What is Digg?130 Comments
- hamoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't get why so many of the posters here staunchly reject developers playing around with asynchronous requests. There is definitely a buzzword overload in a lot of these types of stories, sure, but the ideas that a lot of these alpha quality applications demonstrate have a lot of potential if implemented properly. Saying that forums were "meant" for viewing static pages of posted content is an irrelevant comment -- call this a live, threaded discussion system, or a hiearchical chat. As technology enthusiasts we should welcome new ideas and expect their implementations to start out shoddy and improve.
I think there are a lot of excellent uses for a live discussion system:
- As one poster mentioned, this would make it easier for online support teams to attend to new support tickets.
- For a distance education course, this could be useful for arranging online discussions where everyone in the course can post questions or responses, get the benefit of live response like you'd get from a chat, but also have the benefit of having an archived and threaded discussion to refer to before an exam.
- For any site that let's you post right underneith the listing of previous replies, it would be nice to see new replies appear as you are writing your response. If someone just posted something that covers what I'm writing about, I would modify my response to keep from repeating them.
Finally, all of the downsides that have been mentioned can be overcome. Back and forward buttons are trivial to get working. Links for any page are also trivial. The slick live functionality can be non default, which would let search engines spider properly.
I haven't even gotten a chance to look at this implementation, but the implementation is not why this was posted, it's about the idea. Instead of acting like neo-luddites, I'd like to see members here have a more open mind and give a story a minute to stew around in your head before posting "NO DIGG" or the error message from the server or a repeat of someone else's post or just spewing off typical arguments on why this must suck and should have never been created. Constructive criticism is great, but negative posts that contribute NOTHING to the discussion do nothing but destroy the credibility of this community and prevent users like myself, and I'm sure a number of other people, from being able to enjoy reading comments. - Tetsuo6995, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3too much AJAX kills AJAX
- illynova, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OMFG.
Wow.
Its amazing how far web technologies and message boards have come in the past eight years. I remember teething on hacking Ikonboard. Man, I wish I was back in high school and had the free time to help contribute to these projects again.... - k4st, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hey guys, I'm the creator of k4BB. You need to realize that ajax.k4bb.org is only an EXPERIMENT. That functionailty will be in all versions, but disabled by default. I was just fooling around one day to see how far I could take it.
- Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2AJAX is a good idea, but it's being applied to WAYYY too many things.
The only real AJAX application I've seen that is legitimately useful is Meebo (meebo.com), because it replaces a standard application with a web application.
This whole replacing the "old web" with this new "AJAX web" is stupid. Leave the "old web" alone, and replace actual applications with AJAX apps.
As everyone said, the back button isn't usable for this forum, well, same with all the other useless apps! GMail, for instance, doesn't have a back button (except buried in the interface), I want to use Alt+left/right, not go searching for your "special" button for it.
AJAX is out of control, and all these people who want to be "hip" and "cool" by following the crowd are ruining the web for all of us... - carbontwelve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dead link
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it's good, i'm sure it will get better too... good find
- sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't see the benefit this provides. No back button.... can't link to a specific message.
- kingkong118, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The website doesnt work
- davidrussell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Doesn't appear to scale very well - already broken. Neat as an experiment, but they've completely ruined the usability of forums by doing this.
- sapo916, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1SMF my favorite forum software is implementing AJAX in good ways. First when you are looking through a thread and see your post and want to edit it... push the edit button and the inside of the post becomes a text box, type your edit and press save and it updates the post without refreshing. Smooth.
- DarkeSword, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+digg for the concept and execution, but I've got to agree, no back button functionality, history, or bookmarking (hell, you can't even post a hyperlink to a thread) makes this LESS useful than other forums.
- cbags, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, less than exciting :( was hoping it would be hella cool.
- BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Additional...
I also can't stand my email not letting me use TABS (in regards to GMail)."
Works fine for me... back button works too... What are you guys doing wrong? - Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Additional...
I also can't stand my email not letting me use TABS (in regards to GMail). - k4st, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11) skin was made by a forum member and is quite original I think
2) Google has no problem indexing it because spiders defined in the admin panel are served a different version of the forum. To see, just put ?archive=1 (or &archive=1) in the url and check)
2) digg effect! woo! - joseph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1AJAX THIS AJAX THAT, Totally terrible for accessibility, you can't use the best feature ever: the back button, and you can't even link to specific threads.
No thanks, quit with the AJAX. - aaron.dunlap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is a ridiculous application for ajax. if you want to implement ajax in a messaging system, make it instant messaging... a forum is meant to be a bunch of static pages, and that is how it is best implemented. plain and simple.
- Hergio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man, with the popularity of digg increasing, I am beginning to see the quality of the user base diminishing. The way you people have blasted these guys is saddening. Give the guys a break, they've explained its an experimental site. If people didn't experiement, there would be no innovation. If every idea you tried out got reamed by a community, I am sure you wouldn't appreciate it and quit pretty quickly. So lay off! If you're going to all be bitches about it, get off digg because you're making this place a ***** hole.
