I had the same impression about the hello.webwide subdomain, thinking that a person had to sign up to see everything.
I'm certain that impression is intentional. They're using it as a conversion page, which is of course why it was the page posted to HN. Dark pattern in action.
Hi, sorry! Didn't want to mislead. I am of the impression that not knowing it's all in the open is a bad thing so definitely not something I wanted to hide away.
Of course the page was built with conversions in mind, for the good of the project I want to spell out the benefits and convince people to sign-up but certainly not in a dark way.
I've added some more links including the logo, a view all discussions button and a browse as guest down by the bottom CTA to communicate this better.
Good point! Found it difficult to get out all the ideas and features of the platform within the public discussion board system without being intrusive to people who just wanted to lurk. I've made some clearer routes from the landing to people who just want to browse as a guest.
My ideas for writing benefits would be both that people can make their replies and new threads as long/short form as they want.
There's also plenty of categories where we welcome blog style posts whether you want to write a tutorial, development log, share an achievement, etc. Self-promotion rules are relaxed because as an industry we're creators and I think platforms such as Reddit can really stifle this.
> Self-promotion rules are relaxed because as an industry we're creators
That's a good point. I think there are somewhat many people who develop software or designs, and would post mostly their own things to a place like Reddit or Webwide — and get upvoted and appreciated by the community.
Congrats on launching. How does your custom(?) forum software create something different/better than existing communities on Reddit, Discord, Spectrum, Stack Overflow etc?
I longed for an active traditional style board for many reasons. There’s pros and cons to every style of community and they’re all great for different things.
A bit down this post I did a pros and cons of Webwide vs. Reddit style, Twitter style and Slack/Discord style
Let me know if you have any questions or comments at all.