Ask HN: Is it too late to start creating content on YouTube? - <AUTHOR> I want to create content on web development and earn passive income.<p>Is the Youtube space convoluted or is there enough areas where one can create contents? <comment><USER2> Background: I live in Los Angeles and have three VERY close friends who are Youtubers. They're all in the niche of reviewing gear for amateur heavy metal and rock audio engineers (my singer is one of them).

They have similar subscriber counts (between 200k-350k subs), in a similar space. One channel pulls in $80k a year, one about $200k a year, and one over $200k A MONTH.

This is largly because of outside deals. YouTube CPMs for music content is generally garbage. However, outside deals and affiliate marketing for gear reviews is pretty lucrative. More lucrative is online courses. My friend pulling in $200k+ a month has gone heavy on the online course side.

That being said, this sounds cheesy, but DO NOT do Youtube for the money. You will make FAR FAR more cash in the short term by either: 1. Studying leetcode for job interviews at FAANG companies. 2. Taking up contract work on the side. 3. Being an uber driver. For real.

Youtube is a GRIND. My friends who "made" it posted three quality videos a week. For 1-2 years. While working full time. Before they had ANY significant traction.

For your first year expect to make MAYBE $10k, if AND ONLY IF, you post 3 quality videos a week.

I'm currently growing my own Youtube channel now, I'm only at one video a week but I do genuinely enjoy making them. I'm also growing my LinkedIn too (organic reach on LinkedIn is BANANAS, I trend every four posts). But again, I ENJOY doing these videos, I writing scripts, I enjoy public speaking.

So to answer your question: it is 1000% not too late AT ALL. It's still VERY VERY early. There is MASSIVE MASSIVE oppertunity on these platforms. However you HAVE to make content you love or you WILL quit. Hopefully I'm not discouraging you from posting, please post, but only do what you enjoy!

<comment><USER3> Side note...

> if AND ONLY IF, you post 3 quality videos a week.

My kids watch kid YouTubers, and I recently found out that one of these "home made" quality channels actually has a full on media crew behind the production! I was blown away.

<comment><USER4> > I recently found out that one of these "home made" quality channels actually > has a full on media crew behind the production! I was blown away.

Wait, it gets worse. If you have a teenage daughter you will eventually have the "25 year old pretending to be 16 year old with a full production crew shilling for xyz makeup brand."

Assume that most of them have a full production crew.

<comment><USER3> Wow damn. That really disgusts me :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to make significant passive income I believe the strategy for 2020 is

* Make 10-15 videos, articles, blog posts, whatever. Make at least $500

* Write a blog post "How I made $500 online". Get some traction. Sell a course on "How to make $500 online". Get more traction. Make $20000.

* Write a blog post on "How I made $20000 by selling "How to make $500 online"". Sell a course on "How to make $20000 online by selling "How to make $500 online"". Make $100000.

* Write a blog post on "How I made $100000 by selling "How I made $20000 by selling "How to make $500 online""". Make $1000000.

<comment><USER6> This is funny because it's both possibly a joke but could also legitimately work

<comment><USER7> Sadly there are already a number of courses which teach you how to make money by making... courses. No joke, it's all circular. People teaching each other to teach people to teach people to teach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Making web development content is a good idea, but looking to get "passive income" is the wrong tack to take. If you make good content on web development, most of the value you get out of it is likely to be through "networking" \- finding a better job, getting freelance contracts, connecting with funding for your own start-up, etc.

Think about the unit economics. Average video view earns you roughly a tenth of a penny in advertising. A connection that improves your career prospect is worth _very_ roughly $10,000. That's a ratio of ten million to one. Whatever audience you manage to generate is worth far more to your career as a software developer than it is as generic eyeballs on videos.

<comment><USER9> I would state explicitly that building follower base and keeping it by creating videos consistently is far from "passive". When one stops uploading/creating people will forget about him.

Don't know timelines on building following (how fast one can build an audience) but my gut feeling is that one could earn some money after 5 years of constantly pushing good content and building network. I think OP would expect that he could pull it off in couple of months so in that sense he is too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's never too late. But unless the content you are creating is either a passion for you (i.e. you don't care if it makes money) or based on a source of income from outside of YouTube (i.e. you are making the content as marketing for another business you own), you may find sustaining and growing a channel a hard task and somewhat demoralizing, if you don't have patience to stay with it for years without any return. It's best to start creating content without the expectation of any monetization and then seeing where it goes.

Of course you may become a viral hit, but that's a matter of luck.

</comment><comment><USER11> Assuming you really mean on-demand online video/audio content (which is not limited to YouTube but also includes podcasts, Spotify, Instagram and many other platforms that may or may not yet exist), there is still huge growth potential and limitless opportunities for new content.

If you chronologically relate it to the history of television, on-demand online content is at the equivalent of about 1965.

There's still a huge amount of the global population that doesn't really listen to much of this kind of content passively - e.g., while driving/commuting, working, exercising, etc, as many people still don't even know you can really do this. And mobile data is still expensive in a lot of places in the world.

So, I can easily see the audience scale (measured by hours consumed) increasing another 10-20x in the next 10-20 years.

Even then, I doubt there's anyone, even people (like me) who spend many hours a week consuming online media, who thinks "there's no room in my life for anything other than what already exists".

So, no, it's not too late, and indeed it's never too late. But you need to figure out what is the unmet need that you can fill, then work hard over a long period of time to deliver something special for your audience.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a small business where I have partnered with several YouTubers (150k - 300k subs) to create custom merchandise. [1]

We do a revenue split, and I handle the shipping and manufacturing, my goal being for this to essentially be a source of passive income for the content creators.

My observation is that merchandising is an important revenue stream: either physical products, or digital ("for $5 you can have the sheet music that was used to make this video.") Digital merch seems to have a better long-tail and obviously the best margins. Physical merch is cyclical: strong sales at the start, and then they drop off after a few months.

Patreon seems to be an important revenue generator too - exclusive content, or see content ahead of time - which is fed by the videos that the content creators post in order to amass their audience.

Finally, individual video sponsorships seem to be important, and with a popular channel, can earn in the ballpark of $2k/video (don't know the variance here, just using secondhand knowledge.)

The point being, I think that you have to continually be creating content, and it may not necessarily be passive income. And a non-trivial amount of revenue is generated via other means, or partnerships/sponsorships, which is viable after building an audience.

[1] My specific niche is making notebooks for musicians, and you can see the folks I've collaborated with here! [https://www.themusiciansnotebook.com/collaborations](https://www.themusiciansnotebook.com/collaborations)

</comment><comment><USER13> > _I want to create content on web development and earn passive income._

I don't know that spending a ton of time researching topics, planning, recording, and editing your videos counts as "passive" income.

> _Is the Youtube space convoluted or is there enough areas where one can > create contents?_

Yes.

That said, if you wanna do it, do it.

</comment><comment><USER14> It takes a ton of views to generate meaningful ad income on YouTube. If you're making learning content, consider setting up your own site for monetization with [https://teachable.com/](https://teachable.com/)

You can put samples from your courses on YouTube to drive in traffic to the full courses on your own site.

<comment><USER15> I agree. There's already so much content and trash on Youtube that it will be a huge investment to make it worthwhile, assuming you are lucky. Creating structured, high-quality course content in a field not covered well by existing courses on sites like teachable and udemy will still be hard work, but with a higher chance of success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you making content for a new or under served niche - maybe - but probably not. There are some good quality channels with 100s of videos after years of work that still only pull in <5000 views per video - I'd be surprised if these channel were earning more than $100 a month, which considering the 1000s of hours that's gone into them, is not economical. A lot of them do it for the love of it - if this is you, go for it.

I considered this too - after doing some research on my own, talking to some other people I know who do YT and chatting to my SO (digital marketing manager) I learned YT advertising alone does NOT generate very much until you are consistently pulling a lot of views regularly (couple videos at a week at 10000+ views each. This can takes years, if ever, especially in the space you are describing - technical content). Profitability on YT is much less about quality and more about quantity and above all __consistency __, which is very difficult if you are looking to produce high quality content - this takes time.

YT is an __exposure __platform. It is a good tool for this - you can make your own content and monetize it separately, and use YT as a means to advertise and get exposure. See [0], start-react-native on IH. The founder, William Candellon, also was on the IH podcast, where he described his journey. Basically YT - > generating a following -> release paid content on his own platform and funnel in leads from his YT following.

You could do something like Gary Bernhardt does with his "Destroy all Software" series. A new 10m-15m video a week, and charge for access - either a one-off or a subscription service. I do something similar to generate leads for the course I am working on. [1]

[0] [https://www.indiehackers.com/product/react-native-starter- ki...](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/react-native-starter-kits)

[1] [https://vuejs-course.com/](https://vuejs-course.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes, it's too late in the sense that your videos and channel won't passively benefit from YouTube's growth, because its growth is slowing and that slowed growth is shared by so many other channels.

