[HN Gopher] Show HN: FlingUp, a Reddit-like platform Ive been bu...
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Show HN: FlingUp, a Reddit-like platform Ive been building for the
last 2 years
Author : dt3ft
Score : 162 points
Date : 2023-06-12 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (flingup.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (flingup.com)
| AegirLeet wrote:
| Looks nice, but I can't register because Cloudflare hates Firefox
| users.
|
| (I was able to register an account using Chrome)
| AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
| Is that what it is? I get so many issues with Cloudflare yet I
| didn't consider the conflict to be between Cloudflare and
| Firefox.
| doix wrote:
| Looks pretty good and a non-profit seems perfect for something
| like this.
|
| I do have to say, I really dislike the card design that seems
| pretty much ubiquitous at this point. By introducing a border,
| you need to add a bunch of padding and then margins. Between two
| titles, you have padding (from the upper card), border, margin,
| border(lower card), padding. It's so much whitespace!
|
| How do comments work? Can you have infinitely nested comment
| threads? If so, I'm not sure your API will scale? Do you need to
| fetch replies for each comment recursively? That'll be a pretty
| bad experience, since you need to wait for one comment level to
| load before you can fetch the next one. But maybe I'm
| misunderstanding the API docs.
| dt3ft wrote:
| The comments can be infinitely nested. You can see the comment
| model if you scroll down to schemas:
| https://api.flingup.com/swagger/index.html
| doix wrote:
| Yeah I did look at the docs, hence my question. If you have a
| deeply nested comment tree, wouldn't you have to load each
| level sequentially?
|
| So let's say you have A (root) -> B -> C -> D
|
| Wouldn't you make one request to fetch A (root comments).
| Then a second request to fetch B (replies of A), another
| request to fetch C (replies of B) and then finally another
| request to fetch D (replies of C)?
|
| And you can't fetch B,C,D in parallel, because you don't know
| the id's ahead of time to request the child comments.
|
| Just something to think about, obviously doesn't matter until
| you have deeply nested discussions. But if you look at Reddit
| (or even HN) that is probably the most common case.
| dt3ft wrote:
| You're right, and this was a tough design choice I made
| when I built the first prototype. Loading only first level
| of child comments should (correct me if I miscalculated
| this) be the most cost-efficient way as not every user is
| (hopefully) ever going to read all child comments in all
| levels in the hierarchy.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > I do have to say, I really dislike the card design that seems
| pretty much ubiquitous at this point
|
| Maybe I'm showing my age, but honestly I think UI design for
| this type of site peaked at a list of blue links 20 years ago.
| It's actually one of the reasons I liked Reddit (and still love
| old reddit).
| doix wrote:
| Yeah, I'm with you, still love old Reddit and think it's peak
| design.
|
| I can never tell if I'm out of touch or if kids these days
| are wrong.
| subless wrote:
| Title seems oddly similar to another Reddit-like post from
| today....
|
| Show HN: Non.io, a Reddit-like platform Ive been working on for
| the last 4 years (https://non.io)
| xeromal wrote:
| Of course, that makes complete sense considering reddit is
| having a blackout for the next two days so people are hoping to
| capitalize on the turmoil. Definitely the best time to launch a
| competitor though they have a very steep hill to climb!
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Why has everyone around here been writing a reddit-like platform
| for years? And aren't there a ton of those already? I used ieddit
| for a while (wow, correction) it still seems to be alive,
| www.ieddit.com.
| dt3ft wrote:
| I did this in order to get hands-on experience in building a
| platform like this. A lot goes into it, even though it doesn't
| seem so by looking at what is rendered. Full stack, from data
| model to frontend client. I was new to Keycloak, TypeScript and
| React, and this was challenging enough to learn how to use the
| technology behind. I learn best by doing.
| jdlyga wrote:
| This is the most seamless Reddit alternative I've seen today. And
| it's already getting a bunch of posts. I like it.
| notatoad wrote:
| specifically it seems to be the only one trying to replicate
| the concept of communities.
|
| reddit is, at it's core, a place where people can host a
| community discussion board. the front page is just a very
| shallow window into that. all the reddit-alikes seem focused on
| reproducing the front page. something like tildes (or non.io at
| the top of HN right now) looks really cool, but it's just one
| community. you can filter and categorize all you want, but for
| any post there's just one discussion for the whole site to
| share. that's not a reddit replacement, it's a replacement for
| one subreddit, with some extra filtering tools bolted on.
