

Show HN: Chapp is topic-based chat - karjaluoto
http://chapp.is

======
gazarsgo
Thanks for sharing! Here are my comments, mostly critiques but please note I
really think you have a great start here.

Nice clean interface, reasonably quick to use.

Doesn't work with 1password.

HTTPS isn't the default, and when requested gives a cert failure (representing
*.onmodulus.net)

Email notification should be opt-in? Also should have a toggle for product
notifications.

When I click on someone like
[http://chapp.is/people/hayk/activity](http://chapp.is/people/hayk/activity)
the profile link takes me to my profile instead of theirs.

All in all, I'm looking forward to watching this service grow! (p.s. I suggest
looking into PostgreSQL 9.3 as a backup plan to Mongo)

~~~
shelkie
Thanks for the feedback @gazarsgo! Meteor has great tools for integrating with
other accounts. Haven't tried out 1password yet though. HTTPS is coming soon
too :-)

Email notifications are on by default, but you can toggle them in the alerts
area. Alerts certainly need more work too, as does the people page. The nav
bug is on our task list already.

I hear what you're saying about Mongo. Hoping that Meteor will have additional
DB options after 1.0 is released.

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jacquesm
Hehe, cool to see #63 implemented :)

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/idea+dump+December+edition](http://jacquesmattheij.com/idea+dump+December+edition)

I'm sure that that did not serve as inspiration (and I'm definitely not trying
to claim anything here) but it's super nice to see this one come to life. Best
of luck to you with this, it's always been one of my favourites.

~~~
karjaluoto
That's neat, and reassuring. There's always doubt in building things like
this. It's nice to see that others saw value/opportunity in the same idea.

The note on your blog about moderation is one that we've been a little stumped
by. We built another community once, and found that if we gave that power to
the first person in a room (or what have you) some abused this. For example,
spammers would get in, and we'd be stuck cleaning up their mess.

Our current thinking on this point, is to make moderator status a privilege
that goes to the most active/helpful user in the channel. So, we're working to
determine a user's global karma, as well as their karma in a specific channel,
based on amount/frequency of interaction, Nods (similar to likes), and number
of times their posts have been reported as spam/inappropriate.

This sort of an approach allows moderator status to naturally shift over time
to the most active user—knowing that some will likely just drift away from
certain channels. Meanwhile, the onus is on the moderator to be fair in their
activity, as others in the group could essentially oust them for bad
behaviour.

I suppose this is overly detailed; however, you touched upon a topic that has
been on my mind. And I think writing this out actually helped me clarify it a
little more. :-)

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, moderation is a problem, especially because it does not really scale. The
reason I thought that 'moderator = poster, thread closes when moderators logs
out' is a nice trick is because it actually does scale. Another option would
be start moderation with the first comment posted, and then to close the
thread when it reaches a certain rank. At that point in time you could also
shut down the comments.

~~~
karjaluoto
I agree, moderation is going to be a real issue for us—particularly as usage
starts to increase. My fear with assigning moderation status to the poster,
though, is in it being so hinged to one individual. As such, if he/she leaves,
the channel stops growing.

We're looking at channels less like a session and more like a set of
hashtagged posts on Twitter. In that setting, anyone can tag a tweet;
similarly, anyone can post in a channel on Chapp. As such, we allow for the
discussion to continue to grow, and potentially shift in nature over time.

This could be the wrong approach, and there certainly are a number of
complications that come with it. That said, we like the idea that each channel
could grow into a community of sorts. Additionally, we think this approach
lends itself to building stores of (indexed) content that could be
useful—perhaps akin to a long-standing forum.

------
md224
Curious how you see Chapp compared to Reddit. Is Chapp meant for real-time
discussions as opposed to the more message-board pace of Reddit? Is it aiming
to solve a different problem? For example, you mention discussing Game of
Thrones or the Stanley Cup playoffs. What advantage would Chapp have over
following the discussions on r/GameOfThrones or r/NHL?

~~~
karjaluoto
I'm not sure that I can properly answer this question.

Reddit seems to work just fine, and I find it a good way to find new stories
and fun content.

That said, I also find the overall structure sort of difficult to
navigate/process. (This is my personal reaction—others might feel completely
different.)

I'm not so sure that Chapp is really going up against Reddit. That said, I
think we're trying to approach this in a somewhat (visually) simpler fashion.

Additionally, I think Reddit comes from a more granular standpoint of "here's
a thing; discuss," which for the most part seems probably better than the
vague nature of channel driven discussions. But, I think the notion of a broad
topic with less focused conversation might have certain advantages as well.

I suppose this isn't that clear of a response. (Perhaps I should blame this on
a long day and a couple of glasses of wine.) I think, though, that these are
just sort of different things, even if they seem similar on the surface. I
suppose in time we'll see if that's actually the case.

~~~
md224
Thanks for the response. I suppose my concern is simply that chat room
conversation around a topic doesn't seem to scale well without some sort of
structure for organizing input. What impresses me about Reddit is the scaffold
it provides for growing communities. Subreddits organize at the "broad topic"
level, with smaller topics of discussion voted on to surface the best ones.
Then you have the comment section itself, which is basically the "chat room"
of Reddit, but with branching and voting dynamics allowing a million diverging
conversations to occur without overwhelming the user.

Chat rooms have a place for small communities, but I fear that they simply
don't work for larger ones without more internal structure. But maybe you
don't intend Chapp to be a tool for discussions at that scale. Regardless,
good luck with your project.

