> The goal wasn't to build another social network.
> It was to bring back a small feeling that the web used to have: the sense that there are actual people on the other side of the screen.
> Town Square is intentionally tiny and forgetful. There are no accounts, no profiles, no follower counts, no permanent chat history. Messages exist only while people are there to read them.
Cute idea! But maybe this is just me having a different experience, but people having accounts/permanence was one of the defining “old web” feelings people keep talking about. A few people that were always in comment threads, or people with their own blogs linking back to you etc. People didn’t have the sign guestbooks with the same info every time, but they would anyway because they’re building up a persona. I get that you don’t want any social-media-y popularity contests, but… that is sort of what the web 30+ years ago was like.
by kachurovskiy
4 subcomments
- I've had a strange experience this week at a maker meetup in my city. Couple dozen people came to make a short presentation about what they're building and there was a somewhat lively networking with food and drinks. The project quality was all over the place but what struck me is that nobody really wanted to keep in touch after the meeting beyond adding each other on LinkedIn. I have even created a Telegram group and got several folks to join but they never replied or posted anything so today I had to just delete the group. Perhaps I didn't make the right impression or I've misunderstood the reasons people go to such meetups
- I hope sites that just provide a way for people to assemble offline will be the new thing soon.
A photography guide's site that rallies amateurs for walk tours. A planning board for a foreign language practice group. A site with a schedule and registration form for a sports event.
When I read "online social" my head thinks "not-really social".
- Fun fact. My wife and I met on something similar in 2006 or so. "My Blog Log" was a sidebar widget that showed other people who we reading that blog. She was in marketing, I was in tech, and it was a blog at that intersection written by Rex Hammock (RIP).
- Reminds me of the old ff0000, sadly no longer active, but this is what it looked like: https://www.reddit.com/r/lost_websites/comments/11lao71/ff00...
I had found it on StumbleUpon. We'd log in with friends and just fly around, explore, punch each other, chat with random people across the world on a surprisingly fluid multiplayer setting that was built to promote a web advertising agency (if I remember correctly).
It was really ahead of its time. The old internet was so fun.
by SoftTalker
2 subcomments
- Not sure how this is appealing at all. I see a bunch of stick figures moving rapidly and comments flashing too quickly to read. I gave up as it wasn't obvious at all what to do or how to particpate.
- Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608570
Really love the idea!
by truemoose
1 subcomments
- I love it, and I just want to say thanks for making this and releasing it. I jumped through the indieweb webring and already stumbled onto another site using it too. Despite what some others have said about the lack of permanence, this still feels like an old web treasure to me even if it didn't exist.
- Cool idea but needs rate limit and abuse protection.
There is already a bot spamming hate speech
- Love this!!! Quick feedback: I keep thinking the Disable Townsquare button is a toggle for dark/light theme :/
- I know this is a long shot but I’m gonna try asking anyway because it has been eating away at me.
I remember seeing a website with the same concept as what the OP has done but with gorillas. It was during the early HTML5 and web socket days and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
I tried googling for it but nothing came up. Appreciate if anyone can give me a lead.
by nelsonfigueroa
0 subcomment
- This is pretty cool. I clicked on the demo but unfortunately it's already running into the inevitable issue of anonymous people typing out slurs and expletives. Maybe have a predefined set of words/phrases people can use?
This is the demo page for others to see: https://townsquare.cauenapier.com/#square
- There are 6 (!) posts about this in the last 15 days, can we not let it rest a bit?
by xtiansimon
0 subcomment
- Interesting.
What about bot traffic? I was imagining how this might appear on my own blog. Prolly quite empty of stick figures. But what about the “hordes” of bots which apparently make up some 50% of Net traffic?
by ElijahLynn
0 subcomment
- This is the kind of fruit that vibe coding brings! A quick little fun idea that you can just whip up and try out! Without vibe coating it might have just been an idea that got put on a list of ideas and never got to be tried out.
And now it's an open source repo that other people can try out and fork it and see what works and sticks!
I love it!
by thomastjeffery
2 subcomments
- Fun!
People in a town square still have identities. They are just likely to not know each other.
I think this is a significant part of a great idea. What it, and most/all other communication software is missing, is the ability to continue a conversation into a new context. It would be great to move a convo from the public square into a shop, then maybe share contact info to get together another day.
- Some months ago I made this Morse Code Universe where people travel through zones, stumble upon each other, and communicate in morse code.
https://mall.merkoba.com/
All they can do is use morse code to communicate, even the names are assigned automatically. There is a zone map with hundreds of zones, zones with recent activity get a red hue. Secret zones can be unlocked if you happen to use one of the sekrit morse code words.
It's a casual mmorpg/townsquare that is fundamentally safe since the best you can do is focus to type a very offensive word in 20 seconds.
I stumbled upon some random people who visited the site as I was developing it. Taught some the words to enter the secret zones as a game, took them on a tour. Also met a morse code aficionado and we had a little conversation in morse code, eventually met him in another site I have.
