rendered so the
initial page-load isn't 2-5 seconds of nothingness.

Seems like the content div is blank as a default, you might consider placing
the most popular or trending article there by default as you are loading it
anyway.

I would recommend loading titles and thumbnails first, rendering and having
comments load in the background so the initial load time is lessened further,
unless you are side-loading comments for another reason.

Also, you can only sign up with twitter/github connect?

God, it's so negative here.

------
kmfrk
Just remember that a CMS is not a community.

I hope the following posts will detail how the community is managed - not the
back- or front-end.

~~~
mbrock
Crucial point!

------
alptrv
Am I the only one who don't like this new trend when every second website now
is designed with the low contrast and native OS antialiasing disabled? I'm 24
and I just can't read the summaries on this site. Just compare the two
versions on this screenshot [1]: default on the top, and native antialiasing
on the bottom with the slightly darker text (#67707c)

1.[http://monosnap.com/image/OgCT8YKqEoHTAxAmgofKDxDNb.png](http://monosnap.com/image/OgCT8YKqEoHTAxAmgofKDxDNb.png)

------
cmod
Looks / feels exceptionally similar to Potluck:
[https://www.potluck.it/rooms/ee3db6e8](https://www.potluck.it/rooms/ee3db6e8)

------
burke
Does it strike anyone else as unfortunate that every new social news site has
to be its own completely closed ecosystem? What happened to the age of the
protocol?

------
eschaton
You may want to reconsider the name. There's already a (quite good)
publication with the name "Monocle" if you hadn't checked.

Edit: A link to Monocle the magazine:
[https://monocle.com/](https://monocle.com/)

~~~
imrehg
Seconded. Especially because the "quality content with a focus on technology,
startups and frankly anything that appeals to the inquisitive mind" is pretty
close to what _that_ Monocle is doing :)

------
JulianMorrison
1\. You reinvented Reddit.

2\. Eternal September will eat you too.

~~~
jamesaguilar
There is more to this than just Reddit. For one thing, there's a different
approach to identity, and for another there's summaries and whatnot that get
automatically pulled. And, for all we know, other additions that he hasn't
shared yet. Plus, reinventing Reddit is not necessarily a bad thing. For
example, the site you are using right now.

Also, your comment is itself a bit Eternal Septemberish -- you know, the
belittling, and the intentional disregarding of differences between Monocle
and Reddit. Not sure if that's meant as implicit metacommentary or if you
aren't actually aware that you are contributing negatively.

------
cathustler
With the way that infinite scroll currently works, I could effectively DDOS,
or at least slow down the instance of Monocle I am interfacing with by just
scrolling down, and once I got the first story just scroll up and down
endlessly. I'm looking at Chrome Developer Tools' Network tab right now[1] and
it seems you're sending a bunch of "ignore" fields in a POST request, and from
that I gather that the farther down I go, the larger the POSTs get. So, at the
very bottom, I'm sending a ton of huge POST requests. Point-being, this is
probably not a good thing.

1\. Developer Tools – [http://grab.by/ohwa](http://grab.by/ohwa)

------
octatone2
I can't read the low contrast overly designed content area.

~~~
sktrdie
[http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/)

------
dmazin
I hope this comment is seen as observational rather than the sort of blind
criticism that Monocle dreams to avoid.

The article discusses the design and performance of Monocle, which are
definitely pleasant. However, the aspects of the community seem more like
wishes than anything encouraged by Monocle (except for the Twitter/Github
links) nor seemingly present.

Monocle is more interesting (though less ambitious) than Atwood's Discourse,
but similarly misses the difference between community and charm, and
performance and design.

------
chasing
"There can be too much negativity in the tech community. It seems the average
response to someone out on a limb, showcasing their latest idea or startup, is
one of snark and derision. That is no way to foster an entrepreneurial spirit.
Monocle is an attempt to remedy that."

So, back-patting and hi-fives, but no actual criticism? Because there are
plenty of ideas in the tech community that deserve snark and derision.

