There are quite a few web interfaces that makes IRC accessible to less-technical folks, while also allowing for more tech-savvy users to use their preferred IRC client. What's the advantage you see over using something like that?
Edit: in fact, Chapp itself could be built on top of IRC and retain all of its current functionality. You'll also gain a very well battle tested protocol and software tools.
But in spite of those web interfaces, IRC usage is still dropping. Our feeling is that topic-based discussions need a fresh start.
I suppose that’s part of why we’re doing this. We don’t know quite where we’ll end up, but do think there’s room for something in between IRC and more common social networks.
Chapp is still very early on—hence the bugs and rough edges. That said, we’re glad to have a working prototype in place, so we can muck about, and explore where it can be pushed.
Thanks for the feedback @gazarsgo!
Meteor has great tools for integrating with other accounts. Haven't tried out 1password yet though. HTTPS is coming soon too :-)
Email notifications are on by default, but you can toggle them in the alerts area. Alerts certainly need more work too, as does the people page. The nav bug is on our task list already.
I hear what you're saying about Mongo. Hoping that Meteor will have additional DB options after 1.0 is released.
Yeah, the Android browser is a bit of a nightmare. We're currently using position:fixed; a lot with this site, which tends to be tricky with older mobile browsers. We're currently focused on adding critical features that are missing (i.e. search). After that we hope to build out proper mobile apps apps.
I like the idea, but another minor complaint: scrolling is painfully slow, at least in Firefox. Each movement of the mouse wheel only moves me a few pixels (it takes ~30 seconds of scrolling to go up a single screen), and other scrolling methods (cursor keys, page up/down, middle-click) don't seem to be supported.
I can understand why not IRC, but it looks like a lot of topics are technical. If you want to attract a technical crowd, it would be nice to see an IRC bridge.
The topics are more technical at this time, because we first noted Chapp in venues like HN. (During closed testing, there were more design-related channels, as we first asked a few of my friends to try it--and most of them are designers.)
That said, with time we figure the audience will shift to include groups with more varied interests. That's where we think this could become interesting. Perhaps with folks watching Game of Thrones and chatting on Chapp about the story as it unfolds. (Or the Stanley Cup playoffs, if that's your thing.)
Of course, it will take time for the community to diversify. And with each day, and another few users, the tone of the community shifts a little. That said, it's kind of fun watching how it changes.
I would suggest giving a better idea of the product before you sign up. It's just an MVP, so it's not a big deal. Just don't forget that when you arrive at home, you don't know who you're trusting with your identity nor do you know what you're getting into. Give a teaser.
We're actually going the other way on this one. Currently, the site starts with a landing page of sorts, with the links listed in larger type. This was done with the notion of a starting point in mind--like a cover or introduction.
However, we're finding that page really gets in the way when you visit multiple times in a day. As such, we want to remove that obstacle. Soon, users will land directly on the Active Channels list, as you can see in some of the new comps: http://chapp.is/Chapp/83xZXYnEvhbz3xRMs (scroll to the top to view)
Our reasoning on this point is that visitors are pretty much able to see everything that's on the site, without logging in. As such, I don't think we need to explain what they'll find, as most will probably browse before posting or commenting on anything.
Curious how you see Chapp compared to Reddit. Is Chapp meant for real-time discussions as opposed to the more message-board pace of Reddit? Is it aiming to solve a different problem? For example, you mention discussing Game of Thrones or the Stanley Cup playoffs. What advantage would Chapp have over following the discussions on r/GameOfThrones or r/NHL?
I'm not sure that I can properly answer this question.
Reddit seems to work just fine, and I find it a good way to find new stories and fun content.
That said, I also find the overall structure sort of difficult to navigate/process. (This is my personal reaction—others might feel completely different.)
I'm not so sure that Chapp is really going up against Reddit. That said, I think we're trying to approach this in a somewhat (visually) simpler fashion.
Additionally, I think Reddit comes from a more granular standpoint of "here's a thing; discuss," which for the most part seems probably better than the vague nature of channel driven discussions. But, I think the notion of a broad topic with less focused conversation might have certain advantages as well.
I suppose this isn't that clear of a response. (Perhaps I should blame this on a long day and a couple of glasses of wine.) I think, though, that these are just sort of different things, even if they seem similar on the surface. I suppose in time we'll see if that's actually the case.