| wetback wrote:
| Fantastically straight forward sign up, no email required.
| stavros wrote:
| There's currently an oddly similarly-titled post on the
| frontpage:
|
| Show HN: Non.io, a Reddit-like platform Ive been working on for
| the last 4 years
|
| Even the apostrophe from "I've" is missing in both. Odd.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Correct observation. That post inspired me to make my Show HN
| submission as well. All other similarities are coincidental :)
| stavros wrote:
| Ahh makes sense!
| ZacnyLos wrote:
| Is it connected with fediverse?
| demizer wrote:
| I will support any platform to replace reddit that is 1)
| completely open source, 2) community driven, 3) moderators are
| held accountable by the communities they govern, and 4) not ad
| supported.
|
| Social bookmarking is something the internet should have as part
| of it's infrastructure.
|
| Unfortunately the fediverse face-planted in it's time to shine.
| The infra is the hard part and that all has to be controlled by
| the same org.
| [deleted]
| rglullis wrote:
| Would you like a pony as well?
|
| Not only you have conflicting requirements (something to be
| part of the internet infrastructure while controlled by a
| single org) your comment gives absolutely zero constructive
| criticism. What about the fediverse was so bad that warrants
| anything like "face-planted in it's (sic) time to shine?"
| How/who/what are you supporting that is trying to get to the
| goals you listed?
| willis936 wrote:
| The internet infrastructure is defined by central
| authorities. You follow the IETF's and ICANN's rules or you
| are definitionally not on the internet.
| rglullis wrote:
| I am reasonably confident that DNS, TCP/IP and "social
| bookmarking" are each on different layers of the OSI
| networking model, but ok.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Tried to open it, it kept undefinitely in a loading animation,
| opened the web inspector, reloaded it and there only shows a
| Cloudflare message error saying that they blocked me from
| visiting it.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Do you have a VPN enabled by any chance? It loaded a bit weird
| the first time I opened it with PIA turned on. Worked fine
| after that, though.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| No, definitely not. But it could be that Cloudflare keeps
| playing with us Linux users[0] as I've had some funky issues
| with stuff like indeed.com
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36197401
| adamzochowski wrote:
| I don't use mobile, so I can't comment on that, but I can compare
| to old.reddit (the classic good version).
|
| Overall it is decent, but there is still plenty of work,
|
| Here are my comments, ignore if you don't agree.
|
| ----
|
| Content loading: Initial Page
|
| old.reddit.com loads fast all content, without javascript.
| flingup.com instead is stuck on 5 blue bars bouncing because no
| actual content is loaded on first page. It is all loaded on some
| delay for some reason. Here is a thing: render content on
| backend, and if it is expensive, render it and cache it.
|
| The only good thing is that flingup uses own subdomains, unlike
| reddit that uses other domains like redditmedia.com / redd.it /
| reditstatic.com . I hate companies that use alternative TLD
| because it is hard to discern if domain is real, or used by
| scammers.
|
| Additionally, only 2 javascripts are needed to load flingup, and
| they are hosted from realm.flingup ... the other 4 seem to be
| some form of bloat. Basicaly, there is an iframe that loads
| something from realm.flingup on port 8443 and this iframe loads
| two javascripts. If these are so critical, why are they loaded
| through an iframe? why port 8443? why realm.flingup ? Sigh.
|
| the good part, despite flingup being js based, it supports middle
| click / control click on links correctly, unlike plenty SPA. But
| not all items, can't middle click to see user profile, instead
| user has to normal click, which does some odd useless popup with
| an actual button to see user profile.
|
| ----
|
| Content look: information density at 30%
|
| old.reddit.com gives me 29 items I can see concurrently on my
| screen. Flingup only shows 9.
|
| ----
|
| Content look: almost no comments loaded (25% of 40)
|
| I will ignore the fact that most items are just links, not
| discussions. But lets use the top link "migrating from reddit" as
| example. It has some odd 40 comments, but only like 10 are
| loaded, because the remaining are hidden behind a series of
| 'there are 3 replies'.
|
| Contrast this with old.reddit that will load 500 comments, up to
| ?8? levels deep (I counted up to 8, maybe more?) with a button to
| 'load more comments' either in a thread, or at bottom.
|
| Paradoxically, my other complaint is no option to collapse
| uninterested thread, or to link to specific reply (aka permalink)
|
| -----
|
| Content: tooltips missing
|
| I dislike the '2 days ago' as it doesn't say when. old.reddit
| provides actual time of a comment / post when user hovers over '2
| days ago'. Flingup doesn't.
