HN Explorer

Ask HN: Where do you hang out virtually online?

127 points by codemonkeysh ↗ HN
In the past, the place to be to connect with like minded people was on IRC; in particular ##java Now with Slack and Discord, I haven't found a community of folks who are building products, ideas, sharing thoughts, talking tech, talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.

This has created a bit of tension mentally for me. The feeling of being caged up with no physical cage.

There was a Slack group for startups by Jason a while back, but that looks to have died off.

178 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] thread
fractal618
Just reach out to people directly. Introduce yourself. Look at who's active on github, follow the trail of edits and comments until you get to developers that have similar interests. Use direct message services on linkedin, facebook, instagram. Just say "Hey that project your working on is cool".
ziggus
IRC is still a thing, and a very popular one at that. I've found that it's a great tool for finding like-minded tech people with relatively less 'noise' than in similar Slack or Discord groups.
CodeGlitch
I think the technical obstacle to even get onto IRC acts like a great-filter, most the people on there have an interest in it and brain cells to use technology. Unlike Discord where you can just sign up from your mobile phone...
DoItToMe81
Which networks do you recommend searching around in? I've not really looked hard, but the only ones I've found that are remotely active are filesharing ones.
znpy
IRC is still great. I'm using "thelounge" (https://thelounge.chat/) to have a pleasant IRC experience both on my laptop and on mobile.
ozarkerD
+1 for thelounge, ui is great and it seems very stable. Been running an instance for about a year and a half with no downtime except updates
mariocesar
I do Slack for Work, and recently lot of Discord for my many interests like Programming, Python, Cowork Spaces, Activism, Woodworking, No-Code tools, Minecraft-Parenting. And WhatsApp/Telegram for Family and close Friends
theshrike79
IRC is still there, the average age is way over 30 though. Whether that's a bad thing is for you to decide :)

Some IRC channels have moved to Telegram, a few larger communities over to Discord.

I still associate Slack strongly with work stuff and don't really want to have any non-work related things on there.

hemloc_io
The incoming message noise on slack always raises my heart rate like 5 BPM haha.
cbm-vic-20
Recent TV ads for Slack have that notification sound. So annoying. Like police sirens in radio ads when you're in your car.
hemloc_io
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who thinks this!
spike021
Similar thing here but with an alarm tone. The tone I used to get when paged while previously working for a FAANG seems to also be used for some function at a grocery store I frequent. So my BPM does the same jump every time I hear it.
ingvul
Why do you have sound alerts on Slack? I thought turning them off was the norm (at least in my experience). I have all the alerts turned off except the notification banner/popup.
bleomycin
This is definitely a positive for me. Any suggestions for channels/networks to start with? Haven’t used IRC regularly in a decade+ which coincides with me being unable to make any new online friends since then. Facebook seems to be where a lot of “older” folk have moved to but i refuse to engage with that platform.
Taylor_OD
I'm over a year from having a boss who was a slack tyrant and I'm almost able to use slack without some dread.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
Taylor_OD
Mostly city specific slack groups or game specific discords. There are great Chicago and Missoula tech slack channels. I don't live in either of those places anymore and I'm still really active in both because they provide a lot of value to me.

I don't have as good of a casual non work related hangout place though. Just Twitter generally.

choxi
Could I get a link/invite to the Chicago one? Email is in my bio
Taylor_OD
Linking here for others. Will email you as well: https://chicagotechslack.com/
chrisshroba
Thanks for posting this but for me it says:

This link is no longer active To join this workspace, you’ll need to ask the person who originally invited you for a new link.

Taylor_OD
Oh no. Try this one. Just generated it. Should work for the next three days: https://join.slack.com/t/chicago-tech/shared_invite/zt-10woz...
Nowado
Out of curiosity, if you could update if the members count grows noticeably after posting link here that'd be nice.
Taylor_OD
Sure. The Chicago tech slack is somehow pretty well maintained and has good conversations with just over 11K members. If it grew more than 100 I would be absolutely shocked.
Taylor_OD
From what I can tell about 5 people joined yesturday.
Nowado
Thanks!

Surprisingly low honestly.

nanomonkey
I've found that most tech these days are dog fooding their own products. I've been a happy participant on Secure Scuttlebutt for the last 5 years, where approximately a third of the conversation is about Scuttlebutt, where the protocol should be going, what's going on with each client, and coming to consensus on how to distribute funds or encourage further growth.

The same thing is true for Disaster Radio, SudoMesh and other mesh networks...you use the technology to talk about the technology, coordinate growth and goof around with inside jokes.

I'd be surprised if soon electric cars (...domestic robots, razor crest spacecrafts) didn't all have internal forums where folks talked about the technology itself.

So the question is what are you interested in connecting with people about? Robotics clubs have a different needs for interacting than say the folks interested in the Gemini protocol.

