642: Chris Person on Forums, Reddit, and Cooperative Reporting
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Their shop make you listen to another episode of the shoptalk show. K, it's a logging on to BBS. I'm David with me as Chris. great. Hi Chris.

How are you? Oh, good at the band with a surprisingly .

good for i'm run in twenty eight eight bod.

very much rich parents. And for you, uh, we have a special guests to .

take up the phone.

Um uh we're going to end up you know being nostoc c but but not nostalgic at the same time. It's a mr. Chris person.

Are you doing Chris ler radio is thank you.

Thank you. And I do that on purpose sometimes .

because I have a social highlight, real in addition to you talk about after math and and so I kind of intentionally do that affect sometimes as the reason I have my set up the way I do yeah well.

it's frequent working. so. Um this is it's a little bit random for us because this show is generally about web technology and know we don't try away from getting end of the new gd gree tales of of coding and all that stuff.

But we're probably not going to do that here because, uh, I just was a post that was going on. I was seeing IT shared uh, in the post is on a site called after math h after math. That site in the post as forms are still active alive in a treasured trove of information.

IT was just a well researched nice uh, post linking up a bunch of currently active forms which triggered some kind of like alarm and my head like forums. Those were cool, remember those. But that was going to not your point. The point was like they're not gone. They're still here and they're .

still yeah yeah, yeah people still are on those things, you know I mean and like those of the people who are, I don't know when do you talk about like uh information and we talk about sort of like um getting things done. You know what I mean, like a lot of times you'll like go to a youtube video and the youtube video will be like IT will be downwind of some some person on the forum did like and sorted this out. And you know like tiktok being kind of a summary of a youtube being a summary of a form of thing.

And it's like forms are still here, forms still where you find answers because like, I mean, there is discord to I think discord does have its own place and I think that discord has become h you know, a forum but like even the things that are replacing forms are forum shaped you know like redit is still a forum thing though I don't think IT fully coheres the same way and it's uh I think actually much more fragile than a lot of these forms are in in certain ways and um and yeah like same with discord like discord is a chat that but like they introduce threads. And now if you go into like certain like technical ones, like um like I mean in a spress, so hacking one you for hacking espresso machines that thread that they all do like individual like machine threatens and it's like its forms. They've recreated forms from first principle.

They haven't deed and and I think a lot of people think of this cord as the as just well I don't know this new form APP that were all used to the you type at the bottom and there's other people in there and it's basically a chat room and there's there's channels and the channels have different topics loosely. But this cord goes even a step further and makes IT quite literally like a forum. I forget the exactly what they call them, but you can start a thread and then the then it's just a stack of threads on top of each other. Yeah quite literally forms .

ah yeah I mean, I think that like disco, to its credit sort of realized there was a desire for chat again. You know, people miss the like the aim, uh, I R C days and like they had a they had a place for that. And I mean like but like you know forms there is you need you need to be able to search, how do I fix this problem and then when you get there, you end up in a community like that's how IT works. You know, I am.

And so I guess that would be the the strike on discord is that they're not there. There might be a little bit searching within discord, but not so searched outside of IT and that kind of obama.

You can find a link. But IT is a close ecosystem. I mean, that is ultimately, I think it's biggest problem and I think sorted like kind of what redit was going towards. I don't I don't think they are as much now. But like a lot of these people becoming wall gardens, I think is is is a problem.

Although there are a lot of like forms i'm on that are like part of like private, you know like private forms and those are like, you know, where I learned about video encoding, for example. You know what I mean like always are anything downwind of like tRicky stuff is like tracker forms are are like really good at like toy you like, okay, this is how you rip A C D. actly. And like that information isn't as well coalition in a public way. You know what I be?

Yeah, the downed thing is fascine to me. That reminds me of how I know another. There's TV news. And TV news is fine. They do like a little bit of their own journalism, but is is is just known to be that for the most part, they just it's a little bit like the youtube thing that you mention where they they're of they source all their information from forms and now they're doing the youtube video. TV news is like for the most part, just reGretably what newspaper journalist of ready that it's downwind of newspaper journalism.

New york times is reporting that, you know so and so, you know and yeah, they have they have actual beat reporters that do that. And then IT gets up sucked into the ecosystem. And like the knowledge ecosystem is always like directly directly downwind and only is healthy, is like the .

source only as healthy as the source.

Thank you. well. And even like like malcom gladwell l's entire careers built on this reading like society papers and then trying to like stitched together and narrative. And um it's kind of this and then I like this idea. I don't know in the same way that welcome glad well like stitches together a book out of some research A A lifetimes people will make youtube videos or tiktok based on one person's pure obsession that was on some forum like seventy threads deep uh and they'll turn IT into this like, oh no do you knew you can make a pocket knife of a toast or whatever and it's IT came from some genius in an in an .

ideal world is like the content creator is the person who's on the forms. You know what I mean like uh I think that's part of the reason I love like networking and like hardware forms because a lot of times it's like um like serve the home or like any of these ones that are like level one tax, like they have a forum, the forum is a budget guys doing work. And then the youtube E R is a guy who is on the forum.

Like you can smell when a person has forum on them. Know what I mean, you can smell. Say what you will about linus. Linus is a forum guys at the end of the day, even though he's like created like a media empire around that, he's still a forum guy. Jeff gearing is a forum guy you know like those are guys who find no forum and like and .

you and socks are give yeah obviously but you .

know like I think that eventually reach a point where like fewer people have that. I think that's a generational thing. You know what I mean yeah but I also think that like there is a capacity for Younger people to be involved in like similar things. Like I see a lot of kids who are into like retro tech, and those kids are like all enemy avatars. And like those, the kids who are in like the V H S S, the V H S decode, sco .

ms.

and this is a different way of being. I just think the impulses is a small, but I do think that that also like google, I think changed its already m very slightly to favor forms. And like like six months to a year ago, I seen them more.