Thanks for the response. I suppose my concern is simply that chat room conversation around a topic doesn't seem to scale well without some sort of structure for organizing input. What impresses me about Reddit is the scaffold it provides for growing communities. Subreddits organize at the "broad topic" level, with smaller topics of discussion voted on to surface the best ones. Then you have the comment section itself, which is basically the "chat room" of Reddit, but with branching and voting dynamics allowing a million diverging conversations to occur without overwhelming the user.
Chat rooms have a place for small communities, but I fear that they simply don't work for larger ones without more internal structure. But maybe you don't intend Chapp to be a tool for discussions at that scale. Regardless, good luck with your project.
Yep—it could get tricky, particularly as volume increases. I also agree that Reddit's approach works quite well—in part by having the starting post be so specific in nature that it directs the conversation, whereas, Chapp discussions (already) tend to wander off track from the channel topic.
Frankly, you could be very right about our approach potentially getting jammed-up just due to the lack of structure. We're still not clear on what's going to happen here, and do consider it an experiment. Although Chapp isn't in any way groundbreaking (it's closely informed by many other formats) we see it as something that could perhaps be a bit of a "new twist."
Of course, in building something you don't entirely understand, yet, it's hard to say if you're making the right choices. For example, I would have thought Twitter's 140 character limit was an obstacle, but I think it actually worked to their advantage by allowing for faster, easier interaction for those with something to say but not enough discipline to create longer-format content.
From what we've seen during our first week, I think we might be on to something. Early users seem to like the simplicity of the approach, and a few are really taking to it. That said, we could be misreading this entirely. If nothing else, though, it's been fun so far, and we're curious about where it goes from here.
I'm sure that that did not serve as inspiration (and I'm definitely not trying to claim anything here) but it's super nice to see this one come to life. Best of luck to you with this, it's always been one of my favourites.
That's neat, and reassuring. There's always doubt in building things like this. It's nice to see that others saw value/opportunity in the same idea.
The note on your blog about moderation is one that we've been a little stumped by. We built another community once, and found that if we gave that power to the first person in a room (or what have you) some abused this. For example, spammers would get in, and we'd be stuck cleaning up their mess.
Our current thinking on this point, is to make moderator status a privilege that goes to the most active/helpful user in the channel. So, we're working to determine a user's global karma, as well as their karma in a specific channel, based on amount/frequency of interaction, Nods (similar to likes), and number of times their posts have been reported as spam/inappropriate.
This sort of an approach allows moderator status to naturally shift over time to the most active user—knowing that some will likely just drift away from certain channels. Meanwhile, the onus is on the moderator to be fair in their activity, as others in the group could essentially oust them for bad behaviour.
I suppose this is overly detailed; however, you touched upon a topic that has been on my mind. And I think writing this out actually helped me clarify it a little more. :-)
Yes, moderation is a problem, especially because it does not really scale. The reason I thought that 'moderator = poster, thread closes when moderators logs out' is a nice trick is because it actually does scale. Another option would be start moderation with the first comment posted, and then to close the thread when it reaches a certain rank. At that point in time you could also shut down the comments.
I agree, moderation is going to be a real issue for us—particularly as usage starts to increase. My fear with assigning moderation status to the poster, though, is in it being so hinged to one individual. As such, if he/she leaves, the channel stops growing.
We're looking at channels less like a session and more like a set of hashtagged posts on Twitter. In that setting, anyone can tag a tweet; similarly, anyone can post in a channel on Chapp. As such, we allow for the discussion to continue to grow, and potentially shift in nature over time.
This could be the wrong approach, and there certainly are a number of complications that come with it. That said, we like the idea that each channel could grow into a community of sorts. Additionally, we think this approach lends itself to building stores of (indexed) content that could be useful—perhaps akin to a long-standing forum.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 66.4 ms ] threadOur take, is that topic-based discussions are of interest to a lot of less-technical folks, too. For them, something like Chapp is easier.
Edit: in fact, Chapp itself could be built on top of IRC and retain all of its current functionality. You'll also gain a very well battle tested protocol and software tools.
I suppose that’s part of why we’re doing this. We don’t know quite where we’ll end up, but do think there’s room for something in between IRC and more common social networks.
Chapp is still very early on—hence the bugs and rough edges. That said, we’re glad to have a working prototype in place, so we can muck about, and explore where it can be pushed.
Nice clean interface, reasonably quick to use.
Doesn't work with 1password.
HTTPS isn't the default, and when requested gives a cert failure (representing *.onmodulus.net)
Email notification should be opt-in? Also should have a toggle for product notifications.
When I click on someone like http://chapp.is/people/hayk/activity the profile link takes me to my profile instead of theirs.
