Arc Forum | Improving the Arc forum

Arc Forum

8 points by typhon 4477 days ago | 13 comments

Seeing Pauan's answer at http://arclanguage.org/item?id=15617 got me thinking that the Arc forum has several related problems, mostly because it uses the same software than Hacker News.

So, here's a wishlist of things that a better Arc forum should have :

Its own custom search : We all bemoan the loss of af.searchyc, and google search is a poor substitute. We need this, if only because we can't centralise information if we can't retrieve it.

The ability to bump any threads : HN ranks stories according to their score and their age, and threads older than a certain threshold can no longer be answered to. The Arc forum doesn't have to behave the same way. It would probably be a good idea to be able to resurrect old threads. Coupled with the custom search it would prevent needless creation of redundant threads (nobody likes having to read the same thing twice).

Most forums I know are divided into subforums. It might be a good idea to use something slightly different here, perhaps a tagging system. Thus, it would be quick and easy to find all threads pertaining to Anarki, or the HTTP protocol.

All of those ideas reflect the fact that HN is a news site, and as such, prioritise new content and throws old stuff away from the homepage. A different design would suit the Arc forum better, and allow us to find the information we need more quickly and comfortably (These suggestions also reflect my own use of the Arc forum : I post very little, but I read it a lot and I search it constantly whenever I'm programming in Arc).

Additionally, it would probably be nice to have more text formatting options. In particular, I think we obviously need Arc syntax highlighting.

That being said, I'm not sure how we could solve these different problems. It would probably be possible to get the equivalent of HNsearch for the Arc forum, but the rest requires changes to the software. Also, it would be complicated to move the community to a different site, since newcomers to Arc will come here first.

What do you think ?

4 points by akkartik 4476 days ago | link

I want a wiki and tags in addition to the forum. All tags should be wiki pages. Anybody can add tags to useful posts or comments. As a tag accumulates links, somebody will eventually organize-and-archive them into a corresponding wikipage. This incremental workflow from forum to tags to wiki would encourage distillation of knowledge for newcomers.

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2 points by zck 4477 days ago | link

I had made a patch to make HN (and AF) allow users to quote text. I tweeted it at pg (possibly rtm also; I don't recall), and posted it on this forum (http://arclanguage.com/item?id=14701), and nothing came of it. It's really too bad; markdown has quote functionality, and the things users currently do are quite inferior (two spaces make code, not quotes; a ">" character looks ugly and doesn't obviously stand out).

Ah well.

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1 point by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

Hold on to the patch as it may still be useful. Who knows, something may come of a well coordinated movement by AF members to get the attention of pg and rtm. Even a 100 year language needs an active community. :)

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2 points by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

I agree that the HN format isn't ideal for the Arc Forum. However, to make even the littlest change here would require one of the active members here to have admin authority. Perhaps a good first start would be for someone here to talk pg or rtm into extending that privilege. We could then update some of the pages here that obviously need updating (eg. the install instructions page!) and begin the process of exploring how to modify HN to better suit a support forum.

I figure that everyone here will prefer to use a hack of the HN format, ie. must be Arc-based, rather than some other commonly used forum application. ;)

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2 points by typhon 4477 days ago | link

I agree. As I said in the other thread, it is a good idea to have an Arc-powered Arc forum. Before contacting pg or rtm, I think it is a good idea that we talk about what we want to change around here, so that we can give them a clear idea of what we want.

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2 points by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

Off the cuff:

1) Grant admin access to arclanguage.org to a high karma ranking Arc Forum member to update that painfully outdated home page OR update the home page appropriately, with added links to other Arc focused sites such as https://sites.google.com/site/arclanguagewiki/

2) Regarding modifying the current HN based forum:

a. A built in search utility, of course

b. Add 'popular' and 'sticky' tabs to the existing new | threads | comments, etc tabs.

- The 'popular' tab could be a pure karma based collection of the heaviest threads (sum of plus votes, in descending order).

- The 'sticky' tab should be threads created or selected by the admin, usually a collection of how tos, work arounds and frequently sought help. Order should be admin settable, and there should be an area above each thread where the admin can clearly highlight the purpose of the thread.

- if possible, the sticky threads should remain commentable unlike normal threads that become uncommentable after a certain period. I'm not sure how this would affect the site from a performance standpoint as I understand HN currently uses this strategy to optimize performance.

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2 points by typhon 4477 days ago | link

I don't think we should be too worried about performance. The Arc forum has much less visits than HN, and much less activity.

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2 points by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

If performance is not a factor, then I would suggest that all threads remain permanently open to commenting. That way an inactive thread could become active and show up under the 'comments' tab, and be of use long after the original contributors have left it.

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1 point by akkartik 4477 days ago | link

Guys, these are all great comments, but there are no signs that PG has even visited this forum in a long time, let alone made any changes to it. I want to set expectations.

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1 point by typhon 4477 days ago | link

I know. Last time he posted was 470+ days ago. He probably would've said it if he had made any change.

So we are left with the following choices, if we want to improve the arc forum : bug pg for changes by sending him emails, or deciding as a community to move discussion about Arc somewhere else.

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1 point by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

What are the odds of getting pg's attention? We should do all we can to get it, and only if all else fails should we look into the option of moving elsewhere.

Should we file a petition with pg and rtm, and if we do, where would the best place be to present it? I figure something along these lines might be necessary.

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2 points by dido 4477 days ago | link

Might the community be better served by a more traditional mailing list or Usenet newsgroup? comp.lang.arc maybe, and have a FAQ and all that. Just wondering.

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1 point by kinleyd 4477 days ago | link

comp.lang.arc sounds good - would be in a great tech tradition. Any idea how one goes about that? I figure you'd still need pg or rtm to endorse it?

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