I saw that anecdotally. So I can't know that for sure, but I think people are getting getting redirected to forms in ways that they haven't been before. And I can't tell if that's real. But the or of its just them hovering up for like l like that they need to the way we need .

real information.

we need red is charging money now so we have to do this .

yeah we need you to stop a recommending actually the forum tab on on on google kind of works um you know if you if you serve something, you cook forms.

you do a little thing. Oh my god.

yes, people don't know that right there is on .

literally it's like for me it's the fifth one in yeah .

people don't don't think you could do that is surprisingly useful.

Holy cow, IT does yeah i'm notice in that what IT considers a forum is read and corn and stuck overflow and all that. That's fine. Those are I guess that's okay.

Their forums, it's text based. Information is the thing. I think surely google still likes that and it's a good format for all kindness of stuff. If you're explaining something, if at even vegan technical text is like the right format.

yeah well, it's infinity thread IT right. Like that's always i'm going to talk about this and then you just dog pile comments and take IT as far as you can go on one topic at a time verses like a blog which is like here's one thousand things i'm thinking about or a thousand post a day or whatever um and it's also a community .

you know like you get to know these people. They end up having like x interest cities that are easy to to to sort to deal with, like inner personally. Um and you see drama happened in those spaces in ways that I think don't work, don't really work when you have um like something like rated or a larger, you mean like the problem with moderation is community size as much as IT is like content no like you have like obviously you have you know like like on twitter you'll have like new not sees and stuff like that. You you'll have people who are but also like four chain for example, knows how to moderate within the context to four chain.

And you know, if you put four chain in the same place as, you know, guys who like speakers and animates, you know, like it's going to create something weird. And so all of the problems of facebook, all the problems of twitter and all the problems of any of these platforms is scaling up. And moderation.

Moderation becomes harder the larger the community you make and the more they can talk to each. And that doesn't that doesn't say like that. Moderating for content is is eager stic IT isn't you know what I mean? Like that is there is a very specific way to do IT IT just becomes like almost like exponentially more difficult and like none of these tech companies ever want to do that. Yeah and tRicky .

and nuance because does it's not just spam. It's not just not cease. That's a thing.

Not but it's not as common as well. Micro story is I had my own forms. I had blog c tricks for a long time.

You can still go to that site and go to slash forms. And there there there's what thirty seven thousand threads of IT is like very B M. To small sized. One of. Only you know, he wasn't multiple decades.

But the problem was not nazis or spam or anything IT, was people that were just rude kind of or and and intended to be the ones that were there the longest, which was hard because you don't want to I did, I felt, didn't want to score them too badly. I was not trying to be like you're a dic, I wouldn't ban, but they would be the person that somebody to post a new thread. But oh, how do I do X, S.

And they the, you know, this is recovered eight times. Diode, here's the links. And to me, IT felt like a problem. This was not the vibe I was going for. And know, technically, at the top of this chain, I there my forms dam IT, you know, and I I couldn't fired out. I never did.

Eventually, I did just close the form, not only for that reason, but I was, I was, I was in there is that I just I couldn't figure out how how to scale IT anyway. And it's work. I mean.

I think I had to kick my uncle off four months, like he came in and just first flame people. And I had, like kick him off because I think I think he was here. I have no idea. But IT, yeah, sounded a lot.

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So your post list, all part of the post was two point, none only to say that forms are still there, but to point people that lots of like really active form still. And I was I was amazing to me to see because I know a handful of them, but mostly not like you have your your finger on the house of there are so many sections just for audio stuff, so much audio. What is that about audio?

I mean, there's there's confirmation bias with that too. You know what I mean, like I have a bias as somebody who has done a lot of audio, like I think it's confirmation bias with like the internet, like a lot of forums. Audio guys love forums and then I am a person who loves audio forms.

If so, fact though, there's going to be a lot of audio forms for like multiple reasons, but IT was also like where are starting like and then they are counter wise. Like I couldn't find that many sports forms, but also a lot of sports moved to discord. And so so it's just like complicated thing of like my bias, says a writer. I'm trying to acknowledge that I actually like kept asking people, please send me forms, please send me forms, please send me forms specifically so that I would get out of my bubble.

And that was like, part of the reason that list is this good is that like just people that sent me stuff and I was just I just spent like Better per or two weeks being like, please send me more forms I need to know and and then I would have to vet them a little bit because like I don't wanna like send somebody to a forum. This part of IT is like meeting like, look, man, this is a form you don't know what you're going to get into, you know like you don't know what this community is, but here is a good idea. Like for example, um people had a real problem with um like there's one of the beer making forms that I used to go to that apparently is like it's really progress really aggressively took over the other forums around IT. And then there's like I found this other drama where like one of the forms that had um like bushcraft forms like bushcraft the bushcraft, the american bushcraft .

forum copyright .

the term bushcraft, it's do IT and like survival stuff yes so it's have a knife and then you go in X, Y, Z know.