BostonEnginerd
SSB is a really neat project. I saw today that the Patchwork client is no longer recommended, but there don't appear to be any other equivalent frontends. Do you have any recommendations?
nanomonkey
I still use Patchwork or Patchfoo. But Manyverse is probably the more up to date and worked on client. That or Patchfox, which is a firefox plugin that uses one of the other clients (like Patchwork) as a SSB client/daemon of sorts.
pmarreck
How does SB compare to other options here (is this like Mastodon?)?
samschooler
SSB is most similar to a p2p bit torrent with discovery servers vs federated social network like mastodon. The protocol was originally created by a guy who lived on a boat and wanted to browse a network offline, respond offline, then when he came into harbor upload/download updates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt#History
pmarreck
ah that's very interesting, especially considering that I like sailing!

(hopefully Musk's planet-covering nodes will make the internet ubiquitous even out in the ocean...)

MadcapJake
I'm very new to the SSB-verse but I've been following Manyverse [1] and each update trying to assess if it's ready for prime time. I am stoked that the Desktop app has landed and am seriously considering setting up a room. On the horizon (for SSB, in general) is shared accounts across clients which I think is the last big hurdle, imo.

[1]: https://www.manyver.se/

kawfey
If you love hobbies where the hobby is to build up your hobby to talk about your hobby, you'll love ham radio.
herval
I've been trying to get friends to join me on VRChat. Lower pressure than a Zoom call, and after a day of typing, feels good to just talk a bit from the couch. Of course, VR as a requirement has been a bit of a deterrent.
poopsmithe
The VR in VR chat is optional. There's a desktop mode for people without the headset.
herval
I know :-) I constantly have to explain that
throwaway946513
You don't have to have a VR headset or hardware in order to join people in VR chat. I've joined friends using a standard monitor with a keyboard and mouse.

Of course the name doesn't help, but it isn't impossible to join if you don't have one.

herval
I know, that's part of what I try to tell people :-) it does require a somewhat beefy desktop/laptop though, and most folks are used to doing everything on their phones these days
Ralo
It works on standalone quest hardware as well, but you'll be limited to the worlds you go to, and you will usually end up using people's "fallback" avatar.
jMyles
Does it work well on linux these days?
ve55
I play it fine on Linux through Steam/Proton with a Valve Index. If you have a Quest it may be quite difficult, but it should be fine without VR as well
Ralo
It's a great game, it's entirely community driven so it's full of personality. However it did take a bit getting used to the weird sexual aspect of it, a lot of people living out odd fantasies. If you can filter through the weirdness, there's some amazing gems. I'd highly highly recommend the 3D movie theater.
olah_1
mozilla hubs is a lower barrier to entry because you don’t need to download a whole game. You can just give your friends a link and they also don’t need VR either.

https://hubs.mozilla.com/

ssivark
Mozilla does all these cool things, and I’m afraid they’re gonna shut it down in a year or two :-/
netfortius
This reminded me of the amazing communities of the early 1990s, when comp.lang.<language_of_interest>, or sci.engr.<engineering_speclialization_of_interest>, or even the soc.culture.<country_of_interest> were places of great conversations and learning opportunities. I poked around Discord, in search of such, but never got interested to the same level ...
rayrag
> talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.

I don't hang out there but you could check indiehackers.com?

aukhfauwhf
Matrix. From my point of view, most IRC communities are slowly moving.

Major projects i interact with (kernel, kde, rustlang, mozilla, etc) all have "rooms" in matrix with a considerable quorum (not as good as irc, not as empty as other places)

skinkestek
Another vote for Matrix here. With rooms and nested rooms it starts to look a bit like the good parts of Discord but with less gamer focus.

Earlier it felt like a wasteland but now it is starting to come alive. In particular https://matrix.to/#/#activitypub-community:codelutin.com is a nice overview of what happens in the federated space. (If you open it in Element, right click the icon in the left margin and click "Explore rooms") to see what I'm talking about.

PragmaticPulp
> I haven't found a community of folks who are building products, ideas, sharing thoughts, talking tech, talking lessons learned about growing their company, virtually collaborating on problems by sharing ideas, etc.

Twitter can be exactly this, but you have to put in some work to curate your follow list. You also have to be quick to unfollow anyone who turns out to be spammy or picking fights all of the time. If you just let your follow list grow unbounded, the quality of Twitter goes way down. If you follow and unfollow all the time, you can get a fairly interesting Twitter feed full of people sharing projects and discussing ideas.