There is still opportunity, but you'll have to work hard to capitalize on it. You may never see more than a few dollars after making dozens of videos unless your work is standout.

<comment><USER2> 100% disagree. Organic on YouTube isn't as strong as TikTok or LinkedIn but it's still there. I've done a two pronged strategy where I direct LinkedIn traffic to YouTube with decent success.

I have another close friend who repurposes YouTube content for TikTok and has had great success. He focuses on heavy metal meme music, and does a vertical video edit for TikTok.

I repurpose YouTube videod for LinkedIn and have had similwr success. I reccomend taking 10-15 minute videos on YouTube and slicing them up, adding subtitles on something like zubtitle.com for LinkedIn if you're trying to build a funnel to sell courses.

<comment><USER17> I don't understand why you wrote you disagree. In your other comment, you said, " Youtube is a GRIND. My friends who "made" it posted three quality videos a week. For 1-2 years. While working full time. Before they had ANY significant traction. For your first year expect to make MAYBE $10k, if AND ONLY IF, you post 3 quality videos a week."

That sounds similar to my advice. There was a time when that kind of effort was not as necessary. I agree your playbook is a solid approach for people willing to work hard.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if there was a time where this wasn't necessary, outside of a few lucky people. I could be wrong though.

Even if you get lucky and your 3rd piece of content goes viral (which happened to my friend on TikTok recently, 350k views in 24 hours), the only way to capitalize on it is to keep consistently posting afterwards. One viral video won't necessarily pay that much cash and it won't necessarily build an audience over the long term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No it's not too late, but since you've mentioned you want it to create a passive income a few points:

1) Youtube videos require SEO just like a webpage. You need to create backlinks to your video and maybe send some traffic to it to make it relevant. Brian deen has some very good videos on it.

2) Pay attention to the engagement metrics, bounce rates etc. It matters a lot for getting your video in search results.

3) Invest some time in peripheral things like a good thumbnail, video optimization, etc. The more clicks you get the higher it starts ranking.

4) Last but not least monetising video based on ads is not where it's at. Most successful Youtubers are often making more money with affiliate marketing (most) and sponsorships.

So when you want to create content for Youtube make sure your priorities are clear. Are you doing it to generate income or is it just a hobby. There are very different approach to both.

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems like there's more money in live streaming on Twitch. I often watch streamers who play chess and they are making quite a lot of money given the low effort involved. People just randomly drop by and "tip" them €10 to €50 for no reason. A few tips per hour is enough to make it a decent salary.

Of course, this requires that you can play chess at a master level or else no one will want to watch. But maybe you can live stream yourself hacking? Deep learning is a hot topic that could attract viewers. I wouldn't tip but I'd watch that.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's like saying is it too late to be an A-list movie star. Of course not, but even if you try you're not likely to become one, so only go into it if you'd be happy with a middling outcome.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you want passive income, Youtube is a terrible choice. Youtube is not passive income, except maybe if it hitches a ride on your fame and work outside Youtube.

Youtube is hard work. You need to attract a community, and keep feeding that community. A single video is not going to make you much money; consistency is key. It can be hard work, and only a few really succeed. Although the ones who do succeed tend to succeed spectacularly.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. Create content on websites designed specifically for teaching (MOOC platform and other sites mentioned here). They have right audience and right tools.

2\. Create small (< 2min) videos for Youtube and use it as marketing platform for your coursework on other site. This utilizes YT's massive user base but avoids being drowned in all the trash there.

</comment><comment><USER23> It sounds like this might be something you could ob [https://egghead.io](https://egghead.io) \- it's specifically built for this purpose, and you have a team working to handle the stuff you don't want to do (marketing, customer service, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER24> So one space this is super visible is tech twitter, there's a developer I follow who is super positive and just constantly puts out content, he's getting traction now but it wasn't always a meaningful amount.

He's had a heavy snowball effect this year from a small following to being features in way larger educational platforms

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeU-1X402kT- JlLdAitxSMA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeU-1X402kT-JlLdAitxSMA)

if you put out content consistently, and aimed at beginner to mid level with decent videos - high resolution, clear screen / camera / audio / basic editing. You can absolutely get views and traction.

</comment><comment><USER25> I just started making videos for teaching kids to program on YouTube. It takes a lot of effort and it is not a sure thing.

I am not saying don't try, but you have to be willing to make at least a 100 solid videos before you get in the swing of things based on my research.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've followed a number of channels that burned bright and then died. Meaning that existing creators don't have any kind of lock on the market.

There's always room for new stuff, if for the simple reason that people are always hungry for something new.

<comment><USER27> Yes I think this is very true. Youtube channels are like TV shows, they have their time, then something new comes and takes their place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One thing worth mentioning: finding success in the world of education YouTube has very little to do with your technical/coding skills. Instead, once you have the baseline level of knowledge, your channel will grow through your ability to communicate concepts, along with your video editing skills. Both teaching and video production are very deep topics which take years to master. For me, that's part of the fun :)

And to echo what others said, don't expect any meaningful level of passive income from YouTube for many months. I've been making Android videos since October and have earned zero income despite having 2.5K subscribers.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes, you can make (good) money with web development on Youtube in 2020. But:

\- it won't be passive income

\- it will take some time to figure out how to do it

These are the problems you need to solve:

1\. Pick a niche

2\. Create your audience

3\. Build your course

4\. Sell your course

Let me share a few tips, as someone who started his own programming Youtube channel in late 2017, and last month made 7k. ([https://www.youtube.com/c/eattheblocks](https://www.youtube.com/c/eattheblocks))

1\. Pick a niche

Web development is a large topic. There are already some very established channels on this, and as a beginner it will hard to compete with them.

What you need is to go for a specialized tech niche. Example: \- React \- Testing \- Java \- Frontend \- Mobile \- Devops \- etc...

You can do some research to see how crowded each tech niche is.

You can also create your own niche by combining a tech and a business application. Ex: Python for finance.

2\. Create your audience

You need to create a following of people who really like your content, because later some of them will become your customers.

And to do this you need to publish regularly helpful videos. By helpful, I mean helping them to solve their problems. So it's very important that you spend time to understand in details their problems. And their problems don't necessarily overlap with your own personal interest.

Now, let's get more specific to Youtube. There are 2 source of traffic on Youtube:

\- Search

\- Suggested videos

As a beginner, you want to focus on search. You will create videos that solve a very specific problem. That way you have a chance to rank for these keywords. You won't have a lot of traffic like this, but it will a good beginning.

Search is good, but what will really make your channel grow is suggested videos. Once you have a small following, you want to start optimizing for this. Youtube will show your videos as suggested videos IF if believes people want to watch them. And it will believe this IF the people who already watched your videos watched a good portion of them. Or better, if they kept watching other videos of your channel after.

To make this happen, you need to:

\- Have a good title and thumbnail that make people want to click

\- Have a good hook at the beginning of each video. i.e 10-15 seconds where you catch the attention

\- A short branding where you explain the value of your channel. Ex "Hey I am X and on my channel I teach Y"

\- A good main content, where one part follows logically the previous one. If possible try to teach while telling a story. You can search what is the "South Park rule".

\- A conclusion that leads them to other videos on your channel.

3\. Build your course

It's often difficult to decide what to put in the course, and what to make free on Youtube.

Here is an easy way to think about it. On Youtube, you will give useful, but very specific help. Ex: How to write a Redux reducer. And in your course, you will teach the whole process. Ex: How to build a Full React application.

There are 2 caveats:

\- making the course too long

\- making the course too broad

Beginners always think they have to make their course super long to make it attractive. That's exactly the opposite. Think of your course as a shortcut to achieve a goal. Students want to achieve their goal as fast as possible.

And your course also need to be very targeted. If you try to teach too much, and it's just a mix pot of various tips and tricks, it's gonna be harder to sell.

On a practical level, I recommend to use a service like Teachable (that's what I use) to host your course. Think of it like a white-label Udemy. They take care of hosting your videos and billing your clients. Huge time saving.

4\. Sell your course

Now to the fun part, making money!

There are 2 main business models:

\- subscriptions

\- one-time sales

One problem with subscriptions is churn. Students want to learn something at a specific point in time. Once this is done, they might not want to stay.

Another problem is that you have to keep producing content. Which might be overwhelming, since you also have to keep producing content for Youtube.

With one-time sales, you sell a specific course. This is an easier sell: your course will help students reach a certain objective faster and more easily that if they were to do it on their one.

A big caveat is to price your course too cheap, thinking you will make many sales. At the beginning, you won't make many sales because your audience is small. So I recommend to start with an expensive course. At least 100 USD. Yes people for that and even higher. My main course is 250 USD.

To sell a more expensive course, you will need a more sophisticated sell process. Enter the wonderful world of sales funnel. The idea is that you will help prospective students to understand their problem better and better, until you introduce your solution (the course) at the end. Practically, that probably mean creating a sequence of 3-5 emails that will lead to your course. Your Youtube videos should have a CTA to register for this sequence of emails.