And so like there's other bush craft forms, there was an australian one which like you think they should own that concept but that when an under but there's an archive of vit on archive that or and like um yeah you just end up seeing a lot of drama with like um but then you get to see like a lot of old stuff that's like like anthy berdan's used to post on this one cooking forum. It's really good. His poster like incredible and like somebody like where we're going through. And you could see when he did the bayur episode was like israel is just bombed the airport. You're like, damn like he was there at that time like, you know, in history and you can see the moment in time when he's doing his his show you and like in going on a form being like k guys just letting you know and you're like, dam, that is still exists somewhere like in space like it's like a sliced and time and you but that form sucks now is my understanding is not a good forum anymore that kind of fell off and like everyone like, okay, IT fall off but like, look at bargains old post on here like a lot of there's a lot of important information that was here um yeah yeah I don't know also there's just some weird forum like when you get into a specific thing like like a the ety the secret society of lave troll is one of my favorite because it's people who like make their own vital records wow.

no kidding.

What yeah they do they do lathing like record lathing.

Yeah so the needed comes down to carbs .

into the final to make wow yeah .

IT doesn't feel right. Like if that thing was just a discord, I don't know. I just the vibes are off, you know? I can't see I can't see them making the heart like IT has to be some old school form m technology.

IT has to be robust. I also think that like oh, the other one is the DIY elector car forum.

Okay, wow, you're like a tesla. Do myself.

No, actually they do. yeah. The D I Y like tra car forum is something I found like year and a half ago. And those guys are so cool because that you know those like monkey, like seventies electric cars that like look like a triangle al, or like a trap as way or something like that like there was one guy on there who's like, all right, i'm going to get this thing to run on with the M. I.

On and he like went into kaya and been made a pcb like you do and like here's the custom pcb. It's on github for converting this as a controller to run on litham ion. And it's like, that's a love.

I love that stuff so much. It's so good. Yes, so good. yeah.

The IT happened on the form means there's A U R, L. That points to IT. I think this is tremendous. It's just hope it's there forever. And then I some of these are quite old. So it's nice that somebody continues to renew the domain me and pay for the hosting, whatever that cost.

Uh uh I I got so mad, uh, because body building that come went down the forms or body building to not come went down like few weeks before I did this. And that's like those are really important forms to me like as a even even is just a guy who has lifted at some point in my life. Um there's but but just for a culture reason, like and it's all because of like the company that I bought IT up and you know doesn't ever use for IT.

And then like those people have like basically they moved their non weight lifting community to a new forum which I I I went into but also like um there's there's for you'd be surprised what things are into disciplinary. I guess is the thing I learned the most from forms is like like I don't have a gun. I don't need a gun. I have ended up on the air fifteen dog forum for like looking up how to do something involving like metal lubrication. You know, like you just end up on these, like off these forms that like are just weigh the wild, weigh in the weeds because you're like, ah how do I do I do this and it's like, well, if okay so here's how you do IT and it's like, okay, i'm glad that person is there at least in this weird part of this four I would never go on.

You think that's like art to our skill, like finding the forum that matches your niche concern. You know, everyone, I think that s something like that, like A A hobby or something they're trying to do, whether it's like, I ll give an example, like I wanted like put new stories in my garage. I'm sure I could find a garage form and post a picture. My garage in one hundred people tell me what I need to do. You know.

can I can I see just one year? Yeah uh, uh, our flash lego storage, our flash legal storage awesome.

Uh or something along those .

lies to forget that is but it's the one of guys who store legos and that's where I learned about these like really specific shelves that you need that they use that are like there's like two kinds they use, there's one. What are these like pull out ones and then there's the good version of the pull out ones go and the ones you're going to get the the ones you're going to get IT like what is a granger? You know, granger, i'll sell these things. I forget the name of the time.

my head but there like big right colones and guys, that tubs.

yeah yeah. That's how you think you just end up on like a weird like chance of information. I am actually doing a piece eventually on modular storage. So you're .

no cool you .

I hope you like enjoy .

the time with nerd snapped or an art discord about like gravity and all that stuff and you know the three printing words that you can go .

down and all I really I A A love of stainers you like stainers I know no .

the stainers .

are um not to get to to into a weeds, but they are a german module storage solution that are very expensive, but that um you can usually get second hand. And like they're to go to for guys that love that, like what workers love these things because they're just like they locked together.

like it's death stranding. Oh wow okay, 所以 i take forty tall.

beautiful. Yes, you can absolutely yeah. There that they're meant to do. You're meant to be able to put them into a big van and stuff like together and then bring them to your load out and then like unlock them. And I have A I have a couple of them as side tables because ten us makes monocle ones that are sort of like the joke columbo table.

Um but the worst case scary is like i'm going to get Better side tables because I grow from now and you but but they do have that kind of like seventies just injected plastic industrial look that was really popular with like cartel and you know other sort of there was that time when plastic was seen as like a very mod seventies you to do and yeah particularly with cartel, particularly with like italian mother. And so like IT has the monopoly. Red ones that are all like solid color blue are really nice because they don't look like they should be in your garage.

Some solid gear talk. I really like this. Where does this information come from? Of course we we extracted IT from forum and .

google searching just generally know just you you know you like I need a box, xy locks together and then you you tend up like registering somebodies like community beautiful. I don't know. I in, I I love, I love forms.

I love the really weird ones too. IT was also an excuse for people to vent me all of the forum dramas that they had been like cy to over the years. There is one forum that's based on the guy who who founded vanguard. Vanguard like the investment .

group yeah the the .

vanguard investment group and you know for people who don't know vanguard, the whole deal was they realized, oh, wait a minute, if you put your thing in an index fund, it's probably going to do as well as if you get like a guy on cocaine to put your money on things and like so they basically created an entire company that was believe, investor owned that around that concept. And he was just one guy who was an economist.

