Programmer wanted to develop Reddit alternative

submitted by fschmidt from mikraite.org

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[–][deleted]  (7 children)

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    [–]fschmidt[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (6 children)

    I would prefer using my own language, Luan, as described in my post. But I am open to discussing alternatives.

    [–][deleted]  (5 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]fschmidt[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

      You mean dynamically-typed? Yes.

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]fschmidt[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

        I started with Lua because it was the simplest language I could find. I wanted a simple programming language. So I first implemented full Lua and then simplified further from there (removing unnecessary features) and improved a few things. I have been using this language for years in commercial projects and it works very well.

        I implemented it in Java to make it portable and because I know Java well. Luan runs about twice as fast as native Lua.

        [–]Intuit 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

        Interoperability is worth a lot. NIH.

        [–]fschmidt[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        For interoperability I would support federated protocols.

        They say not to reinvent the wheel, but when modern culture goes insane and starts making square wheels, then it is time to reinvent the wheel.

        [–]bagano1 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

        I think a lot of people are being paid to post on reddit. I've noticed on a lot of sites, everyone thinks the same way and if you disagree with anyone, you're instantly banned. I think reddit hires a lot of people to post there or they work for someone else. It was fairly obvious that Twitter was paying celebrities to post on there when they first started. If they didn't do it, it probably would have gone bankrupt.

        [–]fschmidt[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

        [–]bagano1 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        I can see where you're coming from.

        [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

        Schmidt, have you ever talked to the NotABug guy? He's one of the few who are serious about free speech. With $2500 a month, notabug could get somewhere nice really fast. There's a small but loyal community around it too.

        But at the same time, a serious and motivated team could do something from scratch and eclipse notabug, lemmy, lotide, littr and the rest.

        [–][deleted] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

        He's one of the few who are serious about free speech.

        He should disable downvoting then, we shouldn't have to expand ~80% of comments in order to view them.

        [–][deleted] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        touche

        [–]LarrySwinger2 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        You can have downvotes without automatic collapse. It can be a simple indication. Changing the color like on Hacker News is also a nice touch.

        [–]madcow-5 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        Even the downvotes IMO don't really hide stuff. If anything, I get more excited to open up the comments I see closed by downvotes. That's usually where the substantial conversation is.

        It's mods and administrators all out removing comments and banning users that really brought reddit down. I still enjoyed it when it was mostly a lefty circle jerk where people downvote and get upset with you. It was them crossing the line of banning comments and users that challenge the status quo that made it not worth using at all.

        [–]fschmidt[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

        Schmidt, have you ever talked to the NotABug guy?

        No. He is welcome to contact me.

        But at the same time, a serious and motivated team could do something from scratch

        Yes. One decent full-time guy should be able to get something done quickly. If I had a few hours free per week to invest in this, I could do it, but I don't have that time.

        [–]johnnybravo 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        u/go1dfish I think this guy wants you to contact him

        [–]C3P0 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        A forum website can be made in a day. Your requirements so far right now just seem to be "saidit" with moderators. You could do that and just sit by yourself making posts to yourself on a forum all year long.

        That's the thing about social media giants, twitter, facebook, instagram, etc. You can make an excellent professional alternative (think Google+), and no one will ever use it because it hasn't gone "viral". Not only is an idea not enough for a successful forum, a well-executed plan is not even enough. Google tried it.

        [–]eh-non-plus 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        Don't be swayed by the propaganda. NaB doesn't need any help from no-one and you shouldn't waste your time building something else.

        [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

        I thought you guys have developed the reddit alternative. Where does this guy think he is?

        [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

        Hahhaa maybe he's here tryina poach our talent!

        [–]C3P0 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

        Aren't these Reddit sites just forum software? There must be millions of forum websites on the internet.

        This is the programming sub which contains threads about programming (i.e. it is a forum).

        [–]fschmidt[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

        Most forums aren't social (info shared between forums). This programming sub is a forum but shares user info and search results with all other forums on saidit.

        [–]C3P0 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

        You need a lot more criteria about exactly what kind of website you would like. Right now, it sounds like you want Saidit--well, saidit is right here.

        [–]fschmidt[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

        Saidit seems like the best current option, which is why I am here. But it has some issues.

        First, Saidit doesn't seem to support the idea that moderators own their subs. Instead Saidit seeks to impose its view on all subs.