My final advice is:

\- first try alone for a few month

\- and then get help. That's what REALLY made a lot of difference for me. I took a course called 30x500 and that was really eyes opening. And now I hired a consultant specialized in online courses. 2 very good investments.

Good luck!

<comment><USER2> This advice is perfect. Especially MAKE YOUR COURSE EXPENSIVE. More people will buy a $250 course then a $25 one. Humans are weird, the less you sell something for, the more customer complaints you get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It sounds like your real question is "Is it too late to start _making money_ by creating content on YouTube?". Which is very different than say "Is it too late to start making content on YouTube for fun".

<comment><USER31> My thoughts too. Very similar to the "will this 3 month bootcamp help me double my salary?" Questions. What happened to just wanting to learn and teach others with no personal agenda?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> For passive income, you will not likely reach a level where you can live off, unless you have incredible tutorials that somehow have consistent views through out many years.

But youtube is still a good platform for content creators for distributing content. It works faster and gives the user a better experience than most other video platforms, and certainly costs less than hosting it yourself.

So my point is that doing youtube should not be from a financial perspective at first. Do youtube for the content creation aspect - you have to enjoy and be capable of doing it. Then, may be you will garner traction, and _then_ think about monetization.

</comment><comment><USER33> Good content sells. But you need to understand that whether you make it or not, also comes down to marketing - there are TONS of channels on youtube with world class content, but only a few hundred views on each video.

On other hand, there's garbage content / funnel vids with hundreds of thousands of views. Big difference is that the last guy poured all his money on production and marketing.

As the saying goes, takes money to make money.

Other than that - one needs to be somewhat consistent with releasing stuff. You want people to actually follow your channel, and make a habit of watching / looking forward to your vids.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've just started two weeks ago, and so far the response has been satisfactory. Whether it will last in the long run is to be seen, but if you find your niche, with enough persistence and a focus on quality, I don't see why it would be too late to start creating.

Addendum: doing it for the money is perhaps the wrong reason. It's likely that the network of people you'll get as a result will be even more valuable. Plus, you have to enjoy doing it, otherwise it'll be just like any other job.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've generated approximately 400,000 views across 6 videos published in total.

I haven't done anything besides drive referral traffic + create a thumbnail that pops out.

I believe referral traffic is the trick.

YouTube's goal is to keep people on YouTube as long as possible.

Your newly published video is an unknown.

If you can warm up the engagement data with referral traffic, YouTube will begin showing you in a small % of searchers.

As you get more clicks, more watch time, and more comments / likes compared to other videos YouTube could show, you'll begin to be showed more and more often.

<comment><USER36> can you expand on that a little bit more ? how can someone without subscribers drive referral traffic to newly uploaded video ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just do it, post like 10 videos before you decide if you're any good or not.

If you're good there's always opportunity. If you're not, well, the commenters will let you know.

<comment><USER38> On this note, even the best have negative comments. So, consider ignoring the negative comments as long as they're less than (about) 10% of your comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Its really hard but not impossible.

Though for web development, you have Travis media, and for website development, there are already tons of wordpress-focused channels, for this niche you will definitely have a very hard time, I guess you need delve into at least 1 year before you can see sth.

I would think this is a not-good-enough ROI if you choose this niche.

</comment><comment><USER40> Have you considered doing some of this content on twitch instead?

You can take the content you make on Twitch (with a change to possibly get affiliate or partner while the science and technology section is booming) and then take that content and post it to YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER41> You can't earn passive income on Youtube because of how the algorithm works and how old videos have to compete with new videos. If you are an active content creator there is still lots of space left for you.

</comment><comment><USER42> YouTube is known for promoting content for active channels, and awarding a complete submission to its most recent mechanics. Not for passive income generation.

</comment><comment><USER43> As a viewer, I don't think it's too late. If you videos are engaging then I will watch them even if you have no previous videos.

</comment><comment><USER44> the best moment to start something was two years ago. the second best is today.

</comment><comment><USER45> Yeah, it's too late. We never need more content ever again. Stop thinking about this. What we have right now is enough for all eternity.

</comment><comment><USER46> Background: building a live video application with $20k available funding

Can people recommend solid mobile development agencies (open to any county)

</comment><comment><USER47> It's never too late if you're undeniable.

</comment><comment><USER48> No, it's not too late. Plenty of people have started successful channels in the last few years, and plenty more are going to become successful in the years to come.

For instance, while Oddheader joined 9 years ago, he only seemingly started making videos in the last 2. Since then, his channel has blasted past 500,000 subscribers and is well on route to a million+.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/oddheader/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/oddheader/videos)

Others I've talked to who've started in the last few years and done well for themselves include Mety333 (nearly 200k subscribers since 2017), Skip the Tutorial (460k+ since 2017), Ceave Gaming (450k+ since 2016) and various others.

So there's definitely room to succeed there, even if your channel is only starting out today.

But I think you need to keep a few things in mind here:

Firstly, as people say, it's very unlikely your channel will blow up within the first channel. It occasionally does happen (especially if someone's video happens to go viral for whatever reason or a large YouTuber keeps giving them shout outs), but it's not the norm.

So take it slowly, accept your first few videos will probably do pretty bad stats wise (and to be honest, that's probably not a bad thing given their likely low quality) and the chances of making money early on are very slim.

Secondly, you need consistency. As people have said, YouTube is a grind, and you'll almost certainly need to pump out new videos on a regular basis for a year or three before your audience properly discovers your channel. So yeah, pick a schedule, stick to it and try to make sure you have stuff lined up for when burnout/real life issues inevitably interfere.

Thirdly, you really want to have a good niche for your channel overall. Web development in itself is too broad a topic for a new channel in my opinion, and you'll really struggle to gain traction given how crowded the space is right now.

So narrow things down. Think of a particular programming or scripting language you're good at, or a CMS you know how to work with, or a sub topic (like say, usability/accessibility/browser game development/CSS image drawing) that you have some experience with instead.

Finally, remember that having good content and knowing how to market it matters a lot more than your videos' production quality. If you're not saying something people find interesting or that hasn't been said by a million people in the last, even the best microphone, camera or video editing program in the world won't make a difference.

So come up with something interesting, make sure your videos look at least half decent, then invest in building relationships with other content creators, getting an audience on social media sites, etc.

Do that, and you can definitely do well on YouTube, even in 2020.</comment>


CDC sounds alarm on deadly, untreatable superbugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/05/superbugs-infections-hospitals/1965133/

<comment><AUTHOR> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official report "Vital Signs: Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae":

[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm62e0305a1.htm?s_c...](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm62e0305a1.htm?s_cid=mm62e0305a1_e)

The report abstract, which leads into many more details:

"Background: Enterobacteriaceae are a family of bacteria that commonly cause infections in health-care settings as well as in the community. Among Enterobacteriaceae, resistance to broad-spectrum carbapenem antimicrobials has been uncommon. Over the past decade, however, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) have been recognized in health-care settings as a cause of difficult-to-treat infections associated with high mortality.

"Methods: The percentage of acute-care hospitals reporting at least one CRE from health-care–associated infections (HAIs) in 2012 was estimated using data submitted to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) in 2012. The proportion of Enterobacteriaceae infections that were CRE was calculated using two surveillance systems: 1) the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system (NNIS) and NHSN (for 2001 and 2011, respectively) and 2) the Surveillance Network–USA (TSN) (for 2001 and 2010). Characteristics of CRE culture-positive episodes were determined using data collected as part of a population-based CRE surveillance project conducted by the Emerging Infections Program (EIP) in three states.

"Results: In 2012, 4.6% of acute-care hospitals reported at least one CRE HAI (short-stay hospitals, 3.9%; long-term acute-care hospitals, 17.8%). The proportion of Enterobacteriaceae that were CRE increased from 1.2% in 2001 to 4.2% in 2011 in NNIS/NHSN and from 0% in 2001 to 1.4% in 2010 in TSN; most of the increase was observed in Klebsiella species (from 1.6% to 10.4% in NNIS/NHSN). In the EIP surveillance, 92% of CRE episodes occurred in patients with substantial health-care exposures.

"Conclusions: Carbapenem resistance among common Enterobacteriaceae has increased over the past decade; most CRE are associated with health-care exposures.

"Implications for Public Health: Interventions exist that could slow the dissemination of CRE. Health departments are well positioned to play a leading role in prevention efforts by assisting with surveillance, situational awareness, and coordinating prevention efforts."</comment>


Johnny Cache - Caching Framework for Django Applications - <AUTHOR> http://dev.jmoiron.net/johnny/ <comment><USER2> Also some discussion here by the project co-author: <http://jmoiron.net/blog/johnny-cache/></comment>


Senators ask why vendors sell voting machines with 'known' vulnerabilities' - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/27/senators-security-voting-machines/ <comment><USER2> Criticisms of the underlying hardware/software aside, my intuitive answer to the headline question is "because governments are buying them."