He was like, yeah, let's do that. And so there is one forum devoted to that. And then somebody liked me to a very, yet called bog head is based on this guy， jack bogle.

And there's a two thousand and seven thread in which e on student applies a senny risky strategy in a very risky way. And I linked to IT and it's very, very fun. I will not spoil what goes down there.

right? That's great. I love this site, this forms of this media that exists, right? And its you go to him now and it's almost like they're untouched and updated. Some of them can have a new cut paint, but it's kind of this really old are capting. But then you have this .

other what they looks so old.

what help?

Yeah don't need update a mass.

There's no incentive work.

Yeah you want to make IT run like no actually some of them some of the problems is that they haven't been updated. I ROM hacking dot net is a good example of that. Why gram making dot net was the um they go to uh forum for .

a lot of a .

lindo old. Yeah, he wanted to like, do a fan translation of an S N S game or something like that that never came over. Like ROM hacking was your place to go.

And part of the problem was the guy who was in charge of IT didn't want to update IT. And I was like just basic, like creek old stuff that would have taken no time to fix. The people had reached out to him to fix, and he just wouldn't let go of control of the site.

And so the whole thing kind of collapsed on itself. There is also other like I mean, if you really want to get into IT, um it's a really tragic story but look up the RAM hacker near um okay that's a big part of the wrong hacking dt net. They was were they were um it's a very tragic story but they were like driven to to self harm.

Some of the the less safe places on the net that technically count as forms. But um yeah it's it's it's all sort of A J mixed up IT to that and like but like big part of IT was the guy just didn't want to give people the keys to the the shop, but he also didn't want to run IT. So now he doesn't exist .

in the same way.

I bet there is a little bit of that piece of that story in every one of these forms just because I don't know. Maybe some of them are hatt and fresh and people extract loads of life enjoyment, fulfill men out of them and some of them are fifteen, twenty years old and they're like, well, i'm not .

going to a turn that off, but a labor, labor and a lot of IT is like these, these people's only source of income. And you see that many feist in a bunch ways. In the case of the like, the number one forum for metal finishing predates forums. IT started off as a um that's history offers a magazine you know history of is like a print column uh in some magazine and then switched to forms in like the early nineties and it's called bini shing dot com and it's proudly maintained by one retire in new jersey and you look at that and IT looks like that and it's A Q A style forum so you just look up like any question you how to finish matter and someone answers red that in like two thousand eight you know what I mean like it's like a guy in mumba like, hi, I need to like I need to like analyze silver has anyone done that?

And then somebody being like, totally and it's like some guy friend was constant being like, oh yes, here's what you to and like they have solved issues none none of like none of us would have dreamed to ask over period decades and it's all just one guy is like, yeah, i'm retired to make my money bob, bob and then you have like somebody like low tax whose who was evil and now is dead and now the forms in a Better place wow, something awful. Something awful is in a Better place than IT was initially because because low text died because he was an man. And I know that's a grim thing to say, but like, I think everybody of the form agrees.

They're like he was in a good guy. He was like an eatin c weirdo, and he spied in now is in the hands of people who actually like this form. And IT IT took a turn. It's a Better form now. Well.

yeah, okay, that's the something awful, dude. Well.

that's that's kind of my coming a wage on the internet was like something awful. You like you could go to this website and IT literally had all the unspeakable things you know you couldn't say on the you in real life or see or what you know um i'm talking mostly like photos of dead people or something like that but you know it's just IT was shocking, I guess back then you know and in there is kind of new ruler attitude. But I was also pretty hainous place to hang around.

you know and IT also IT looks kind of clean, the retrospect CT after after four chain and now it's sad that the the needles moves so bad that even for chain .

is an extreme enough.

No it's not even that this is not extreme. I think it's just that like I think the people who came of age on fort and uh ended up .

mellowing .

OK um I think that happened with something awful to um to some extent uh either the people who are like to extreme ended up leaving the community or moderation got Better but like I don't know something like forest chain is Better moderated than twitter at this point man it's up to say but like he I regularly see worse can .

I would on fortune on like on on xd everything APP well it's it's funny hell yeah it's i'm not gonna whatever like defend for or any of its no yes .

that's that's not a that's not .

a praise of what what did you had the the one rule was everyone's kind of anonymity. Guess you .

couldn't really not anonymous ourself but and but like the you .

would basically like everyone's anonymous so that's kind of the table stakes and then but in that they figured out how to police their culture as bad as IT was, like IT, as like terrific as I was at times. They police the culture in in a way that was somewhat effective, which is, you know I guess, not effective enough. Maybe.

but they know IT was not. IT was. But but I will say there was always the difference between like b and like move you know or like there is a lot of people yeah there is a lot of people who realized they were gay or trains.

Unfortunate you know that's you know it's something I don't like dismissing um because IT was a part of that culture like for chain was a very gay culture despite being like reactionary or maybe like it's just but I was like, it's like any form there are different parts of IT and they were all bad on some level. They were all like if what happens when you anonymized people, but like they they had different tender. And you know, the movie one, the music one, like the you, those were different parts of of IT.

