HN Distilled

Essential insights from Hacker News discussions

Org-social is a decentralized social network that runs on Org Mode

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

Nostalgia for Early Unix and Decentralized Systems

A strong theme in the discussion is the nostalgia for the early days of Unix and its integrated suite of tools for communication and identity. Users recall services like finger and USENET as precursors to modern social networking, highlighting their distributed nature and reliance on a single, unifying identity.

  • "Reminds me of .plan files from back in the day." - bitwize
  • "I've observed that Unix itself was a social networking platform. Your Unix account was your identity across many services: email, finger, USENET, talk, etc. And it was distributed. And didn't rely on cruft like ActivityPub." - bitwize
  • "We're rewriting the books. finger was the first social network!" - temp0826

Niche User Base and High Barrier to Entry

Many participants point out the extremely specific and small user base this described "social network" would cater to. The requirement to use Emacs and Org-mode, coupled with the self-hosting aspect, creates a significant barrier to entry, leading to skepticism about its broader appeal or utility.

  • "This seems less 'decentralized social network' and more 'html-less www with extra steps,' especially since it's only going to allow socializing between the specific types of people who fall within 3 very specific Venn diagram circles who 1) use emacs, 2) use org-mode, and 3) want to go through the trouble of hosting their own section of the network." - gentooflux
  • "This filtered out those who 1) don’t use eMacs 2) don’t use org-mode" - deltasquared
  • "This sure is a social network for a very small and specific set of people." - egypturnash
  • "I guess this is an internet for the folks who are still annoyed by the Eternal September?" - bee_rider

Comparison to Existing Technologies and Formats

Several users draw parallels between the described system and existing technologies, questioning what new value it offers or highlighting its potential redundancy. Comparisons are made to RSS, Markdown, and the inherent capabilities of plain HTML blogs.

  • "This looks like a bad hybrid between RSS and Markdown. Am I missing something?" - Beretta_Vexee
  • "What does it solve compared to a normal plain HTML blog?" - BrouteMinou

Emacs-Centricity and the "Exit Emacs" Threshold

A recurring point is the strong association with Emacs, leading to the humorous observation that the platform is for users who want to socialize but not enough to leave their Emacs environment. This is also linked to the idea that Org-mode users are accustomed to extra steps for their workflow.

  • "And also 4) somewhat want to talk to other people ― but not that much that they'd be ready to exit Emacs." - Joker_vD
  • "I suspect org-mode users are willing to go through an extra step if needed. My notes are in .org if I want to share with someone else I export to .md and use the output" - deltasquared
  • "small_scombrus: > but not that much that they'd be ready to exit Emacs. There's great news for the people who want to talk to other people and NOT exit emacs - you can get IRC built straight in. https://github.com/emacs-circe/circe" - small_scombrus

The Definition of a "Real" Social Network

There's a philosophical debate sparked by the niche nature of the platform, with one user suggesting that its exclusivity might, in fact, make it a "real" social network in contrast to the mass-market platforms currently dominating the landscape.

  • "In other words, it's a real social network." - jancsika

Technical Implementation and Alternatives

Some discussion delves into the technical aspects, with one user describing their own project to directly render Org files in a browser, bypassing HTML export. Others mention existing tools within Emacs for group communication, suggesting that some of the proposed functionality might already be present in different forms.

  • "Many people export their org file based blogs to HTML and then publish them, but my thought would be to skip that and instead provide a path for eww to directly render org files, cutting out my html export stopgap." - cml123
  • "We kind of already have groups in Gnus... I even messaged one group, like twice in my life." - crabbone
  • "There's Org for Vim users :)" - crabbone