Perhaps the esteemed Senators should undertake a short naval-gazing exercise and ask _" how could there only be three major players in such a lucrative segment, each selling ancient hardware and crappy software products?"_

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess at the answer to that question, and it likely shows those three companies as being the only ones with the patience and tenacity to get those models approved.

So Mr./Ms. Senator(s), I suggest you rephrase your question as follows: _" how can we simplify the procurement process to make sure we, the government, are receiving the greatest value for our expenditures?"_

<comment><USER3> They don't actually have any influence in the purchase decisions, as it's a state matter. Machines are bought by local governments, with varying state regulations on what can be purchased depending on the state in question. Most machines were paid for by local jurisdictions with a mix of federal funding (HAVA), and in some cases, state funds for part of the cost. Some states have uniform systems; others do not.[0] On election day, there isn't just "one" election but thousands taking place.

There's no single procedure for procuring voting machines, well, anywhere.

To make matters worse, each jurisdiction and the states are fiercely protective of their power in this matter. A federally uniform system, or even just something beyond the very basic requirements set by the Help America Vote Act in 2002, is right now very unlikely and would be a massive political and legal mess. Or, more accurately, a series of messes.

0\. [http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/the- can...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/the-canvass- june-2016.aspx)

<comment><USER4> > There's no single procedure for procuring voting machines, well, anywhere.

And that's probably a good thing. Heterogeneity in this sort of thing is desirable, as it makes large-scale fraud harder to pull off.

<comment><USER5> Not if all these heterogenous procurement processes end up buying from the same 3 vendors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Regardless of one's political leanings, it's frightening that only one of the two major American political parties is even feigning interest at fixing what is clearly a vulnerable system.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue, but it somehow continues to be.

<comment><USER7> This isn't true.

The Secure Elections Act was introduced by a Republican: [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate- bill/226...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2261).

<comment><USER6> This is absolutely true.

As someone else pointed out, it didn't even make it out of the committee controlled by the ruling party, and certainly wouldn't have made it out of the Republican-controlled Senate.

This legislation would pass in a Democratic Congress and White House, but absolutely will not in a GOP-led government. Full stop.

<comment><USER7> Its not true that "that only one of the two major American political parties is even feigning interest at fixing what is clearly a vulnerable system".

Apparently some Republicans support this bill. I bet there are some Democrats that don't support the bill.

Partisan reductionism presents an overly simplistic view of a complex phenomena.

And bills don't represent ideology anyway. They often have unintended consequences. Politicians might be interested in fixing a "vulnerable system" while rejecting a particular bill for some other reason. For example: Voter ID.

<comment><USER6> It's not that complicated: one party is committed to fixing this problem and has influential leaders backing such an initiative. Another party isn't even seriously trying. One GOP senator is interested in solving this problem? Good for that guy, but shame on the other 52 GOP senators that aren't.

> And bills don't represent ideology anyway.

Yes they do, that's why we vote for one party or another. Think taxes are too high? Want to expand social programs? Legislation is how all of that is executed. Bills absolutely represent party ideology. Take the green new deal, for example. How was that bill not an example of party ideology?

> Politicians might be interested in fixing a "vulnerable system" while > rejecting a particular bill for some other reason. For example: Voter ID.

Voter ID laws were designed explicitly to suppress minority votes and have been struck down time and again by the courts. They were not designed to solve a legitimate issue, because there is no evidence that rampant voter fraud exists in the US[0].

What does exist, however, are coordinated ballot-harvesting efforts designed to unduly influence the outcome of elections, as was witnessed in NC-9 in this past election. But again, the GOP doesn't seem to be very concerned about this specific issue.

[0]: [https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter- fraud...](https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth)

<comment><USER7> > Voter ID laws were designed explicitly to suppress minority votes and have > been struck down time and again by the courts. They were not designed to > solve a legitimate issue, because there is no evidence that rampant voter > fraud exists in the US[0].

That is not what motivates many people who care deeply about this issue. Its partisan spin used to malign a contrary view. Believe it or not many Republicans are not racists hell-bent on denying minorities the right to vote. I know it seems impossible, but some Republicans even are minorities.

> What does exist, however, are coordinated ballot-harvesting efforts designed > to unduly influence the outcome of elections, as was witnessed in NC-9 in > this past election. But again, the GOP doesn't seem to be very concerned > about this specific issue.

A lot of Republicans in California complained about ballot harvesting.

FWIW I agree that voter fraud not a major problem. And neither is vote hacking.

Both sides play footsie with these issues and its dangerous as it undermines the credibility of the system as a whole. If you believe elections are stolen or democracy is dead, then the American government is illegitimate. How long till we're advocating ignoring its laws, or overthrowing the regime.

Another civil war is the last thing we need in this country.

A slightly corrupt system that we collectively pretend is pristine is far better than the alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They ALL have a known vulnerability. Works like this:

Pretend the machine is a person in a secure room only they are in, and only they know the contents of.

You approach a window, tell them your vote. They say it back and optionally hand you a piece of paper.

Then, in that room, they do whatever they want, and the final tally, winner of the election is determined by whatever they did in the room.

Voters have no chain of trust between their expression of intent, and the record used for the final tally. When voters make physical expressions, and those expressions are counted, voters know the election, on a basic level, can be trusted to reflect the collective intent of the people.

When they use electronics, they have no idea. They push a button, or mash a screen, and the display will tell them something and that something could be anything. They cannot know.

None of us can without forensic level examination of the machine. Even then, we can only verify function and infer a voter intent was correctly recorded and or used for the tally.

Secondly, should there be error, or controversy, the enduring record of voter intent both walked out of the building and or is a collection of grease smears on input devices.

Useless in a court of law.

The only way around this is to make vote records personally identifiable and basically use the systems for banking. (Who gets around this problem with multiple, redundant records created at the time of transaction)

<comment><USER9> Why not have paper ballots that can be read by a machine? It doesn't get around the issue entirely, but you can always look at the physical ballots for a recount. It's a lot harder to tamper with an election at scale when you need to handle physical ballots.

Or just abandon electronic voting entirely. Ireland tried electronic voting, but scrapped it for just these reasons. You could even keep the ballots in a machine-readable format for sanity checks if necessary.

<comment><USER10> In New York State, we have exactly this: optical-scan ballots. We fill in the bubbles of the candidates and issues we support with a black marker, then personally feed them into a voting machine that both securely stores and automatically tabulates them. If they needed to be hand-recounted, that could easily be done.

The one significant improvement I would prefer in this process is verifying on the optical-scan machine's screen which options you have voted for, with the option to retrieve your ballot and fix it if anything shows up wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it's pretty straightforward to understand: the buyer likely has little to no expertise in the important issues. This is not in any way a slur on election officials, simply the recognition of the (statistically) likely experience of someone who is a local election official.

In addition the way the question is structured by the senators isn't really fair either: if you have _n_ bugs to fix before the ship date, you'll prioritize them and then ship (presumably) the best product you can by the immovable target date. That is also reality.

Though voting is a local matter the Federal Government has a constitutional interest (Article 1, Sections 4 and 5) in the elections to Congress and can mandate minimal standards for voting just as the DoT mandates minimum standards for automobiles. So they could require that whatever machines used are verifiable and non-repudiatable. They could also mandate _procedures_ although those are harder to enforce. If States need to buy equipment suitable for congressional elections they'll presumably use the same equipment for all other elections too.

<comment><USER12> In my experience, the buyers (election administrators) at the state and local levels know exactly what's going on. Like every where else, there's a revolving door between govt election administrators and the private vendors & consultants.

<comment><USER11> Hmm, perhaps I was thinking too fine-grained.

<comment><USER12> Feel compelled to add: I think we want the same thing, eg informed legislators. But from what I've seen, administrators run circles around legislators and their staff. Which is why I flipped on term limits (now oppose) and think legislators need a lot more staff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suppose it's more politically expedient to blame the companies trying to rationally minimize cost rather than risk reprimanding and alienating state and local officials who sign contracts for voting machines without any sort of serious security, auditing or compliance provisions.

This sure does seem like grandstanding from these senators. Probably not unrelated to fallout from the Mueller report.

<comment><USER14> _> reprimanding and alienating state and local officials who sign contracts for voting machines without any sort of serious security, auditing or compliance provisions._

What other options do these officials have?

The companies have the choice to improve their security of their hardware at the possible expense of lowering their profit margins.

Whenever you're deciding who to point the finger at, one simple rule is "Can this person actually effect change?" If the answer is "no", then blaming them isn't helpful.

<comment><USER13> >What other options do these officials have?

Paper voting, for one. If no system is offered that is secure enough, then the default should be no electronic voting system at all and just paper voting. It's scaled fine for hundreds of years and has clear processes in place for custody of ballots.

>The companies have the choice to improve their security of their hardware at the possible expense of lowering their profit margins.

You can't expect companies to just "make a choice" to lower profit margins without some sort of (dis)incentive or external pressure like regulation. It's unrealistic. Companies exist to make their principals money. It's the government's job to check that and make sure that the companies are acting in public interest while they pursue profit.