And quit acting like you all know everything. If you'd take 15 seconds and actually look around the site, you'd see the admins were forced to turn off the AJAX due to issues they were experiencing with their hosting provider. (http://www.k4bb.org/k4/viewtopic.php?id=580)
...dumbasses...I am surrounded by dumbasses. - cosequin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It makes things much nicer, definitely.
- pkkid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1- Still Slow.
- No Back Button
- My First clicked loaded a new page (That was not AJAX now is it?)
- Completely useless implementation of AJAX. - hamoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In the case of support teams monitoring a thread of incoming tickets, the best implementation would probably involve using nothing new and amazing for the customer's submission of tickets, but any trick to make the job easier on the support team side. Certainly there has to be balance for any site that is trying to be functional for a large and diverse audience. However, this post is a proof-of-concept implementation aimed to demonstrate an idea to other developers and curious lookers. As a developer I think it is nice to see what can be accomplished when you ignore practicality and go all out with any method or idea, as sometimes the outcome brings to light benefits you wouldn't have thought of that you can include on a more balanced version meant for public consumption.
- petercooper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just because AJAX would make it easier for support teams or people 'monitoring' the forum doesn't mean the whole forum needs to be AJAXed. Much like Digg, you can have a 'Forum Spy' that does all the AJAX joy, but still keep the regular features.
I think the important point is that AJAX should be an addition to something that already works, and not the core. - Dummies102, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I can't see why you'd want to make a whole forum out of ajax. Certain eleents, like quick reply, sure. But no back button, no links to threads? Ajax devs should pick their battles.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0lol, you can't coral cache an ajax site.
Ever. - patrickweber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"The needs to ***** down and think befor the make this dumb things!"
Yeah, looks like they aren't the only ones who need to think before 'the make this dumb things!' - F1R3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah.. i though of the coral cache too.. but its not helping at all..
- tonejac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm tired of people talking about AJAX as if it's a stand-alone technology. It's just a method that's part of Javascript. It's cool and can have a big effect on the user experience but lets make sure we talk about it correctly.
- k4st, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's an experiment, don't take it too seriously. I spent an afternoon having fun with this.
- carloslmz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0vanilla is the best!!!!
- subColour, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0not impressed.. period. It's up again by the way.
- thudbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They even use AJaX the wrong way: Just retrieving an HTML structure. AJaX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. XML! That is, [object].responseXML, not responseText.
- JackDoyle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's not there anymore. He took it offline.
- simd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"May be the first to say, "Who cares?". This whole AJAX buzz is sickening. Yeah, let's recreate a new paradigm that adds little other than complexity. The IT asshats that are getting excited about not having to press "refresh" make me puke."
Like all technology, it depends how you use it. I've sprinked it into a couple of applications to provide feedback to users as they enter data. The users love it. This, however, I just don't see the point; if anything the forum is less usable because of it. - outbreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0boring.
- DoctorShim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Erm, maybe I'm just not understanding something here. The forum is done in PHP and uses very little AJAX, as far as I can see.
- 83457, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"But no back button, no links to threads? Ajax devs should pick their battles."
This is possible with javascript. Both Flash and Ajax based UIs can use the browser forward and back buttons now, history, links, etc. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1- digg fcause the title has web 2.0 in it
- Spazkake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0if the main board was regular but the topics refreshed using ajax it would be usefull.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@"2) Google has no problem indexing it because spiders defined in the admin panel are served a different version of the forum. To see, just put ?archive=1 (or &archive=1) in the url and check)"
Meaning your forums are subject to the Google Death Penalty. Great. - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Forums were never meant to be 'real time'. This is a rather pointless use of AJAX. But, whatever.
- inotocracy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0An entire forum built with the AJAX model in mind isn't exactly a great idea, its a neat showcase yes, but as others have pointed out you cant bookmark, send links through Email, and search engines wouldn't be able to index the forum. A possible good use for AJAX tech in forums would be small features spread throughout the board (spell check, private messages, notifications), not an entire interface.
- ralfy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://ajax.k4bb.org.nyud.net:8090/
- InkTank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks horrid, dug to death and forums were never meant to be real time, seems like a copy of a chat room -.-
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is it really necessary for 10 people to post the database connection error whenever a site is down from heavy traffic? We can all see the error string people.
- cybernetic798, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yea it's not the first - in a class last semester one group made a forum entirely in AJAX. Nothin amazing.
- mdshoreboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How this forum ajax???? It loads a seperate php page for each thing you do.
- 83457, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"but as others have pointed out you cant bookmark, send links through Email, and search engines wouldn't be able to index the forum"
There are plenty of Ajax sites that allow this. The browser history can be modified without a page refresh allowing for back/forward and sites that degrade gracefully to function even without javascript. - posure, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Forums aren't a good use for AJAX, unless they just use it to improve little things. It breaks usability.
- muikano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Dude. Don't naysay just because you can't envision an AJAX website. It's still in development. But the potential is there. Just think about slashdot. wouldn't it be cool if you could drop down the replies without clicking on them? come on.
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