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Ask HN: Social Network for Geeks?

9 points by karlhills ↗ HN
Would you be interested in an invite only social network for Geeks?

If so, would it be to find others with similar interests, to share things you've made, find news other geeks find interesting, or something else?

Are there any networks you currently use that already meet those needs?

12 comments

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My opinion is that at some point, things will go the way of Facebook. Facebook started as a college-student-only social network, and then eventually became available to the general public. I feel the same will happen with this idea. :/
karlhills
Good point. It's hard to keep it small AND find a way to keep it going with some sort of revenue stream
DrScump
You don't think that "geeks" would prefer to gravitate toward an environment that is not laden with privacy theft and pervasive adware, then limit their Facebook activity to those connections not present in a better environment?
mei0Iesh
IRC
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This is the tried and true response. It's been around for 20+ years and chanops enforce channel topics.
bhartzer
>> find others with similar interests, to share things you've made

How would that be different than what we already have... right here on H/N?

sunnyisme
If done right, I think that I would be interested. It's hard to get people active in a niche network compared to a Facebook group or a subreddit, but certain features could make it worth it. Here's one geeky network I recently came across that I think is executed well: https://gemr.com/

Shameful plug (hope this is ok, this is my first HN comment), but I'm also working on a "social network for geeks" but is more specific to developers and designers: https://codebee.io/ It's a big hurdle to keep users active but it's a side project and haven't been able to devote a lot of time.

stevekemp
Wasn't that one of the roles that http://advogato.org/ was going to solve? People would write content, list projects, write blogs, and certify each other.
krapp
I think you'd have to define "Geek", then somehow enforce the terms just in case someone invites a member who isn't sufficiently "Geeky." Otherwise you'll have people bickering over who belongs there and who doesn't. How about car geeks? Sports geeks? People who bite the heads off chickens for a living? Will prospective members have to prove their "Geek cred" somehow?

It's sort of like how Hacker News is for "anything that good hackers would find interesting," which sounds like it means something but really doesn't mean anything specific, and probably just resolves to "anything that correlates with the interests of the mods," like every other moderated community. Other than branding, what even is the point of using "Geek" at all?

But to actually answer you question, personally, no. I think there are already tons of sites which cater to "Geek culture" (or nerd culture or... whatever) of various niches, and of course if what you want in HN, but with invitation only, there is lobste.rs. Someone can basically set what you're describing up as a subreddit. I also don't like invite-only communities on general principle.

giaour
Unless you're looking for facebook-like profiles, I think HN, GitHub, and StackOverflow fit the bill.