Terry_Roll
Picking fights is a valid efficient form of communication and means of getting things done. Survival is in everyone's interest thats why country's go to war, it speeds up change.
ehutch79
On twitter, it's an efficient form of stirring up useless drama.
m00x
Twitter fights are well known to turn into meaningful change. /s
Terry_Roll
Well it got Trump into office didnt it? https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strate... https://www.channel4.com/news/topic/cambridge-analytica

But its not just twitter thats being manipulated and today we have algo's analysing everything making automated decisions, after all thats what cyber warfare is as discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29896985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29872227 https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/twitter-botnets-r...

Things have got even better now since this guardian article was written. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...

Look at #PartyGate with Boris Johnson for a recent example. It does make changes, the police are now forced to investigate the Govt & politicians!

I dont think you realise how much people are manipulated consciously and subconsciously.

dtjb
There's a gulf between holding politicians accountable and "picking fights online."
Terry_Roll
This is hacker news isnt it? Doesnt everyone have their own botnet now a days? ;-)
masaav
what about indiehackers?
codemonkeysh
Twitter use to be a place to find folks of common interests, but its been flooded with political and other highly annoying topics that I prefer to avoid. Sadly, there's not good way to filter out the content and they keep flooding you with it :(

R.I.P Twitter for me; haven't touched it in over 2 years.

PragmaticPulp
> Twitter use to be a place to find folks of common interests, but its been flooded with political and other highly annoying topics that I prefer to avoid.

Unfollow those people. It doesn't make any sense to follow a lot of people and then get angry about the content they're posting.

Like I said, if you let your follow list grow unbounded and you never go back and remove people, you'll eventually be flooded with content you don't want to see.

See someone posting politics and topics you prefer to avoid? Unfollow.

bluedino
The problem is that everyone is a expert on politics, economics, contagious diseases...

There are a lot of great people in the technical world that put their opinions on non-technical subjects out there

jpindar
You can block the keywords associated with those subjects.
codemonkeysh
The list is very long and forever growing - plus sadly, a lot of people tend to reply with images to prove a political point or to mock someone.
pmarreck
This reminds me of something I should do more. If you DO like to discuss those things, but also like to discuss tech, consider doing them on separate accounts.
codemonkeysh
I kept a very small focus list of folks; technology only. Sadly, a lot of those folks would engage with others on political topics etc. and then my timeline would get flooded.
cblconfederate
It's hard to participate. It's good for finding interesting ideas and people, but participating is a job on its own , since everything seems to attract the wrong people. Too public, too much anxiety
fryingneurons
indiehackers, wip .co & tech twitter is what you seek
habeebtc
I quite like BoingBoing bbs.

You will find a mix of knowledgable on a very wide variety of topics discussing current events. Many techies, but also doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, etc.

sekao
I'm building my own hang out spot: https://ansiwave.net/ Strictly a BBS right now, but i'm considering adding chat as well.
themodelplumber
Whoa, that's really impressive, I like the extra touch with GitHub.
holler
I'm currently building something like you describe over at https://sqwok.im

It takes inspiration from irc/aim/twitter and packages it in a way I wanted to use personally and didn't find available.

Happy to discuss what I've learned through building it! (blog post imminent)

https://sqwok.im/p/R6-x8BdgecDjyg

pmarreck
this looks fun! is it open-source?
holler
thanks! It's not open source but I plan on open sourcing parts of it at some point... have just been developing it solo so far
WallyFunk
Facebook group chat with the family. Mostly dank memes and dark humour on there. It's fun posting memes with a select few people that you trust. By all means, broadcast memes to 5000 randos on your Facebook timeline, but you can't beat the personal touch of a small group chat. Plus: the memes sometimes have context for what's happening in the family at any given moment.
standardUser
There was a "metaverse"-style chat room in the mid-90's that I loved. It looked like a side-scrolling game that was actually a chat room, and you chose an animal avatar to interact with the other avatars. There were ways to unlock different avatars, as well as some sort of currency, but I don't recall any of the details.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It's been in the back of my mind for almost 20 years.

depingus
There were a few of these. But you're probably thinking of The Palace Chat. Or maybe Microsoft Comic Chat.
standardUser
Thank you for the tips! But it wasn't either of those. Looked far more refined/less chaotic. And as far as I can recall, it was not a mainstream or popular platform. I believe my favorite avatar was an anthropomorphic unicorn? And the selection of avatars was fairly limited.
peruvian
Discord + iMessage, but it's just friends and for fun. We're not building anything.
eatonphil
My company (just me) hosts a hacking group on Discord. Particularly interested in topics like databases, compilers, emulators, operating systems, browsers, etc. That's where I hang out!

https://discord.multiprocess.io for the invite

I also just started a virtual monthly hacker night where hobbyists and professionals give talks on any of the above topics (anything tech internals, really).

I'm looking for more speakers. If you want to do a lightning talk or 20-30m talk let me know what you're interested in talking about!

meetup.com/hackernights or multiprocess.io/hackernights/