And they all developed different like kindly, pretentious taste sometimes. Yeah yeah you like you'd see these people like, just get really like knowing taste in the music like IT sometimes um IT IT was fun I don't know um but but but I was never really to do IT as much as I would. I would like occasionally drive by IT you know and just check in to see what the case was but I know I know of people who are Younger than .

me who are now Normal sure sure yeah kind of post post rot um in their post rot era yeah .

or they're just rodding in they have a house and you know nobody has a house actually.

what do you think about reit in this place? Like like it's kind like the commodification of forms in a way, you know, is that has IT changed the scene, has IT made IT Better. Made IT worse is that I feel like one thing i'd be careful or perspective like I feel like I just IT has turned every hobby into a game like we're going to do this okay how do we mean max IT all the way the end? You know like what do you what's your take on reddit?

Um I think i'm more charitable to read IT now than I was ages ago. I think I think like it's interesting because everyone talks about how IT sucked up like a forms. I think it's intentional.

It's intent early on was closer to something like dig in many ways because people forgot about dig and how IT was like this news aggregator that would just like be A A traffic firehose. But initially, I think that's IT what IT felt like a little bit closer, a little bit closer to that. And I think that it's lost a little bit and soft of the history of what read IT was.

I think it's uh I I think its its choice on A O choices on a corporate level with its moderation teams has caused IT to be more profitable in certain ways but also backfire immensely on the community sense like everything involving that. The adia who runs IT has like really hollowed out a lot of those communities, which is which is again is just a big forum fight. That's just a big like the guy who runs the company who runs the forum decides to make a change that everyone gets mad and leaves like that's like the oldest tae in history except now IT involves like an IPO.

I don't know. I think I used to be more like, oh, this replaces something and that thing would still be healthy were IT not for edit. And now I think i'm a little closer to I think read is not doing very well uh, from a community perspective or it's like the communities that are doing well, we're doing really well, the communities that are doing Better or just like dead forums.

And I think a lot of that has to do with institutional knowledge being lost because of these corporate choices and because of these like basically tool choices. Um but I don't know, I am kindly neutral on reddit this point. Like I think IT IT has its uses that uh structurally are in a similar place.

I think the culture that wasn't knowing about redit kind of no longer is exclusive to redit. And I think that people who use reddit are like a lot more pragmatic about and self conscious about what what being, quote, redit feels like these days. Maybe i'm just on the wrong subs, you know, maybe i'm being simple here, but I think a lot of us has to do with like mask kind of his star falling in that kind of epic science guy persona, not being as as forgivable in public anymore uh, where it's like.

I I don't know. I think a lot people either moved to forms or discords a lot more and and the people that remain are doing fine. But does .

what happened that the access, the matter? I just whatever IT was a couple months ago when people were seriously pissed, right? They have mess up A P, I X deleted .

their comment history too.

which is little destructive, but they got do doing this. Yeah.

I mean, that's their comments. They are content. Yeah, i'm kind of all over the place with that at this point.

You know what I mean yeah I mean, I did I was not important to IT as you are largely alert er but IT IT was annoying enough for me that whatever I do like at least it's still on the open internet. That's what I applaud them for and I hope that never changes, is that all of that crap just has. You are else, and you can link to IT logged in or logged out. And that that open web spirit is like how, thank god, because they could easily have gone a different way.

something that actually happened a lot more ah is i've been looking for videos and finding them more on facebook via google, which is weird. I think they like realized like now that they're like maybe if we put some of these people want to go back on the website. So now you just have a links on the public internet to videos on facebook.

which is really weird. IT is yeah yeah like, I don't know. IT makes me think of or know like tiktok feels like they brigg's ingy have a website like they don't want to have a words they don't know. They know most of the world doesn't actually use IT that way. They just do IT because they get you are else and then you are else means they're share able and maybe they get random meco value from IT or whatever.

But they're not they're not like paranoid about IT the way that like facebook. Another close ecosystems realized IT doesn't IT doesn't hurt their bottom line. And so they're fine with IT.

You know what I mean? IT IT increases discovered ability on the APP and in so doing like helps their bottom line. You know what I mean, they don't care. You know what I mean. Like it's the same thing about like the big thing was being able to download videos like that is the big revelation is that people are going to download these things either way, just make you easier .

and yeah, maybe I was that does so being more open was good for them. Golf clap nice do we? I don't know. I ve know here. I wanted to think about there was there's this kind of jeff award, you know one of the early stack overflow guys, which is like, you know, because this stack overflow forum, I would say, yes, you know, it's pretty maybe square ly, a forum which has had IT just feels different because I was so big on reputation and voting and crap that is a little different.

It's like it's like hacker news sora yeah a forum I don't think so. I I kind of put in the same place in my head. It's like this weird kind of other thing people are asking is like is like error wood a forum? It's like not really sorda. I don't consider the forum, I consider something else, but that's like a real .

border line yeah I it's like even a blog that far away, it's like somebody starts a thread, which is you, the bloggers and then there's there's comments below IT like fundamentally it's or tex oni. It's not that different that just feels different and just different .

like there's like a social gaming mechanic in IT, right? Social reward I get redit goal is probably similar to know karma. You know it's just like that tough because that exists in other forms often are but it's just this kind like you know you earn points by being on the site more and replying to people, you know, can I like games you into using IT?

You know, my point was the know jeff from his stack overflow experiences like, well, what was so fundamental about that? Why did that hit so hard? And he was always very clear in public about the idea that, like, it's the idea of typing paragraphs to each other, that is what we will never change on the internet.

So who goes up to create basically forum software called discourse, not discord. It's an know and then it's I don't know what the success of that thing that seems like medium level of success or something. But I did like you know I like this point is like, yes, people are going to freak type paragraphs to each other.