Local and state officials definitely can effect change on this level since they are often the ones in charge of the procurement process.

<comment><USER14> _> Paper voting, for one._

The election official's budget may simply not be able to afford that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The better question is, why do they keep buying them?

</comment><comment><USER16> Note: this article is of the United States.</comment>


New generic top-level domains - <AUTHOR> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strings <comment><USER2> Lots of LLCs in there. Sounds like companies set up mostly for the prospect of short term profits, e.g.:

COLLEGE >> XYZ.COM, LLC

UNIVERSITY >> Little Station, LLC

VODKA >> Top Level Domain Holdings Limited (those guys have quite a few such as "COOKING" and "FISHING")

It used to be that you had to squat the web one domain name at the time, now you can just squat a whole TLD!

<comment><USER3> Many of the LLCs are shell companies. In particular, basically every instance of "Adjective Noun, LLC" (e.g, "Foggy Sky, LLC", "Little Station, LLC", "Baxter Hill, LLC"...) is a shell owned by donuts.co, and "Charleston Road Registry" is a shell owned by Google!

<comment><USER4> .FOO as well. See [http://www.google.com/registry/](http://www.google.com/registry/)

<comment><USER5> They let Google have .ads!

I think that is a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If someone else is wondering who is "Charleston Road Registry" it's actually .. Google.

[http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is- charleston-r...](http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/who-is-charleston- road-registry-the-leading-gtld-applicant.html)

Also, it seem the sartup Donuts[0] is snatching a lot of domains using shell companies[1].

[0][http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts](http://icannwiki.com/index.php/Donuts) [1] [http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage](http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.voyage) [http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera](http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.camera) [http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru](http://icannwiki.com/index.php/.guru)

<comment><USER7> For the lazy, Charleston Road Registry has filed for the strings SOY and みんな, Japanese for "everyone."

<comment><USER8> soy is effectively AM in spanish. yo.soy/google

<comment><USER9> So, how long until I can register yo.no.soy/marinero ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >Over 1,300 new names or "strings" could become available in the next few years.

I'm the only one that doesn't like this? Having more domains it's nice, but having so many just feels overwhelming. I'm also sure that some/many of those will be completely ignored by everyone, and thus making me wonder why introduce them in the first place.

<comment><USER11> The way they've chosen which TLDs to issue is kind of lame. The entire concept of some company name as a TLD is ridiculous. It's just namespace pollution. Using just the TLD without any subdomain is going to invoke bugs in old software or be confused with a search term in the address bar, and using 'www.chase' instead of 'chase.com' is pointless and confusing.

What they should have done instead is created a bunch of TLDs for various different industries. Having 'chase.bank' and 'ford.cars' would have made a lot more sense.

<comment><USER12> 'www.chase' would be equally valid as 'www.com'. Nothing wrong with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the gTLD opening up but the pricing bothers me for 2 reasons;

It's closed off access for ordinary people and businesses at $180k+ setup pricing & $30k+ per year maintenance. Common access for anyone is a brilliant feature of the internet where anyone can hang out their shingle on equal terms. Making parts of domain ownership inaccessible goes against the spirit of the internet in my view.

These prices seem to have no reflection to cost, so really are a money grab, and holding anyone with a brand to hostage. Companies will feel pressured to grab brand names while they see how their usage plays out over coming years. It feels a bit extortionate.

<comment><USER14> Common people can't afford the required infrastructure to host a gTLD, getting requests from all over the world. Especially if it gets popular, it'll be pretty expensive to get into.

<comment><USER15> True, but that's a reason not to be so free with them in the first place. I see a _lot_ of wannabe-monopolists in this list, eg getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater so issuing a TLD for that is basically granting a license to tax that entire profession.

I originally thought this was a good idea when I thought these new TLDs were going to be trickled out in an orderly fashion. As it is, it looks very much like a land grab that only rich participants can take part in. I predict the resulting balkanization of the namespace is going to lead to a collapse of the web within a decade, in the same way that Archie and Veronica eventually fell victim to their own complexity and were replaced by something more accessible.

<comment><USER16> _getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film /TV/theater_

I'm sure the applicants think the same, but I'm completely unconvinced of that. People have trouble using .info and such already. My guess is that most such TLDs will be dead on arrival; most people don't even type domains nowadays, they search and use links.

Having a good Facebook path is probably more important for most people than any domain will ever be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Many of these gTLDs sound exotic today, but I bet 10 years from now they will be nothing special. I for one welcome it, if only to dethrone the dot com. It doesn't make sense for us all to try and squeeze into the same limited gTLD space. Perhaps this will be the most efficient way of killing off domain squatters, by flooding the market with viable domains.

It's just a matter of time before half of all links submitted to HN end with ".js".

<comment><USER3> Two-letter TLDs are reserved for ccTLDs - they're assigned based on the ISO country code (ISO 3166-1) of the country. As there is currently no country with the country code "JS", the TLD cannot be assigned.

<comment><USER18> Sounds like it's time to found a new nation-state. National exports will include whatever I happen to sell on Ebay that year, and millions of dollars worth of domain names :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Am I the only one disgusted by this?

<comment><USER20> Nope, we're with you on this one. It's a flat-out money grab. From an institution that we expect to keep the internet running. Great idea, right?

You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet. But no, those things don't give ICANN yearly profits. I guess they fail to realize that spam-detection is one of the main things behind Gmail's phenomenal success since its inception.

<comment><USER16> _You know, instead, they could fix the damn email and content spamming rampantly going on the internet._

How exactly could they achieve that?

<comment><USER20> First they could start by revoking domain ownership if spam comes from there. If it keeps persisting and from multiple different IP addresses from the same block, start taking IP blocks away until it stops.

Spam email doesn't just appear out of the ether. It comes from an email, a domain, and finally IP addresses. Now I know the technical details are lacking, and they obviously need to account for offenders that fix their stuff, but I'm just trying to illustrate that it is do-able.

The above is for email spam. Content spam is a little bit different, and would step on quite a few toes. I view content spam as websites that mirror Wikipedia/SO/GoogleGroups for example. Or sites that simply fill their pages with garbage, referral links, URL's to game search-engine rankings, etc. Again, start by revoking the worst offende's domain ownership. Eventually, you'll be able to get rid of domain-squatters as well because it invariably means that they have to put meaningful content on their site and not useless junk. So it's a use it properly, or lose it sort of situation.

The above is just not very easy, and it'll cost ICANN registration fees with seemingly no ROI. But that's a problem with ICANN. Registration fees started off as a way to prevent spamming and everyone snatching up all domains, but it's quickly turned in to a revenue cow for ICANN. They're trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Either they're a non-profit government/UN organization and function for the public good. Or they're a for- profit entity and they need to have their MONOPOLY status/powers revoked.

<comment><USER16> _First they could start by revoking domain ownership if spam comes from there._

How does email spam come from a domain? You can just set whatever domain you want in the headers. For a long time, I had spammers using my personal domain in their From: headers, sent from their servers (I knew because I received automated replies on my catch-all box). What exactly would be accomplished by taking away my domain?

As for IP blocks, that's like throwing napalm to kill a few weeds. You'd affect hundreds or thousands of users of an ISP just to kill a spammer, who will just move to the next connection.

 _I view content spam as websites that mirror Wikipedia /SO/GoogleGroups for example. Or sites that simply fill their pages with garbage, referral links, URL's to game search-engine rankings, etc. Again, start by revoking the worst offende's domain ownership. Eventually, you'll be able to get rid of domain- squatters as well because it invariably means that they have to put meaningful content on their site and not useless junk._

So instead of issuing TLDs, they could start performing censorship. I'm seriously glad they don't share your views.

Having a website sitting somewhere is not spam. It's not being pushed on anyone; if search engines are indexing content that their users don't want to see, that's their problem. It shouldn't require to pass some bureaucrat's consideration to what is "proper content" to be accessible. Many of us around the world already find the US' TV censorship quite ridiculous, we don't need any more of that.

<comment><USER20> _" How does email spam come from a domain? You can just set whatever domain you want in the headers. For a long time, I had spammers using my personal domain in their From: headers, sent from their servers (I knew because I received automated replies on my catch-all box). What exactly would be accomplished by taking away my domain?"_

Solutions to prevent/combat email header spoofing have been gaining quite a bit of traction and are quite prevalant. And yes, if that means taking the domain away from people that don't implement said solutions, then poof you've lost the domain. It would accomplish getting rid of domain owners that enable spammers.

 _" As for IP blocks, that's like throwing napalm to kill a few weeds. You'd affect hundreds or thousands of users of an ISP just to kill a spammer, who will just move to the next connection."_

If you lease out IPs that have been assigned to you to a spammer, then you better get him off your network. Otherwise you'll lose your entire block. It's not rocket science, nor is it overkill. You mention that spammers will move on to the next connection if they get kicked off. Yeah, well that's not really ICANN's problem is it, that's up to the IP block lessee's to solve if they want to start sub-leasing out to unknown/untrusted individuals in the public.