        Second, I can't tell how truly supportive of free speech Saidit is. Are they ready to switch hosting providers, DNS registrars, or whoever else attacks them for free speech? The evidence so far seems bad.

        Third, Saidit is centralized. Ideally a platform should be federated and open source so that anyone can participate from anywhere.

        [–]magnora7 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

        First, Saidit doesn't seem to support the idea that moderators own their subs. Instead Saidit seeks to impose its view on all subs.

        Yes because the moderator fiefdom problem is why reddit failed and exactly how it was hijacked. This was a very deliberate choice to protect free speech, to limit what moderators can delete. (unless they take their sub off of /all, and say it in the sidebar explicitly, then they can delete anything they like)

        Second, I can't tell how truly supportive of free speech Saidit is. Are they ready to switch hosting providers, DNS registrars, or whoever else attacks them for free speech?

        You mean how we've switched servers 3 times, and kept this thing going for 3 years through endless attacks?

        Third, Saidit is centralized. Ideally a platform should be federated and open source so that anyone can participate from anywhere.

        Can't disagree there. However I think you'll find your estimate of "One decent full-time guy should be able to get something done quickly." to be extremely short of the mark in reality. It's like a 5000 hour project, not a 200 hour project. That said, I wish you the best, but I really think you should have a good roadmap before you code anything out.

        [–]fschmidt[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

        Yes because the moderator fiefdom problem is why reddit failed and exactly how it was hijacked. This was a very deliberate choice to protect free speech.

        I disagree. Reddit's problem is banning subs and users from the platform. We can agree to disagree here. The reason I want to develop my own platform is that no one else is taking my approach.

        However I think you'll find your estimate of "One decent full-time guy should be able to get something done quickly." to be extremely short of the mark in reality. It's like a 5000 hour project, not a 200 hour project. That said, I wish you the best, but I really think you should have a good roadmap before you code anything out.

        Maybe "done" is the wrong word, but at least started. I wrote a forum platform long ago (before reddit) so I know what is involved, and I have a clear roadmap in my mind.

        [–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        Reddit's problem is banning subs and users from the platform.

        That is a problem, but they also let places like /r/politics and /r/pics get completely hijacked by shills who enforce a biased political agenda on what should be neutral subs, which itself is censorship because they will delete your comments and ban you from the subreddit. This is just as big of a problem as the removal of the subreddits themselves, imo. There's basically gangs of paid shills that censor everyone they don't like on all the main subs, so it's very bad for free speech. But they're both a problem, for sure.

        Your website sounds great! I wish you all the best. I think you might have a rough go doing Lua for something this complex simply because there's not a lot of package support, and it's harder to find Lua programmers to help as there are fewer of them.

        But the more alternatives the merrier, I say! It sounds like worth trying at the very least

        [–]C3P0 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        You know what they say, "talk is cheap." /u/magnora7 has a good philosophy for saidit because people can't actually be trusted to be impartial. You could take all the good things and put them into a perfect forum. Hopefully people would actually use the site.

        [–]BrainsRsexy 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        i havent read this thread very carefully, but i see you picking your programming language and then trying to decide how much to pay for a programmer, oh my jeezus.. you are entirely backwards caddywampus on this..

        nope.

        as a person that has been developing various types of code for almost forty years, maybe i might have a clue.

        the correct place to start is with a piece of paper and a crayon.

        start kicking around ideas, like "in a perfect world, things would be like.... blah and blah and blah"..

        that should keep you busy for a minute.

        my name is Bond, James Bond.

        I can be reached at extension double oh seven.

        [–]djhdlkguhaeil 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

        2500 a month is garbage wages. Literally ridiculous.

        I think you're better off just having it open source and encouraging people to work on it for fun. 2500 per month triggers that insult defense mechanism no matter what its for. At least with me.

        Luan as a language sounds weird. You say it's implemented in Java which doesn't make any sense. Is it just a jvm language or is it a framework in Java?

        [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 4 fun1 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

        Japan is the only remaining culture that I know of that values quality.

        weeb

        [–]dissidentrhetoric 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        All these mainstream websites are open to competition. People just need to create the alternatives in such a way that they can scale and gather funding at the right time.

        [–]Notoriousbic 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        Hey there.

        I’ve been working on a decentralized option using truffle/ganache and etherium smart contracts.

        You can see my posts on the old Reddit discussing this a while back.

        But between finishing my CS degree in December and the project becoming something way more broad in scope ive yet to finish.

        Perhaps we should chat. PM me.