So maybe we should help them do that kind of cool. Hopefully they keep doing that. Please keep doing that. You, yes.

I hope so. This is only tinch really related to like you know, u ex, I guess I was going to say a community thing I want to bring up uh, that sort of related to something i'm writing now. Um do you know .

proxy x helper trips?

I have not heard.

I do you guys know prox mox?

No.

I know to help us bring. No proxy x is .

a virtual environment. It's A V you know it's like you use IT to um you install like virtual machines. Um okay you know so so like I have for example a little yeah I have a little I A little computer, little like a box little router box in my house and um and IT runs you know O P N sense which is a roughing routing firewall software and then these PC, these little mini pcs, which I only know because of forums and because of youtube.

Uh S T H loves these things. Um there when you call that, there you can run these vms in here and there is a community or there's one guy, one person rather who who runs this this like github, I poo. That's just like value most useful helpers ship because IT just takes the process of running these services locally and then just like instantly makes them easier.

And that person was just diagnosed with cancer, penner ata cancer. They have to go I believe it's pancreatic cancer. I ve got to look at up but they have their detect and they are just said, like, hey, you guys got take this over. You guys got to got to do this and so now that those have moved over to um uh what I call IT, it's I think it's community dash scripts that get hub b di o slash prox Marks.

Um you can also see a link to sort of you know the coffee of this person but it's I guess the reason i'm bringing this up is because you know in the issues part of their repo, they're like I only have a couple weeks like to live like that. How bad this is and I need you to take this over and the process of handing these things over these things that are like really, really useful and becoming a community based um they think IT IT nears a lot of what happens with form, which is that what is good about forms and what is good about the internet is sharing information. And that information is kept by individuals, often taking care of this stuff that is like load bearing even as they die.

And IT really got to me IT really IT really miss me up. I'm glad that he is now um actually debate ly in a Better place because there's a lot more people. They've they've got to be the thing in a community thing instead of a single person and know, i'm glad was able to be a have that common unity because a lot of forms don't get that.

A lot of forms just die. And a lot of and even though this is a good hobby, poo IT has a lot of the same DNA ics of of information on the open internet, right? And it's funny because as I was doing, i'm doing a piece right now on making your own n wouter. And as I was doing that, I I, I got to this point, and I was like, wow, this this reminds me a lot of, like, a lot of these things that happen in forms.

It's like, how do you correctly make a form alive? And you get in that inflection point works like, is this gonna die? Or is this going to be Better than he used to be? Um how do we properly remember the people who have contributed to this? And i'm sorry, that's a dire thing to say. But it's a it's it's a really .

huge and fundamental .

part of of an open internet is is is acknowledging each others contributions and like acknowledged how that you know there's just an entire class of people who the internet doesn't run with, doesn't like run without um even just like the people who develop F F M pig, you know like the internet just straight up doesn't run without F F mpc and IT just like in the same world that would be like funded by nato or something you know they they just have though there .

is a lot of stories like that. Even the whole DNS system which which the net quite literally can run without is is a smaller than you'd like to think about team of people that know how how I run uh what yeah anyway, good points. That's a sorry about tea tech. I see he had to commit as of a couple days ago. So it's still perhaps last few days.

Sorry, brother, I think he just made IT public archive but um and I hope that any of that money is going to care yeah for them i'd actually don't know if it's a manner woman so I don't want assume but like you know um yeah I is who I hope they are doing well um their contributions like i'm literally in the scripts now it's oh dam I can cat like trafic on this thing and it's just one collect that rocks thank .

you yeah man great story. We didn't talk about after math at all, but that seems like a big part of your your life. And as a part of what seems to be like, people are pointing two sites like aftermath as being this new era or a new wave of kind of worker owned independent journalism website stuff. Do you mind that distinction?

Or like IT, no, I mean we we invite IT. I mean like I for background used to be A A kadok o video editor and and writer and I was part of docker and like a lot of you know so I went through the hogan try, which was fun to be. No, I was in part of the hold trial.

I was just like at the offices, well, that all that stuff was happening. And you know where we all learned about Peter teal for the first time, we all learned about Peter tel, no. I mean, like what happened is you know private equity growing the a functioning network of of say, what you will about the content if you agree with IT or not.

Those websites made money. You know what I need? Those websites were functioning and they made money.

And the big one was dead spin. And then they didn't. Well, the big one was dead spin. And then, like everybody says, the r no, despite was the sport on, yeah he was one of the most popular run and they kept saying, hey, stick to sports, you know hey, just just get in there and tell me with the score is and it's like that's not what the Mandate of any of those sites wanted to be. And then everybody on the website quit at the same time, which is one of the coolest things you can do, collective action.

Baby, you heard IT here. Well.

we were unionized at that point. Like, we were like unionization. I learned like helping bargain contracts.

I learned a lot about that radicalized you. That does make you be like, oh, damn, you guys have all this money. You had this money this whole time.

You could have paid me. You just chose not do that. Wild IT makes you touch the process a little bit more directly.

That makes you go, hey, wait a minute. And in the case of desks, and they all left and they formed a CoOperative, and that's now the factor. The factor is a probably the biggest success story.

You they have many of employees. They have a community that loves them. And you know and now people followed their model and and we are trying to do that. But with people, he used to be a kotok O I get to write about my stuff that I I briefly wrote a stent for three months of the verge, and i'd do free light from the occasion.