All in all, I'm looking forward to watching this service grow! (p.s. I suggest looking into PostgreSQL 9.3 as a backup plan to Mongo)
Email notifications are on by default, but you can toggle them in the alerts area. Alerts certainly need more work too, as does the people page. The nav bug is on our task list already.
I hear what you're saying about Mongo. Hoping that Meteor will have additional DB options after 1.0 is released.
That said, with time we figure the audience will shift to include groups with more varied interests. That's where we think this could become interesting. Perhaps with folks watching Game of Thrones and chatting on Chapp about the story as it unfolds. (Or the Stanley Cup playoffs, if that's your thing.)
Of course, it will take time for the community to diversify. And with each day, and another few users, the tone of the community shifts a little. That said, it's kind of fun watching how it changes.
However, we're finding that page really gets in the way when you visit multiple times in a day. As such, we want to remove that obstacle. Soon, users will land directly on the Active Channels list, as you can see in some of the new comps: http://chapp.is/Chapp/83xZXYnEvhbz3xRMs (scroll to the top to view)
Our reasoning on this point is that visitors are pretty much able to see everything that's on the site, without logging in. As such, I don't think we need to explain what they'll find, as most will probably browse before posting or commenting on anything.
Reddit seems to work just fine, and I find it a good way to find new stories and fun content.
That said, I also find the overall structure sort of difficult to navigate/process. (This is my personal reaction—others might feel completely different.)
I'm not so sure that Chapp is really going up against Reddit. That said, I think we're trying to approach this in a somewhat (visually) simpler fashion.
Additionally, I think Reddit comes from a more granular standpoint of "here's a thing; discuss," which for the most part seems probably better than the vague nature of channel driven discussions. But, I think the notion of a broad topic with less focused conversation might have certain advantages as well.
I suppose this isn't that clear of a response. (Perhaps I should blame this on a long day and a couple of glasses of wine.) I think, though, that these are just sort of different things, even if they seem similar on the surface. I suppose in time we'll see if that's actually the case.
Chat rooms have a place for small communities, but I fear that they simply don't work for larger ones without more internal structure. But maybe you don't intend Chapp to be a tool for discussions at that scale. Regardless, good luck with your project.
Frankly, you could be very right about our approach potentially getting jammed-up just due to the lack of structure. We're still not clear on what's going to happen here, and do consider it an experiment. Although Chapp isn't in any way groundbreaking (it's closely informed by many other formats) we see it as something that could perhaps be a bit of a "new twist."
Of course, in building something you don't entirely understand, yet, it's hard to say if you're making the right choices. For example, I would have thought Twitter's 140 character limit was an obstacle, but I think it actually worked to their advantage by allowing for faster, easier interaction for those with something to say but not enough discipline to create longer-format content.
From what we've seen during our first week, I think we might be on to something. Early users seem to like the simplicity of the approach, and a few are really taking to it. That said, we could be misreading this entirely. If nothing else, though, it's been fun so far, and we're curious about where it goes from here.
And thanks for the well wishes!
http://jacquesmattheij.com/idea+dump+December+edition
I'm sure that that did not serve as inspiration (and I'm definitely not trying to claim anything here) but it's super nice to see this one come to life. Best of luck to you with this, it's always been one of my favourites.
The note on your blog about moderation is one that we've been a little stumped by. We built another community once, and found that if we gave that power to the first person in a room (or what have you) some abused this. For example, spammers would get in, and we'd be stuck cleaning up their mess.
Our current thinking on this point, is to make moderator status a privilege that goes to the most active/helpful user in the channel. So, we're working to determine a user's global karma, as well as their karma in a specific channel, based on amount/frequency of interaction, Nods (similar to likes), and number of times their posts have been reported as spam/inappropriate.
This sort of an approach allows moderator status to naturally shift over time to the most active user—knowing that some will likely just drift away from certain channels. Meanwhile, the onus is on the moderator to be fair in their activity, as others in the group could essentially oust them for bad behaviour.
I suppose this is overly detailed; however, you touched upon a topic that has been on my mind. And I think writing this out actually helped me clarify it a little more. :-)
We're looking at channels less like a session and more like a set of hashtagged posts on Twitter. In that setting, anyone can tag a tweet; similarly, anyone can post in a channel on Chapp. As such, we allow for the discussion to continue to grow, and potentially shift in nature over time.
This could be the wrong approach, and there certainly are a number of complications that come with it. That said, we like the idea that each channel could grow into a community of sorts. Additionally, we think this approach lends itself to building stores of (indexed) content that could be useful—perhaps akin to a long-standing forum.