|
| ps: fling sounds like a dating app.
|
| Cheers
| rogual wrote:
| > Do not submit links or content with links to websites or
| businesses you own or are associated with.
|
| > You may only submit content to which you are the copyright
| owner.
|
| Interesting pair of rules!
| mberlove wrote:
| Ditto on this... I also wonder how this meshes with "You can
| share just about any kind of link in FlingUp." and "Anything
| goes on FlingUp." (from the tour)
|
| It seems as though users may share _links_ to whatever, but
| only _content_ which they own. A difficult line to tread.
|
| For the op, I would ask for a little more clarity on the
| intent.
|
| (N.b. this might cause some issues posting AI-gen content,
| which is sans copyright by law, at least in the US. Maybe
| that's the intent?)
| dt3ft wrote:
| A rewrite is in order with clarifications. The intent is to
| minimize risk coming from users submitting copyrighted
| content (entire news articles which are behind a paywall, for
| example, pages or entire books etc) which could backfire if
| the organization/site grows. IANAL but this would have to be
| looked over by a proffessional.
| technion wrote:
| I find rules like this tend to backfire.
|
| If I write a technical, non-commercial blog I'm not allowed to
| promote it, and I won't.
|
| But crappy commercial spammers won't follow the rules and will
| use sock puppets to promote content anyway. Which means seo
| spam becomes the most common post.
| vvilliamperez wrote:
| Basically, don't submit photos that aren't yours. That's what
| links are for.
| nomel wrote:
| And, if you do, that means they can't be self hosted? For
| example, if you write a comic, do you have to use some
| anonymous third party image service? Would a deviantart link
| be ok, even though you're associated with the page? Can I
| share a funny YouTube video? Does this make meme subs
| impossible?
|
| I imagine this will be tough to create a community around,
| without some clarification.
| AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
| A lot of good advice can be found here with how Hacker News does
| things.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23439437
|
| https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m...
| dt3ft wrote:
| Thank you, I'll dig through this.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| This one seems nice. It's better than the other alternatives that
| were posted here.
|
| Probably needs a bit more modern UI but it's functional.
| eep_social wrote:
| > Become a Flingon today!
|
| I did! Looks slick. I hope you're ready for the moderation
| gauntlet.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Thank you and welcome! Did you open the browser dev console? :)
| An easter egg lurks...
| trocado wrote:
| I like the snappy UI, but I think it needs a search box for
| communities/posts at least.
| pkos98 wrote:
| Loads pretty fast from Europe right now and UX looks reddit-like.
|
| Good first impression.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| [dead]
| dt3ft wrote:
| I am currently working on setting up a non-profit and plan to
| operate the platform just like Wikimedia runs Wikipedia. I see
| non-profit as the only viable, sustainable alternative in the
| long run. I am planting a seed, hoping others will join and help
| me build it, and soon enough enable me to step down. I have a
| full time job on the side and a family to take care of, and
| running this as a one-man-show is not an option.
|
| Tech stack:
|
| keycloak (auth) dot net core 6 typescript + react react router 6
| bulma
|
| I plan to open source both the backend API and the frontend
| client.
|
| API documentation: https://api.flingup.com/swagger/index.html
|
| A penny for your thoughts? Comments?
| kokanee wrote:
| I have a fairly negative/pessimistic take on this model, but
| it's my truth: Wikipedia, in my experience, is littered with
| some of the most aggressive, psychologically manipulative, and
| persistent ads of any major site. They just happen to be ads
| imploring me to donate to Wikipedia.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Now, imagine a wikipedia trying to juice it's numbers before
| it hits IPO in order to pay out it's VC overlords so they
| decide to have a 'premium truth' section above the regular
| article where facts are open to the highest bidder, the
| bidder with the most Free $peech.
|
| Wikipedia is a easy target but it's definitely a mile better
| than a lot of the trash out there.
| SahAssar wrote:
| I agree that Wikipedias donation banners are very aggressive
| and the whole "Wikipedia has cancer" idea certainly seems
| plausible.
|
| At the same time does any other top-10 site have a non-profit
| motive?
| kokanee wrote:
| An idea I would be interested in is some kind of public-
| private partnership for operating internet services like
| social media, search, and wikis, which are necessary for
| the public good but have no viable economic model. The
| government provides the public funding and private entities
| build and operate the services, because no one wants to log
| into a government-operated reddit clone to look for
| onlyfans leaks. Maybe this could be accomplished with
| grants instead of donations?