And so I was able to take those things that I interested in, which is basically like, hey, check out this weird freak github alternative to the thing that you that that cost five hundred dollars that someone sells you, or you know how you know, you check out, check others like weird thing I found an ally express that that actually kind of rule I um and I get to write about that time or you know repairing C R S like I didn't whole piece where I just found a crt that had um like a vertical fold over issue and was like i'm going to learn how to recap A C R T and I get to write those I can I get no, he is, what's you know what? What do you? How scary is IT to discharge A C R T and the answer is very until .

it's not can exploit right whatever .

I can really hard. Uh this is the reason why you're supposed to uh put one hand behind your back when you're discharging IT so IT doesn't work through your heart if you touch IT the wrong way um wow but no it's literally you just you you connect the screw driver to ground and just go around in there um and then you hear pop um but no, I mean, I get to write my weird stuff. I used used a right about what I want.

We're go up. We have to have quorum. And it's just like so IT can be like, I mean, IT doesn't solve all your problems. IT solves a lot of problems though you'd be surprised when you don't have a boss telling you what to do.

And it's literally just like, hey, man, could you pull your wait on right now and you're like, yeah okay. Like immediately solves like half of your issues. And what goal is that? People who start collapse love getting more collapse of the ground.

We want other cops to be successful. So you have four or four, which is like a great succeed story, like we're still trying. You like we're doing.

Okay, we could. You be doing Better? Four of force doing a great job. Hell gages doing a great job. You know, you have all of these defectors doing probably the best job, but you have all of these. And there's A I I wanted to started one with meat from .

this based on music, journalism and website.

You I am a fan of websites personally because that i'm a millennial.

I guess, you know and that's muse anyway.

love going to a place and being like, thank you and then going into the comments and being like, by the way, and you have to pay if you want to comment on what on our site IT rocks. It's the old, it's the low tax special you want to be on the forum, there's the account, give me five.

So by problems before two years saying like the problems, meaning I don't know you have a boss and I don't know you're told, but to write about instead of IT is that kind of stuff. And then if you start your own site and all the money comes to you and anyway, your problems become, we should have more subscribers, less so I can have friday off. Uh.

hierarchy is high rocky. You know, like I think my relationship with my editor is Better now that he's my equal rather than here.

rather than I think there is there .

is a editors end of being elevated for for good reason. It's a good skill to have. But like you know, you have this problem in journal m where people are elevated based on seniority and to sometimes into manager erik positions that they don't aren't good add.

And that creates a dis function where managers who shouldn't be managing or managing and where you know writers who should be, you know in a higher position. But then it's like, well, okay, this person's a bad manager, but they're a good editor. And you know, X, Y, R, Z, IT lets people play to their strength.

IT also is like sometimes you just get an editor who is just like, I haven't had this position, but it's just like that I I cut out a bunch ship, did not want and like sometimes that's a good idea and you don't know Better. But IT becomes more conversational in my opinion and I think that's healthier ultimately. You know it's it's a healthier position to be like him and I as a reader, I don't think this works.

You know what I mean? And also just like I don't know there's like when you even things out like IT helps with biases around you know um just basic structural things that end up being feeling really bad, you know like just feeling nasty and feeling weird and again doesn't solve all of them. But IT becomes a conversation that you're having with people who are your equals instead of a topic you don't want to breach because you're afraid of getting fired. Yeah you know what I mean? If there is a, if there is a disfunction, IT becomes everyone's issue and you have to hash IT out as opposed to, like if I talk to this, do I have health insurance .

yeah that which is a big the ability .

to say no, right? Like like you know if it's a very higher article thing in your bosses, bosses do this, your body to say no is diminished, you know because you're like, well, I got to eat month so but if you're all peer level, you know it's like, well, I want to have my peer or maybe there's a compromise that can get this done.

you know and there is this element of like, okay, well, because like the rejoinder to that is like OK but if people if you know it's the whole like janitor thing works, like, oh, well, who's going to do the that sucks to do and the answer is somebody has to or no or nothing gets done and that is itself a dynamics that's difficult to to get a cross but like the diffusion of responsibility becomes flatter, hopefully ideally right.

Um not always the case is not always the case, but IT makes us so that like you have when is your business you have more equity in IT. And that's the part where I do so of kind of empathy with small business owners. You know what I mean that sometimes they get a little to reaction and like this, this is my baby and stuff like that.

But but when it's everybody's baby, everybody has to care a little bit more. Yeah yeah and that that lights a fire under your ask to do stuff you that would Normally suck to do because you're like, okay, we have to figure out accounting and then you know great, that you have to do a thing comedia or something like that, but that, like, do you like, yeah, but I this is my business. I had to figure this out and IT IT feels Better. IT just does IT does could be.

I could imagine, not to, like, dwell on the hard parts, but I would think the hard part becomes. And let's say, there ten of you or whatever, there is a pretty decent chance, I think, that animosity build somehow, that somebody is like, i'm anna, go to hawaii for three weeks or whatever. You're like, good, you should.

And then they do IT again. And like, are you though because i'm over here, right? Or IT is is like I know we're equal.

but I don't feel equal. That can definitely happen a but also you more likely to address IT happening early. sure.

If if everybody's like a man, could you just not? Yes, you know, because this is like, it's like a man. We we really do need somebody on hand.

What is anybody here? And all also just like IT, it's who you picked sometimes too, which no is like not a deal. But like, you know, you you want to like the other the biggest thing I have, I think that that has been addressed is um okay.