- Question for the developer, have you played the Playstation video game Journey?
The spoiler about it is, that while you adventure from one end of the land to another, and you encounter other sort of people looking players, it turns out that those are actually people and, at the end of the game you get a credits roll list with the PlayStation Network handles for each of the players that you encountered. There is no communication other than moving your character. It's delightful.
Anyhow, that subtle engagement is in my opinion quite valuable.
by assimpleaspossi
0 subcomment
- The best social media site I ever belonged to was one that required real names and proof before being allowed to log in. It was for professional and semi-professional in a industry I won't name. The friendliest, most helpful group I've ever known. Arguments were rare. Never any spam or totally weird/stupid posts. Always on point.
- Reminds me of m favorite late 90s messenger, Odigo[0]. It had some sort of radar which showed you people who were visiting the same site. It sure had this town hall feel, but admittedly most sites were simply empty.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odigo_Messenger
by sam_hosseini
1 subcomments
- This is so much fun! Thanks for making this!
- Damn, that demo needs some moderation right now. Some dudes went nuts.
- It's a great idea but I've lately adopted the habit of just looking at the code and noting SLOC count. I am bewildered how people today add code like there's no tomorrow, I suppose the advocates would quote "literate programming" and onboarding and what not, but I think reality is showing the code gets the better of us and we're absolutely squeezed by the volume of code that kind of works and kind of doesn't, exhibits issues (including vulnerabilities) and at the end of the day just rots looking at the next kid taking over. And I am not loving it anymore.
20K SLOC for a site widget? There's nothing great about that. But sure -- I guess it works. Everything can be ignored because "it works", but in my experience the gears are bound to start flying sooner or later and someone needs to look under the hood -- whether it's under the hood of Townsquare or something that has long replaced it. And it better be service-able.
by SpyCoder77
1 subcomments
- There needs to be some filters on the messages
- Hmm idk, this looks a bit more like serendipity for vitriolic trolls
- Cool idea. Wish my site drove real traffic instead of bots so I could add this and not confuse/bore visitors :’)
- The comments on your site are just what i expected
by mountainriver
0 subcomment
- I love the idea but all I’m seeing is people saying really explicative things. Hopefully there are better ways of moderating
- Pure fun. Love it.
by AndrewKemendo
1 subcomments
- Fun! There’s a lot of features there to play with and it acts as a real time view counter.
Interestingly I used it then left without even reading the article
by KellyCriterion
0 subcomment
- In 2001, there was this browser extention showing "walking people" on the webfrontend and you could connect to them
- cauenapier make left/right button controls for mobile. Also fullscreen in portrait orientation doesn’t really make sense until messages move up in the sky, so that they don’t need to fit in that narrow horizontal space
by acrophiliac
0 subcomment
- Personally, all the animations of stick figures moving and jumping is slightly annoying and offers little valuable information. I might enjoy something like showing a person's national flag (for where they are logged in from), or a timer for how long they've been on the site. Instead of the "street" metaphor for the graphic (benches, trees), maybe a Mercator Projection that locates an emoji at each person's location.
by canadiantim
0 subcomment
- But then you have to deal with social media regulators and arbiters and be subject to untold liability
by linsomniac
1 subcomments
- Oh, my sweet summer child...
Really cool idea that I'd be reluctant to enable for any of my sites because I assume that it would just be used for people to be awful.
Maybe I'm just still traumatized by Playstation Home? A group of my friends all got Playstation 3s together, and we all decided to try Playstation Home, a town square for people to meet. The group met up and then spent the next few minutes being accosted by one a-hole after another.
Or maybe it's the github issue I had to delete today because of someone being a big, giant jerk.
TBF: I went to this town square and people were civilized, so maybe there is some hope for humanity. ;-)
by ranger_danger
1 subcomments
- Now this is cool! I'd love to see something like it on most web pages as a way to interact with like-minded people... but then I start thinking about all the ways it's going to be abused and get sad.
- took a spin, pretty cool. Does it record convos? As a site owner, I would want to know what people were chatting up. As a web surfer, I like the anonymity of it.
by BobbyTables2
0 subcomment
- So make it a public C&C server???
by RobotToaster
1 subcomments
- Would be great as an overlay for a livestream.
- This is awesome
by LateCheckOut
0 subcomment
- Feels rather creepy to me …
- kinda similar to the bullet comments flying through screen on the chinese youtube Bilibili
- Must be nice to be able to take seriously the idea that multiple people might be browsing your site simultaneously… :(
by sunandsurf
0 subcomment
- Love the idea!
by tossmysalad
1 subcomments
- So many HN users are insufferable crybabies.
WAHHH BAD WORDS WERE THERE
Pathetic community
by PeterStuer
0 subcomment
- ... and run head first into totalitarian 'chat control' regulation all around the globe.
- cool theory
- Can we just have the old Reddit back, please?
- cool idea, but the experience was not great. All I see are stick figures rapidly moving back and forth spouting racial slurs
- [flagged]
by iluvcommunism
0 subcomment
- [dead]
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