Disagreement is absolutely the way to foster entrepreneurial spirit. What is
an entrepreneur besides someone who disagrees with the way things are
currently done. Besides, if good ideas are to filter to the top and learn to
survive in the wild, then they need to be able to withstand people disagreeing
with them and using colorful language to express that disagreement. Not every
idea is good.

Friends can fight and make fun of one another. People who care about the same
thing can loudly disagree. And I think communities where 100% of the people
like one another are probably boring communities. And either trivially small
or non-existent.

So, yeah. Monocle sounds like it could be neat, but if the idea is to shelter
people from negative reactions to their ideas, it sounds like it's going to be
kind of neutered and boring.

~~~
dorian-graph
> So, back-patting and hi-fives, but no actual criticism?

I didn't see that in the blog post.

------
uberc
This looks really impressive.

One note -- there is an established current affairs/culture magazine/media
brand called Monocle. While Monocle (the magazine) doesn't focus on tech,
monocle.io's remit of "anything that appeals to the inquisitive mind" could
lead to some overlap.

Dunno if there could/would be trademark conflicts. May be worth checking out
if you haven't already.

------
patja
The font rendering suffers greatly from the widely-known Google web font
rendering issues in Chrome for Windows.

~~~
alptrv
On Mac OS it's not ok either, thanks to `-webkit-font-smoothing:antialised`
and low contrast.

------
cwilson
I would consider adding who submitted the article to the list view. It sounds
small, but on HackerNews I recognize names of people who have submitted past
articles I enjoyed quite often and tend to always click on those. If you're
trying to build a community I think this is pretty important.

My gut reaction when I first hit the site wasn't "Oh, awesome, there is a
community of people here talking about stuff and submitting things", it was
"Hmm, looks like a bunch of curated links or an RSS reader".

Also, if your username/profile is the same on Monocle as it is on Twitter, I'm
even more likely to recognize submitters that I follow there as well.

------
jrokisky
My friends and I have wanted a personal version of something like this for a
while. We have several Facebook groups where we share links/ideas and comment
on them but would like to move away from Facebook.

Does anyone know of any service that offers this?

~~~
kmfrk
Just make a subreddit on reddit.com. People tend to think of reddit as just a
community, but it's also a convenient platform tool.

There's rarely much of a reason to overthink it - many people do, however, and
even create start-up as a result!

Go with what's been tested properly and proven to work to a decent degree.

~~~
jrokisky
Thanks for the input! I was not aware that private sub-reddits could be made.

~~~
mcrittenden
Indeed. Fun fact, there are almost 250k sub-reddits according to
[http://metareddit.com/reddits/](http://metareddit.com/reddits/)

------
HugoDias
Please, add target blank to the links. Its the most wanted feature in HW ( for
me )

------
SkyMarshal
Nice start for the interface, though only responsive down to tablet size.

Check out [http://qz.com/](http://qz.com/) for a similar interface that
actually scales all the way down to mobile size.

------
arcameron
This is super slick, once loaded. I haven't tried commenting or posting, but
as a reader, I'm pleased. My only criticism atm would be seeing a completely
blank page with NoScript on.

------
joaomsa
Layout really reminds me of [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

~~~
kmfrk
Is there a term for this kind of design? I'm thinking "RSS reader design
pattern" when I see this JS-powered stuff.

------
thirdstation
Nice minimal design. I like the ability to read a summary before deciding to
click through. I was confused at first when the main content frame was empty
(like another commenter pointed out - maybe put something there on page load).

One bug, the summaries are missing apostrophes.

------
mercurialshark
Sounds like they were inspired, at least in part, by Thoughtly. "Quantifiably
Good Content." But I'm partial.

[http://thoughtly.co](http://thoughtly.co)

------
sktrdie
Where's the HTML data? Search engines aren't going to be able to crawl any of
your content:

    
    
      $ curl -l http://monocle.io/posts/this-is-you-on-smiles

~~~
pbiggar
That's not a good test for it. See
[https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-
crawling/](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/) for
details.

(I don't know if monocle is doing that, but simply checking curl does nothing
for rich client side apps).

------
lotsofcows
Yes, we should ban all negativity. Looking for problems, vulnerabilities and
holes, whether in arguments, suggestions or code is very bad and should be
stopped immediately.

------
tomjen3
Why does this app need to read my tweets and see who I follow?