So I think a lot of these CoOperatives can only exist in part because of the work from home movement and and the idea like we didn't need to spend any of that money on real estate like a midtown manhattan office, where we just that mainly houses people that don't want to be here anymore. You guys go to just done this home. And I don't always think that the case.

Do you know some people like I function Better in an office environment sometimes, but I didn't need to go to time square all the time? That sucks. That play sucks.

You have like like four or four, for example, in in their round up was like talking about how the overhead advice, like this notoriously bloated organization and how like how much real real, like hard reporting on on the tech industry they do with, like not a lot of people, and how much of that is just like self hosting platforms. They use ghost, which they really like. A ghost is fascinating unto itself as as a open source and non profit organization doing hosting yeah I said they .

just published recently some yeah that they I can't remember the details, but there's nobody at the top that's reaping loads of money. Their structures red is a nonprofit and .

it's an interesting company we lead were doing using lead currently but like ghost is also very interesting and I think that they are worth looking into in terms of the future publishing. Um and but like that overhead, all the stuff that you that that cost money and organizations goes down, you know what I mean um but.

The only reason why we or defector or for a four can exist is because of a kind of mentorship, because we are all really efficient at our jobs. We are all really know how to love and and how what replaces that, you know what replaces a large institution taking people who want to write for a living and showing them how to do IT correctly. And I don't know if we've scaled up to this point where we can take that load on.

I think it's also sort of unfair to ask sort of an emerging industry to know have all the answer, uh, but IT is a question that you have to think of moving forward. How do you get new talent? How do you get Young talent? How do you teach talent? How to what to do and where and where to like work and you know and a lot that's with free answers and you know there is there is no shortage of people you know writing, but it's like how to teddy teach them to be journalists and IT is hard yeah I mean.

maybe it's maybe you're like, well, not here. You know maybe we picked up. But then where I guess.

is the criticism i've seen of this of the structure and and we don't have the answers to that, but I do think it's an important a thing to have to answer for yourself. It's like where do what what nih do do does our classic website replace is IT enough and cannot be applied to a larger institution? great.

Does that does that work for more than ten years or something? You know like yeah even .

I mean there's that but also like you know I I am of the belief that most companies should be CoOperating vely owned just on principle. You know IT works for king out the flower and bob's red mill there for both the flower .

company ties are on this way. That's I think .

there's like another one that is .

too is weirdly bobs regles a fascinating story.

I won't go off on IT too much, but the guy basically you just hit like eighty five years old. There's something like that is like I want to give my company to my employees. The only cool CEO in history is the guy is like, and you going to give you this one you guys have is great.

There's a really good cable company ah what he call IT. There a if you will need to buy like cat five cable. There is a CoOperatively owned place to buy like cat five cables and .

like ex ela cables at california. We've gallia who does a lot of browser programing and they kind of do a lot contracting with google and apple to like add features to your browser. They are also CoOperatively owned.

So what had .

about gallia? I G A L, I A, oh, nice. Good for them. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool. Like you wouldn't you know, I mean, you wouldn't guess IT from a tech company.

but that is, yeah, that's nice. I mean, that was always the 要不然 and you see， you see things go south where it's like a company has like slow profit strategies, where it's like we're about stability and then they just chat IT on their .

leg like bank, yeah, well, yeah, what happened there are kind of so tough, tough to watch there.

My grocery store grown up widness and was garson and all employee name like IT was just what story that they had, like fifteen, two. So they were like, skate. Well, being in, played on pretty .

the midwest. The midwest is the ugus lobby of america. Just like it's all credit unions.

Yeah, totally. I was absolutely credit union member as well life in the mid west. Well, thanks, Chris. This was an amazing conversation about about all kinds of stuff. Yeah, thank you so much.

Like what's here? Like I guess, for people who aren't following you and giving you money.

how can they do that? Uh after math, that site um I like IT IT supports us directly. IT gives the ability to keep doing word doing I hopefully keep putting out our acts. I like I just did one on extremely .

specific cleaning products.

Oh yeah, you want all all linked y to that one. It's real fun. It's um I got into a part of this came up because I was like my friend got into using anseau cleaners that are using labs ah yes, this one called turgis me that's used in basically every lab and it's what you've used to clean like biological material, like blood and like smoke out of like class and class. I IT comes in a four pound, can't like carton for forty, but use like ten grams of IT per leader IT will last you a lifetime and then IT because I fAustine so so you know if you ever .

said some boy's already sent me this article, i've read this article.

Well, anyway.

my websites start hearted IT up. So yeah, this goes on into my my office and the ordering. So this is a great, perfect. Thank you.

Yeah yeah. Trader chose, do traitor has got that just out. I don't. And I get into the very specific kind of zinc that I got found the a cosmetic for me later for them, like people who are kennst in the cosmetic industry that I found out about this. This is my brain. This is great after math that's like, uh on blue sky and uh twitter or x the everything yes I am a pop issue or Chris person P A P A P I S H U IT is a curser mum gallon reference I refuse to change um and yeah I know i'll be around if you ever any questions love me to i'd love answering strangers questions surprisingly unlike the one eye on twitter is like yeah yeah you're going to need to do that I love a chAllenge perhaps open the door you can I close .

but will find out yeah thank you so much for coming on the show sharing you can deep well knowledge about old forms is and i'll say thank you do listen for downlink this into your pocket or a choice special to shut IT up that's how people find out about show john this in our digital ort picture that conception p duck show chis and anything else feel like safe which Chris do you have?

I have a piece about routers making your own router coming out. Look out for that.

fantastic. We will.

excEllent. Thank you.

baby. Y.