 _" So instead of issuing TLDs, they could start performing censorship. I'm seriously glad they don't share your views."_

There is a big difference between censorship and removing junk from your network. Perhaps it is something we should worry about, but we should have thought of censorship BEFORE we allowed the US to maintain control of ICANN, don't you think?

 _" Having a website sitting somewhere is not spam"_

Probably not the common definition, but if it pollutes the domain/tld namespace with useless/junk domains then yes you can call it spam.

 _" It's not being pushed on anyone; if search engines are indexing content that their users don't want to see, that's their problem"_

I agree with you. However, my point was more along the lines of "use it for something useful, or lose it" in order to both prevent useless domain squatting AND content spam.

 _" Many of us around the world already find the US' TV censorship quite ridiculous, we don't need any more of that."_

Nope, we don't, I agree with you. Hence why I suggested we either treat ICANN like a for-profit private enterprise with NO government monopoly or privilege of licensing, OR we damn well make sure it behaves like non-profit acting for the public good. I.e. no lucrative money grabs such as the one in this article. Assuming that's even possible with an entity controlled by the US government.

Look. These are just some ideas we can implement to combat spam and other malicious behavior on the internet. But sticking our heads in the sand by ignoring some of these solutions just because they aren't perfect is definitely not going to fix them. At the very least they're better than what we have now.

<comment><USER16> _Solutions to prevent /combat email header spoofing have been gaining quite a bit of traction and are quite prevalant. And yes, if that means taking the domain away from people that don't implement said solutions, then poof you've lost the domain. It would accomplish getting rid of domain owners that enable spammers._

So if I don't even use my domain for email, I'm liable to lose it because I don't have the knowledge or even awareness to set up the proper SPF records or whatever solution du jour? That's a terrible tax on people who just want to have their own small website.

And what for? If the receivers can check for the existence and SPF records of the domain, they can also just block email from domains without any valid SPF records. There's no reason to create such draconian policies.

 _There is a big difference between censorship and removing junk from your network. Perhaps it is something we should worry about, but we should have thought of censorship BEFORE we allowed the US to maintain control of ICANN, don 't you think?_

Not really, because they don't usually censor. It should be something we should worry about if we gave _you_ the control of ICANN.

 _Probably not the common definition, but if it pollutes the domain /tld namespace with useless/junk domains then yes you can call it spam._

No, because "useless" is subjective.

 _Hence why I suggested we either treat ICANN like a for-profit private enterprise with NO government monopoly or privilege of licensing, OR we damn well make sure it behaves like non-profit acting for the public good. I.e. no lucrative money grabs such as the one in this article._

I don't see why is this TLD scheme against the public good in any way. Transferring money from big companies to an organization which provides such a core service seems great to me, and all the downsides I've been hearing about are mostly people's aesthetically sensibilities being hurt.

 _At the very least they 're better than what we have now._

Adding censorship is never better.

<comment><USER20> _So if I don 't even use my domain for email, I'm liable to lose it because I don't have the knowledge or even awareness to set up the proper SPF records or whatever solution du jour? That's a terrible tax on people who just want to have their own small website._

I never said that. Are you even trying to have a discussion, or just disagreeing for its own sake?

 _Not really, because they don 't usually censor. It should be something we should worry about if we gave you the control of ICANN._

Didn't you just complain about US government censorship in your previous post? Either way, you're blatantly clumping together censorship with other things, so it's pointless to discuss this point with you.

 _No, because "useless" is subjective._

Doesn't matter if the majority of people agree with the subjective opinion. And currently we have the subjective opinion of the few managers of the ICANN calling all the shots.

 _I don 't see why is this TLD scheme against the public good in any way. Transferring money from big companies to an organization which provides such a core service seems great to me, and all the downsides I've been hearing about are mostly people's aesthetically sensibilities being hurt._

Wow, you didn't actually read anything I wrote about this point, did you? Guess that wouldn't fit your narrative or suit your argument.

 _Adding censorship is never better._

That's your opinion, really. Again, loaded with a biased and opinionated definition of "censorship", rendering discussion of this point with you pretty useless.

Good day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Navigation has evolved from the address bar to the search bar. DNS is a core component for transport of most content on the Internet, but for consumers, it's no longer the prima facie form of navigation.

This is non-additive, imho. And a poor use of ICANN resources.

<comment><USER22> Technically, they are probably making a ton of money on it, so I guess you can't say it is using resources net...

<comment><USER21> mental calories, not dollars. ICANN is spending all their resources on it and not focusing elsewhere in their operations. Yes, it's making money. But budgets were already high. Good people (mehmet, etc.) have left.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, just looking at the list so far, it appears the squatting has already begun in earnest. It's the dot-com land grab all over again.

<comment><USER24> But this time around they raised the application fee by three or four orders of magnitude to make it more fair.

<comment><USER25> Very fair, indeed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm surprised that I don't see .app, which is a gTLD I would consider buying a domain name under.

<comment><USER27> Did Google acquire that? Or did they officially pull their filing?

[http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will- mak...](http://domainnamewire.com/2013/03/07/google-says-it-will-make-app- blog-cloud-and-search-tlds-open/)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_ap...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/google_rejigs_dot_app_gtld/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone explain to me why they don't just open up every possible string as a TLD?

<comment><USER29> They are making some serious money from this scheme. Google alone has spent $18.6 million on registration fees of its 101 different new gTLD.

<comment><USER30> Fucking up the whole internet for only a few hundred million dollars seems really incredibly short-sighted to me.

<comment><USER16> How are they "fucking up the whole internet"? People are taking their aesthetically sensibilities way too seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Since in addition to .EDU we will soon have .EDUCATION, .UNIVERSITY and .COLLEGE, Monash University was smart to just get .MONASH.

<comment><USER32> [http://about.monash/](http://about.monash/)

<comment><USER33> So is the schema for these branded tlds supposed to change from our current name.tld/page/subpage.html to page.name/subpage.html? That strikes me as a huge waste of time setting up subdomains for what are effectively just pages.

<comment><USER34> As an example of how it can be handled, Monash has [https://my.monash.edu.au/](https://my.monash.edu.au/) which is already known by the name my.monash; I expect that they will shift it to [https://my.monash/](https://my.monash/) in the fairly near future.

What it ends up boiling down to for Monash University is that you can drop the .edu, .edu.au or .edu.my part. Oh, and you get to cough up a decent amount of dough for the endeavour (for the TLD application, for TLD maintenance and for software systems and such).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The long wait for clownpenis.fart is over!

<comment><USER36> Seems to me the closest we can get from this is clownpenis.farm

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> While I think this whole thing is a useless namespace land grab, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that there is one slightly useful new TLD: [http://www.atgron.wed](http://www.atgron.wed)

They're selling .wed domains cheap for the first couple of registered years, but then charging tens of thousands of dollars per year after 2 years. This is a smart way to create a short-term use namespace.

</comment><comment><USER38> It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Some of these TLDs will prove to be quite lucrative, others less.

Ultimately, this will benefit site owners.

Most traffic may be derived from search, but direct traffic is not to be discounted.

It is good that people will be able to get memorable domain names.

Unfortunately, it will be some time until the public is appropriately trained.

Waves of traffic will be lost or misdirected with people mistakenly adding .com to the URL.

</comment><comment><USER39> What happens if you register a domain and do business at some gTLD and the company that owns the gTLD goes out of business?

<comment><USER40> I'd assume you'd lose your domain. If you're lucky someone else might pick up the gTLD and you could probably keep it then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A bank controlling its own TLD might make phishing attempts easier to spot for the less technically literate.

<comment><USER42> Are you required to sell out domains under a gTLD? It'd be interesting to create some sort of must-be-a-sub-entity TLDs like ".bank" which requires it members to be banks (similar to .edu and .gov). But I can't imagine any entity but ICANN itself managing that in a 'fair' manor.

<comment><USER43> I know ".ngo" is planning on being released at some point this year and will (supposedly) only be available to registered NGOs

<comment><USER44> It's like a job application filter. Start working for a .int company, only pay 10% income tax (but still get all benefits everyone else gets, sometimes more).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Mostly I'm curious how Google is going to handle this. Specifically will they automatically favor, over time, results for eg .paris, if that tld acquires enough quality rankings for paris related keywords. And how will Google decide what's a local vs global tld (again, eg .paris).

</comment><comment><USER45> I heard icann charges-- something like $6.50 a domain. Icann seems to have more money than they can spend. Maybe they should lower the price they demand for each domain? I understand they need to regulate this industry, but they appear to be making a bit to much money? I never blamed Godaddy for gouging customers. I knew icann demanded their cut before any profit to godaddy. (I'm no fan of Godaddy, but forced to use them because they seem cheaper--if you know how to cancel their money making tatics, like constantly changing renewals to 2 years at full price. And his stupid commercials. If you do get his .99 cent domains, I think you are allowed two. If you use a different ip address sometimes you can get more.)