~~~
spullara
They can't ask for less than that through Twitter's OAuth API. If you have a
public account, they could do that anyway with just your username.

------
davmar
wonderful! feature request: can the article open in an iframe in the main
content area? or in a pop-up iframe? the back button sucks.

~~~
grimtrigger
I was thinking of working on something similar and was debating an iFrame. I
was worried it would mess up people's readability plugins (especially
important for mobile devices). Also not sure what the ethics of iFraming other
people's work is.

------
lquist
Very hard to read grey text on a white background.

~~~
markgx
I agree. It needs a little more contrast.

------
msutherl
Reading on the right side of the screen is really uncomfortable. Goes to show
we still haven't figured out this app-design thing.

------
sirwanqutbi
I don't see that layout as necessary. Can't you make it 1 layout, with the
comments threaded under the link..

------
arrowgunz
Alex did his part by creating something interesting. Just look at the comments
on this thread. This, right here is the problem. Everyone keeps complaining
about stuff that they haven't done or not capable of doing. If you have a
suggestion, just try to communicate with him or the other developers working
on it. Any developer would like creative/helpful input. Stop bitching and
support people who create stuff.

~~~
camus
You are the one bitching about the comments here. a discussion thread is made
so that people can state whatever opinion they want to state. Dont like it ?
dont answer. We all are bitching,the issue with you is you dont understand you
are actually bitching.

~~~
arrowgunz
Dude, relax. I am talking about the discussion, not the actual product itself.

>a discussion thread is made so that people can state whatever opinion they
want to state.

Since when did stating opinion become bashing the developer/creator? If _you_
have a problem, _you_ should probably not get involved in the discussion in
the first place.

>We all are bitching,the issue with you is you dont understand you are
actually bitching.

Haha, you have absolutely no clue to what I am talking about here. That's
alright.

------
husio
POST to get more data? That's bad.

------
sirwanqutbi
The reason you have just re-invented reddit is because you like designing
interfaces...

------
Perrydu
I cannot register this using my personal domain email like @perry.asia...

~~~
Gertig
Only Twitter or Github auth.

------
arcameron
Will you make it OSS?

------
desireco42
@macman, is this spine.js app? If not, why not?

------
sprizzle
I only wish Hacker News could look that good.

------
Pwnadog
I'd love this UI for reddit.

------
hk__2
Would you mind adding a favicon?

------
freehunter
Looks like monocle.io is down.

------
bowerbird
safe, friendly, constructive, and supportive is great!

and i suggest that you could award everyone a trophy!

-bowerbird

------
paranoiacblack
Interesting idea, but I wonder if "niceness" is really that important when
sharing ideas that may or may not be controversial. Being professional and
constructive might be a good goal, but these don't necessarily entail
"niceness." That is, you can still be professional and constructive while
being a giant asshole.

Also, I'm not really sure making people accountable by making them use Real
Names or whatever account tied to their real name will make them be nicer. It
might seem like that because on social networks, you can selectively add
people to talk to that you enjoy being nice to. When it is an open forum, the
discussion might still turn sour because people have contradicting viewpoints
and that's okay, especially in a technical discussion. Finally, tying people
to their real names by default sounds like it lends itself to all kinds of
Internet Detective-y stuff which will probably lead to more Ad Hominem attacks
than discussion.

Source: I post on Something Awful where we can still have useful discussion
and call each other out on our bullshit. Niceness isn't as important as the
free discussion of ideas.

~~~
marshray
To me, Reddit has done a great job of letting me think of it as the kind of
place that suits _my_ style of discussion. I hear stories about the atrocity
exhibition in this-or-that group of subreddits but never encounter it
personally.

------
rfnslyr
Hacker News - a nice Hacker News.

~~~
ZoF
The original title to this submission was "Monocle - A Nice Hacker News?"

To give this comment some context.

~~~
kmfrk
Indeed. Thanks for the new, completely useless title.