| sdwr wrote:
| Doesn't sound promising to me. Pretty sure that the "real" path
| to success involves putting 100% in, to the point of
| artificially seeding the posts and comments for weeks/months.
| "Social" means already having an enticing place for people,
| whether you make it or fake it. You sound like you've already
| given up and are done with the project. Referencing wikimedia
| is putting the cart before the horse, that's fine when you
| already have millions of views and sweet sweet non-profit cash,
| but getting there is the hard part.
|
| TL:DR site is ok, will to win is not there
| wkat4242 wrote:
| What you describe sounds more "fake it till you make it" than
| "will to win" :)
| sailfast wrote:
| I agree that a non-profit whose incentives are aligned to
| support the communities and users that are on the platform is
| the right way to go.
|
| Unfortunately also predicting a number of sites get stood up as
| competitors and then eventually pendulum back and forth until
| some sort of network-effect equilibrium emerges but this looks
| promising.
|
| Not as familiar with dot net core and how it handles traffic
| scale up / DB reads. I'd gather it works OK for that sort of
| use?
| pkos98 wrote:
| Lots of high-scale software runs on. NET like Stackoverflow
| or many Azure services. From programming paradigms it's
| essentially a Java clone so you scale vertically across OS
| threads (using abstractions like Tasks) and increase
| efficiency using async IO.
| sailfast wrote:
| Thanks for the answer!
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Interesting tech stack. Are you running on Linux? What's the
| hardware / cloud?
| dt3ft wrote:
| Bare metal dell tower for the time being. Linux is coming
| when redis caching layer is added, and I'd like to move
| keycloak on a linux node as well.
| bunnyfoofoo wrote:
| On Safari, getting: "Timeout when waiting for 3rd party check
| iframe message." And nothing loads.
|
| Works in Firefox though.
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Hey, are you aware of WT.Social? It's run by Jimmy Wales
| (Wikipedia Guy) and he just released its second version. The
| philosophy of your product seems aligned with his. See if you
| wanna contribute or partner:
| https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1668266400723488769
| dt3ft wrote:
| Thanks, I wasn't aware of this project. I doubt he'd be
| interested, but I'd love to shake his hand and ask him for an
| autograph. That man is a legend! I'll check it out!
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > A penny for your thoughts?
|
| when you open Reddit (or any of its clones) you see a bunch of
| posts. They may resonate to you, they may not, but you do see
| them.
|
| Opening your site present me with nothing.
| ivolimmen wrote:
| As a long-time reddit user I applaud the idea. It looks cool
| and I personally think that you are correct that any kind of
| social media (for the future) that would not feed on its user
| base (ads and selling user data) should be offered by a non-
| profit. Personally I would not have issues if a non-profit
| would still offer ads it's social media site; they needs income
| as well, right? Just hope they would not offer the ad companies
| the data of it's user base.
| halfbrite wrote:
| Tried to register, got hit with a Cloudflare error.
|
| Error 1015 You are being rate limited
|
| The owner of this website (realm.flingup.com) has banned you
| temporarily from accessing this website.
|
| Refreshing took me to an error page, which then tried to send me
| to:
|
| http://localhost:3000/
|
| Thing is, the platform looks like a great start, so I hope this
| can be fixed quickly!
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| Another Linux Firefox user chiming in to say I can't use the
| site. Permanent loading animation, developer menu reveals a
| hidden "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app." message
| that isn't appearing, even though JavaScript is enabled.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Thank you for checking it out. I will make sure firefox is
| supported, I don't see why it won't work out of the box, but
| I'll investigate and roll out a fix asap!
| deely3 wrote:
| Do you plan to add downvotes?
| Arch485 wrote:
| I like this. A nice QoL improvement would probably be to add an
| alternate card view where images/videos are expanded by default;
| that's usually how I browse Reddit.
|
| I'd be curious to see if the "no pornography" rule hinders growth
| at all. While I don't have actual numbers, I know from personal
| and second-hand experience that quite a lot of Reddit's (or the
| internet's in general) traffic is porn-related.
|
| In any case, I hope this platform takes off and succeeds. I think
| a non-profit alternative to Reddit would be awesome.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The UI is fantastic. Sleek and modern appearance with snappy
| response and pragmatic layout. Just made c/nba!
|
| How do I follow a particular community?
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(page generated 2023-06-12 23:00 UTC)