</comment><comment><USER18> I found a full(?) list of gtlds as well as other "top-level suffixes" here: [https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat](https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat)

I found this via the Chromium source code (search term gtld). Specifically,

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/n...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/net/base/registry_controlled_domains/registry_controlled_domain.h&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=126&rcl=1398070747)

<comment><AUTHOR> .ninja is not in the list, yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Whenever I see new top-level domains I can't help but think that the internet would probably be nicer without any top-level domains at all. You can still always buy a sub-domain from someone.

Failing that, does anyone know if any of these top-level domains are to be sold cheaper? ".cheap" is actually not any cheaper than normal but a ".end" or something which cost only $2 a year might be pretty cool. Of course it'd be even easier to swat but you shouldn't have any problems if you use a long domain name.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wish there was like a mob that goes around beating up squatters.

<comment><USER20> Oh so squatters are bad, but the people that enable them aren't?

What they have now is a devious double-standard system. It starts off with "first-come, first-serve" and then when money is involved and some large/well- established entity cries foul, they then change the rules to be "more-money, first-serve".

Now don't get me wrong, I think domain squatting is a horrible, horrible practice. But we really need to solve the root of the problem, and that is a greedy ICANN that enables domain-registrars, and itself, to double-dip the cake for profit!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> NPR's Planet Money podcast recently had an episode on this titled "The Wild West Of The Internet". They take a pretty neutral view, but I found the interviews with people who own some of these TLDs now interesting.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/16/303735386/episode-532-the- wild-west-of-the-internet)

</comment><comment><USER48> At this point, doesn't it make more sense to have fully arbitrary strings as domain names, and use something like the last 2 characters to map to the appropriate top level entity ?

The explosion of top-level domains doesn't seem to serve any real practical purpose except moving money around, and moving to a better system altogether would be the logical step.

Or does it solve any technical problem ?

<comment><USER16> That system would require a complete revamp of the DNS protocol. Adding new TLDs, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with existing software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'd like to see a lot more two character or short non-specific domain names. Personally, I need ".op" but just for general use I feel everyone would benefit from "theirna.me" style domains. In place of "theirname.food" or similar.

Is this just a stylistic choice on my part? Or possibly it would be too difficult to manage on the part of the registrars.

<comment><USER50> Two character ones are for countries, though. What would you do if a private entity owns ".op" and a hypothetical country of Opzerkistan declares independence?

As for domain hacks, I think many laypeople just enter "something.com" without thinking too much. Remember whitehouse.com[1], in the 90's?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com)

<comment><USER49> I suppose the same thing that would happen if there were two independent countries that start with "Op"... right now there is no ".op" domain and that makes me sad.

<comment><USER50> True, but they would simply assign them different two letter TLDs. For example, compare Montenegro (.me), Macao (.mo), Mongolia (.mn), Malta (.mt), Madagascar (.mg), Mauritania (.mr), etc.

I can understand how it would be frustrating, though. For a long time, the TLD for my last name (two letter last name) wouldn't allow second level registration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> New gold-rush ahead?

The list feels to me at the first look very similar to the patent system -- everybody is just pitching "their" claims. First come, first money, first served. The others will stay with the "pack": <longname>.com or <evenlongername>.de.

<comment><USER48> I feel this is kind of pointless though. As of now, most people will first do a search on parts of the domain to go to the right site; having more TLD around won't reduce this behavior.

<comment><USER25> But some reason seems to exist, that makes all those companies paying a stack of money.

Even if all internet users do so, I think the companies trust to get some credibility by owning such domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Buyers of .ninja domains are going to be surprised when everyone else pre- emptively blocks them.

<comment><USER51> Clearly something only the pirates would do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> It's been a while since I've read anything about this. Are new applications still being accepted, or are these simply approvals of applications that were submitted some time ago, through a process that is now closed?

<comment><USER53> The latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is that $185,000 per evaluation for a gTLD? Are there other costs involved?

</comment><comment><USER55> ".онлайн"? ".сайт"? Those aren't even words in Russian language. Why bother with Cyrillic if you're just going to transliterate English terms?

<comment><USER56> They are legitimate words. It's called loanword

<comment><USER55> What part of speech is "онлайн" then? I'll give you that "сайт" is a technical loan-word, though I still can't come up with a situation where something.сайт would make sense. Of course it's a goddamn site, it's the Internet after all.

<comment><USER56> Saw it used as adjective and noun, with multiple meanings, akin to usage in english language. And I don't see much sense in '.сайт' too, but I don't see much of it in most new gTLDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> VODKA, NINJA and GURU my mind is racing with possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER58> Something like this will happen and then something will happen to finally eliminate top level domains in the first place or at least remove them from display.

</comment><comment><USER59> Need an auto reg-exp generator from that damn page.

<comment><USER60> [https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat](https://publicsuffix.org/list/effective_tld_names.dat)

<comment><USER61> Any idea why people would want their tld removed from that? e.g. nsw.gov.au

<comment><USER9> My guess would be that they want to be able to share cookies across their sub- domains.

That file is saying that we should effectively treat:

 _education.vic.gov.au_ and _courts.vic.gov.au_ as being independent entities that happen to both use the "vic.gov.au" domain, but otherwise have nothing in common (as far as same-origin policies go)

But

 _fairtrading.nsw.gov.au_ and _housing.nsw.gov.au_ as being separate sub- domains operated by the same entity (in this case the NSW gov't)

It's certainly _easier_ for those who operate site on that domain if they can implement single sign on, and cross-(sub)-domain resource loading without needing to jump through hoops like CORS.

However, since nsw.gov.au is also farmed out to every local council in the state as well as every government department, it's putting the security of your cookies into the hands a lot of organisations over which you have very limited control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> CITIC Group, NeuStar Inc., Samsung?

Why are these companies having TLDs, and ICANN approving it? There's zero logic to all of this!

<comment><USER63> Clearly $$ > Logic. I think that's something you learn in business math class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I wonder how long it will take for users to get into the habit of using TLDs other than their country default.

</comment><comment><USER65> Where can I start registering name with the new LTD? I am really interested in .foo and .ing

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting where an Inc. company now owns a geographic location, like .OKINAWA

</comment><comment><USER66> The data in csv form can be found at [https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds- csv](https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-gtlds-csv) .

Here are the registries and the number of strings that were assigned. I'm only showing the ones with a count above one. The rest are at [https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry- coun...](https://gist.github.com/turnersr/11163058#file-registry-counts) .

Uniregistry, Corp. 9 ['COUNTRY', 'CHRISTMAS', 'PICS', 'PHOTO', 'GIFT', 'LINK', 'GUITARS', 'SEXY', 'TATTOO']

Afilias Limited 8 ['BLACK', 'MEET', '\xe7\xa7\xbb\xe5\x8a\xa8 (xn--6frz82g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "mobile"', 'BLUE', 'KIM', 'PINK', 'RED', 'SHIKSHA']

United TLD Holdco Ltd. 7 ['DEMOCRAT', 'SOCIAL', 'MODA', 'DANCE', 'IMMOBILIEN', 'KAUFEN', 'NINJA']

United TLD Holdco, Ltd. 7 ['ROCKS', 'CONSULTING', 'HAUS', 'PUB', 'ACTOR', 'REVIEWS', 'FUTBOL']

Top Level Domain Holdings Limited 6 ['VODKA', 'COOKING', 'RODEO', 'HORSE', 'FISHING', 'MIAMI']

Public Interest Registry 4 ['\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7f) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "agencies/institutions"', '\xe0\xa4\xb8\xe0\xa4\x82\xe0\xa4\x97\xe0\xa4\xa0\xe0\xa4\xa8 (xn-- i1b6b1a6a2e) \xe2\x80\x93 Hindi for "organization/sangathana"', '\xe7\xbb\x84\xe7\xbb\x87\xe6\x9c\xba\xe6\x9e\x84 (xn--nqv7fs00ema) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "organization"', '\xd0\xbe\xd1\x80\xd0\xb3 (xn-- c1avg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "organization/org"']

GMO Registry, Inc. 3 ['YOKOHAMA', 'TOKYO', 'NAGOYA']

CORE Association 3 ['\xd8\xa8\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb2\xd8\xa7\xd8\xb1 (xn--mgbab2bd) \xe2\x80\x93 Arabic for "bazaar/bazar"', '\xd0\xbe\xd0\xbd\xd0\xbb\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd0\xbd (xn--80asehdb) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "online"', '\xd1\x81\xd0\xb0\xd0\xb9\xd1\x82 (xn--80aswg) \xe2\x80\x93 Russian for "site"']

Top Level Design, LLC 2 ['INK', 'WIKI']

BusinessRalliart Inc. 2 ['RYUKYU', 'OKINAWA']

Punto 2012 Sociedad Anonima Promotora de Inversion de Capital Variable 2 ['REST', 'BAR']

NetCologne Gesellschaft für Telekommunikation mbH 2 ['COLOGNE', 'KOELN']

