Geekhack seems to be a relic of the past anyway, only exist because there is no proper alternative yet and above all because the community is already massive.
Now there's a real unpopular opinion. I have a feeling that few will agree with that one. It is like a breath of fresh air to me to have a real forum around that's so active. More modern alternatives are usually very poorly organized, information flows in and out like water, never to be seen again (Reddit), waste endless resources on hideous/useless cosmetic flourishes and infuriating menu systems, or a combination of the above. For what they're meant to do, there's nothing better than an oldschool forum.
Do a lot of people even use the Discord? I never have. I can't think of many reasons why I would, though I use it every day to talk to friends. Discord is basically a glorified instant messenger. Its purpose is entirely different from a forum.
GeekHack is to me the best place to look for something, while I kind of agree with you on the organisation and the newer alternatives, not seeing the weakness is definitely being blind (as not seeing its strength).
I feel that we'll find that we may disagree on most of what is and is not a weakness.
As a newcomer here is the points I would work if I was handling the forum:
- Enable users to put a status on a thread, so we know for sure if a Interest Check is still ongoing or dead, or moved into a GB, we would also know if a GB is still active of ended, we could reopen a GB and mark it as a second round etc. Any user should also be able to "request a change" so the moderators can change it accordingly.
Currently all we have is a title change, that is never really changed often, a dead GB has the same place as a running GB and a fulfilled GB. This is truly exhausting while navigating.
Rule 3 from the group buys rules sticky is as follows:
Thread Closure: We understand that group buy threads are useful for much longer than classifieds threads. However, we would like to ensure that very old group buy threads for buys that have been completed for a significant amount of time are not bumped and occupying space that could be used by active interest checks or buys in the ordering stage. To this end, we would like group buy organizers to close their threads after items have been received and sufficient time has passed. When everyone has received their items, are happy with them, and there's no more business to be done on the buy, please close your thread. We will not be exceedingly strict about this rule, but may close threads that that are bumped out of the group buy graveyard of the last forum pages.
I would argue that a forum is maybe not an ideal place for group buys to begin with, but is there anything that's insufficient about the author of a thread putting something like "[closed]" in the title of a thread, locking the thread, and letting it rapidly fade from the front page of results that is insufficient? There is also already a "Report to moderator" link in the bottom right of every single post in a thread. Everything you mentioned seems to be accounted for when group buys are run responsibly.
I have barely even looked at that section though, so take that for whatever use it may be in practice. It just sounds to me like thread authors just aren't doing their due diligence if this is actually a problem ... which would still be a problem with any related changes.
- A better search engine, this a total waste, the point of a database is to be able to do queries, every single message are stored into a database.
You've got an objective point here. The search engine is not ideal. I think some would argue that any integrated search engine is pointless when you can easily do site searches from dedicated search engines that are already much more powerful/refined (Some websites used to integrate Google site searches into their websites instead of dedicated search tools. This worked perfectly. I'm not sure if it is still done.). I would be inclined to agree with them, personally, but a better search engine obviously has merits.
- We don't know right away if we already click in a thread or not, I'm more interested in new threads than already visited ones. Even if it was the opposite I should be able to discriminate those two.
Are you using some sort of strange theme? The title of every single thread I have already viewed with the default theme has a slightly darker hue of orange than those that I have not. If there's been a response since I last viewed it, it reverts to the unread color. This, again, is coming from someone who generally does not care at all about group buys and/or fads/trends. If I see a title that I find interesting, I click on it, if I do not ... I do not. If it was interesting the last time I clicked on it, I usually remember whether or not I have and decide whether or not to read new replies (I generally never even use the notify or watch buttons manually).
Now, I could conceive of this not being applicable to everyone, or all current uses of this forum. This, as well, makes me wonder whether or not they're well-suited to a forum, whatever they may be. What are situations in which this is insufficient? How would you improve the current system?
- Since the forum is old, we should have enforced some requirement when submitting a GB, every single time the same question appears "is it WK, WKL, ISO, ANSI only ?" Even if OP does not know yet, we should be able to get rid of all those pollution (the question itself is legitimate, but the fact that we see the question a dozen of time on one thread is not).
A list of messages is a list of messages. You would think that if it were asked once, the OP would update the first post to clarify. What is it that you're seeing as an inherent problem with the format? How would you improve this? Would you prefer something sort of like Reddit's nested comments? I could see this being potentially sort of helpful in this very limited scenario, if actually executed much better than it is on Reddit, since the way that navigation through such nested comments on Reddit is handled is so clunky that I often don't even dig very deeply into replies chained onto others, and you still end up seeing comments that essentially say the exact same thing as others ... because people still don't bother to read all of the previous unique comments.
I know GeekHack is "just" a forum, but the point mentioned above are totally realistic.
I wouldn't even say that GeekHack is "just" a forum. Forums are wonderful for exactly what they are. Some may be slightly better or worse than others in layout and function, but simple function and usability is part of their design philosophy and purpose.
Unrelated to GeekHack, and in my view, there is a lack of "unified database", there is no way to search for a specific keyboard, set of keycaps, having the release date, the specification etc. Where to buy ISO keyboards, ISO keycaps etc.
deskthority.net tried, but it's pretty much dead because it's in a form of a wiki, or because the community is dead.
I quite like wikis. Is there something wrong with that format? I don't think Deskthority is dead, it just focuses almost entirely on vintage boards from what I have read, and seen. I don't even have an account on there, ironically, (and correct me if I'm wrong) but it seems to me that people there generally don't care about the latest limited-run colorways, artisans, etc. The wiki is filled with fantastic information about vintage boards, and that's not really something that needs updating. I do believe that a wiki for GeekHack was ... attempted.
[...] Its purpose is entirely different from a forum.
People are requesting a Discord link on every single topic. I don't like Discord for the reasons mentioned above but this is not true. People go to Discord to have update for GBs, it's the main form of updates for some people, even though this is not why Discord has been made.
Some functionality are different but some are similar. It's a place where you can discuss and exchange information.
We must be looking in very different places. I rarely ever see any mention of a Discord server for GeekHack. I usually forget it exists at all. Group buys must explain that. I rarely ever look there.
You can discuss and exchange information by mail, even telegraph if there are still functioning lines somewhere. That doesn't make it relatively comparable to Discord (an instant messenger), or a forum, or social media, or a town hall meeting, etc.
It is curious that anybody would gravitate towards Discord for group buy updates. Maybe just because they have accounts and are always monitoring their activity? That seems like a worse platform for group buys than a forum, which I don't think fits that well to begin with.
I do believe it's because the hobby is still new
I am kind of scratching my head reading your comments. Perhaps I am atypical (no perhaps about it) but I really don't think of "buying stuff" as being the reason that the forum exists.
To me, this is a forum for "discussing stuff" and although there is certainly buying and selling going on around the periphery, that is not the primary purpose of the forum.
And, also, the hobby and the forum were well-established when I started almost a decade ago.
Yes, agreed on all counts. There's discussion of what to buy, where, etc, but then that can lead literally anywhere from there to make the actual purchase. This is all leading me more and more towards thinking that this is a group buy vs forum thing, and that they don't really even mesh perfectly to begin with in terms of purpose.