~~~
karjaluoto
Yep—it could get tricky, particularly as volume increases. I also agree that
Reddit's approach works quite well—in part by having the starting post be so
specific in nature that it directs the conversation, whereas, Chapp
discussions (already) tend to wander off track from the channel topic.

Frankly, you could be very right about our approach potentially getting
jammed-up just due to the lack of structure. We're still not clear on what's
going to happen here, and do consider it an experiment. Although Chapp isn't
in any way groundbreaking (it's closely informed by many other formats) we see
it as something that could perhaps be a bit of a "new twist."

Of course, in building something you don't entirely understand, yet, it's hard
to say if you're making the right choices. For example, I would have thought
Twitter's 140 character limit was an obstacle, but I think it actually worked
to their advantage by allowing for faster, easier interaction for those with
something to say but not enough discipline to create longer-format content.

From what we've seen during our first week, I think we might be on to
something. Early users seem to like the simplicity of the approach, and a few
are really taking to it. That said, we could be misreading this entirely. If
nothing else, though, it's been fun so far, and we're curious about where it
goes from here.

And thanks for the well wishes!

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ironfrost
I like the idea, but another minor complaint: scrolling is painfully slow, at
least in Firefox. Each movement of the mouse wheel only moves me a few pixels
(it takes ~30 seconds of scrolling to go up a single screen), and other
scrolling methods (cursor keys, page up/down, middle-click) don't seem to be
supported.

~~~
shelkie
Hmm, we'll take a look at that. We're using iScroll here, so maybe there's a
mouse wheel issue with Firefox/Windows.

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adnanh
Why not just use the IRC?

~~~
karjaluoto
More technical people probably will continue to use IRC. That said, many
others won't, simply due to the barriers to entry.

Our take, is that topic-based discussions are of interest to a lot of less-
technical folks, too. For them, something like Chapp is easier.

~~~
nadaviv
There are quite a few web interfaces that makes IRC accessible to less-
technical folks, while also allowing for more tech-savvy users to use their
preferred IRC client. What's the advantage you see over using something like
that?

Edit: in fact, Chapp itself could be built on top of IRC and retain all of its
current functionality. You'll also gain a very well battle tested protocol and
software tools.

~~~
karjaluoto
But in spite of those web interfaces, IRC usage is still dropping. Our feeling
is that topic-based discussions need a fresh start.

I suppose that’s part of why we’re doing this. We don’t know quite where we’ll
end up, but do think there’s room for something in between IRC and more common
social networks.

Chapp is still very early on—hence the bugs and rough edges. That said, we’re
glad to have a working prototype in place, so we can muck about, and explore
where it can be pushed.

------
benackles
I would suggest giving a better idea of the product before you sign up. It's
just an MVP, so it's not a big deal. Just don't forget that when you arrive at
home, you don't know who you're trusting with your identity nor do you know
what you're getting into. Give a teaser.

~~~
karjaluoto
We're actually going the other way on this one. Currently, the site starts
with a landing page of sorts, with the links listed in larger type. This was
done with the notion of a starting point in mind--like a cover or
introduction.

However, we're finding that page really gets in the way when you visit
multiple times in a day. As such, we want to remove that obstacle. Soon, users
will land directly on the Active Channels list, as you can see in some of the
new comps:
[http://chapp.is/Chapp/83xZXYnEvhbz3xRMs](http://chapp.is/Chapp/83xZXYnEvhbz3xRMs)
(scroll to the top to view)

Our reasoning on this point is that visitors are pretty much able to see
everything that's on the site, without logging in. As such, I don't think we
need to explain what they'll find, as most will probably browse before posting
or commenting on anything.

------
karjaluoto
BTW: TechCrunch's article from yesterday:
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/04/chapp/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/04/chapp/)

~~~
karjaluoto
And Product Hunt feedback:
[http://www.producthunt.com/posts/chapp](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/chapp)

------
mitchellh
I can understand why not IRC, but it looks like a lot of topics are technical.
If you want to attract a technical crowd, it would be nice to see an IRC
bridge.

~~~
karjaluoto
The topics are more technical at this time, because we first noted Chapp in
venues like HN. (During closed testing, there were more design-related
channels, as we first asked a few of my friends to try it--and most of them
are designers.)

That said, with time we figure the audience will shift to include groups with
more varied interests. That's where we think this could become interesting.
Perhaps with folks watching Game of Thrones and chatting on Chapp about the
story as it unfolds. (Or the Stanley Cup playoffs, if that's your thing.)

Of course, it will take time for the community to diversify. And with each
day, and another few users, the tone of the community shifts a little. That
said, it's kind of fun watching how it changes.

------
karjaluoto
Curious to hear what the folks on HN have to say about this. It's still early
on, but we're pretty happy with how it's going so far.

------
jamesbritt
Curious to try this. Tried signing up using my phone but some gray sidebar
blocked the form fields for creating an accout.

~~~
jhargen
What OS & browser are you using?

~~~
jamesbritt
Stock chromium browser on a G2 android. Yeah, old. Android 2.3.4. Still, it's
rare that I can't view a mobile site.

~~~
karjaluoto
Hey James—I'll pass this on to @shelkie and see if he has any thoughts. :-)

~~~
jamesbritt
Thanks. I'm pretty sure I'm in a small minority, and got sign-up using my
laptop.

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Pistos2
If cookies are disabled/rejected, the splash page goes into an infinite
redirection loop.

~~~
karjaluoto
Not sure why that's occurring. We'll look into it.