XYZ.COM, LLC 2 ['COLLEGE', 'XYZ']

China Organizational Name Administration Center 2 ['\xe5\x85\xac\xe7\x9b\x8a (xn--55qw42g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "charity"', '\xe6\x94\xbf\xe5\x8a\xa1 (xn--zfr164b) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "government"']

I-REGISTRY Ltd. Niederlassung Deutschland 2 ['RICH', 'ONL']

TLD Registry Limited 2 ['\xe4\xb8\xad\xe6\x96\x87\xe7\xbd\x91 (xn--fiq228c5hs) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "Chinese network"', '\xe5\x9c\xa8\xe7\xba\xbf (xn-- 3ds443g) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "online"']

Koko Station, LLC 2 ['VISION', 'VILLAS']

Monolith Registry LLC 2 ['VOTE', 'VOTO']

Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China Internet Information Center) 2 ['\xe7\xbd\x91\xe7\xbb\x9c (xn--io0a7i) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "network"', '\xe5\x85\xac\xe5\x8f\xb8 (xn--55qx5d) \xe2\x80\x93 Chinese for "company"']</comment>


Spotify doesn't use "the Spotify model" and neither should you - <AUTHOR> https://www.jeremiahlee.com/posts/failed-squad-goals/ <comment><USER2> Great piece. I'm sad there's not more discussion here. As an engineering manager who has managed at 3 companies, this strikes a number of chords.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree that it's a great piece. I'm surprised that it wasn't picked up here.

<comment><USER4> keep reposting until the word gets out on how Spotify unleashed this terrible lexicon on us all in the tech industry.</comment></comment></comment>


37signals home page designs over the years - <AUTHOR> http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/gallery/37signalscom.php?utm_campaign=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=blog

<comment><USER2> There first site is still live, in case anyone cares:

<http://www.37signals.com/manifesto.html></comment>


Genius of our time - <AUTHOR> http://domleca.com/genius-of-our-time/ <comment><USER2> This guy is the only person who has changed my mind about every thing I thought I knew in computer science and design.

I recommend to every person involved with computers to read his paper Magic Ink about information graphics theory</comment>


Ask HN: Technical Cofounder needed  - <AUTHOR>

We are looking for a web developer to potentially join our venture: www.stickyframes.net We are almost ready with production of prototypes, but we need a functioning web platform to maximize the potential of our product. We can offer up to 14% of stake in SF project - but we are also ready to discuss other forms of compensation. Essentially we are looking for a website similar in fuctionality to something like this: http://www.signazon.com/car-magnets/ If interested please contact me via HN or email at computerfix at gmail dot com <comment><USER2> I can be a technical confounder! Guaranteed to make even the simplest of projects seem terribly, horribly complicated!

Oh. You meant _cofounder_. ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahaha: ConFounder. Pun taken. To my excuse, it is really late and I am really tired. Currently there is me and another person involved. We are very motivated and very easy to work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Edit: Nevermind.

</comment><comment><USER4> tech savy developer person?

<comment><AUTHOR> See above, it is really late and I am really tired. I will get it though. If you need more information, contact me.</comment></comment>


Question: How do I build a discussion board in the HN Style? - <AUTHOR> Hi there, I'm thinking about building a HN style board for a specific industry that doesnt already have one. I see that recently a banking board just opened up in the same, simple style. Can anyone advise me how yo setup a board in the same style? <comment><USER2> I'd recommend checking out Telescope ([http://telesc.pe/](http://telesc.pe/)), it's a very feature-rich news site in the style of hn/reddit, it's very actively developed, has a decent interface/design built-in, and can literally be deployed just by clicking a link (though you can host it on your own server if you want). Many news sites posted on hn tend to use telescope for these very reasons.

You can find out more here: [http://telesc.pe/](http://telesc.pe/)

And launch your own instance through Giteor here: [https://giteor.com/deploy?git=com.github.SachaG.Telescope.ma...](https://giteor.com/deploy?git=com.github.SachaG.Telescope.master)

<comment><USER3> This looks like an awesome approach but a few important considerations:

\- How scalable is hosting on meteor.com?

\- Does Telescope provide an API to let you, for example, create a native mobile app/browser extension?

<comment><USER4> > How scalable is hosting on meteor.com?

Currently hosting on meteor.com is mainly meant for demoing and testing, not as a stable production enviroment. However, with the release of Meteor 1.0, the Meteor Development Group will launch Galaxy, which is a production ready hosting managed hosting platform.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. There are plenty of other options for hosting Meteor apps though ([http://modulus.io](http://modulus.io), [http://digitalocean.com](http://digitalocean.com), etc.)

And Telescope does have a simple read-only API, as well as an RSS feed. Depending on the features you need I could probably extend it (or you can submit a pull request).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The source for HN comes with Arc: [http://arclanguage.org/install](http://arclanguage.org/install)

<comment><USER7> Tough to recommend that, though, when it can't even keep links working when I leave a page open in tabs. Much better off going with a mature, open source project that isn't crippled and bug ridden. There are quite a few. Personally it would only take me a day to style a real CMS into looking like it, like Drupal since I've written Drupal plugins for far more advanced stuff before, so I wouldn't even need to hobble myself with a site type specific project like Telescope.

<comment><USER6> This isn't a bug, really, more of an implementation side effect.

<comment><USER8> Aren't "implementation side effects" leading to a mismatch between a user's expected behavior and the actual behavior a bug? Where's the line? :)

More seriously I don't think Arc is a good idea for an HN clone; the lispiness of it all is cute but the way continuations are implemented doesn't seem to scale in a good way in real life. Some form of cursoring like what Reddit uses for pagination is probably better. Plus the news example couples the layout/theme to the UI code in painful ways.

<comment><USER9> >Aren't "implementation side effects" leading to a mismatch between a user's expected behavior and the actual behavior a bug? Where's the line? :)

It is kind of funny that a forum like this, with this layout, and that "implementation side effect", written in a similar style in PHP would be utterly lambasted here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You probably want to check out: [https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki)

Specifically: [https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/how- to...](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/how-to-run-news)

</comment><comment><USER11> Take a look at Lamernews ([https://github.com/antirez/lamernews](https://github.com/antirez/lamernews)). It is written in Ruby by the author Redis. It uses Redis as the primary database.

Here is it in action: [http://lamernews.com/](http://lamernews.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I think that the problem isn't getting the right software/design (anyone can do that). The problem is getting the right community and mods to keep it going once you've started.

Good luck m8

</comment><comment><USER13> There are many ways to do it. Basically you need to store posts and display them in a nested format, meaning that you should pull down the data and then nest it based on child-parent relationships.

I wrote something similar in golang. An example is [http://askgolang.com/](http://askgolang.com/) and the package itself with demo code is at [https://github.com/carbocation/go.graf](https://github.com/carbocation/go.graf)

Of course, this can be done in any language, but I found to quite pleasant (and safe).

</comment><comment><USER14> It's pretty simple to sart off with php/mysql. Paul Graham does a lot of data mining on it for moderation (he made applying naive bayes to spam filtering famous a while back).

If you don't have programming skills you're better of off just starting a subreddit. The hard part in these is building the community.

A better strategy might be to find a subreddit with a community and try to take over it somehow (communicate with mods or pay them to take over).

<comment><USER9> Could easily be done with a framework of course - probably something lightweight. I've got competing implementations in Laravel 4 and Slim Framework being worked on right now. I know someone else is working on a HN news clone in Laravel as well, it was mentioned in a thread somewhere.

But yeah definitely, getting people to join would be the hard part. I've seen people build what they thought were the greatest forums ever and just sort of expect people to show up but they don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You could just use the same code which runs reddit.

[https://github.com/reddit/reddit](https://github.com/reddit/reddit)

<comment><USER16> Beware: you can only do that if you want to open source your entire site. It used to be the AGPL, now it's the CPAL, which has the same effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Or this one: [https://github.com/maccman/monocle](https://github.com/maccman/monocle)

To me it looks way better, but it depends on your needs. Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER18> I started working on a similar project several weeks ago in ASP.NET and C#. Implementing proper nested comments is a big challenge for a beginner like me, so I dropped development until school projects slow down a little. I'm thinking of opensourcing it but I don't know if there is any interest for that. The project is located at a weird domain (yes, I need a better name, feel free to recommend one) which is www.forbidme.com

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is how:

First become a pg in your specific area, someone whom everyone in this specific industry sees as highly knowledgeable, good-networked and.... for SW choose a good one suggested here. Use hnsearch to find more (for example USV, lobster.rs, reddit source code)

<comment><USER20> > [..] (for example USV, lobster.rs, reddit source code)

It's lobste.rs

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have you looked at discourse? Its more of a discussion board.

</comment><comment><USER22> You could try Telescope, a similar project built with Meteor

[http://telesc.pe/](http://telesc.pe/)

edit: see more informative post above :-)

</comment><comment><USER23> Here is one based on django/mezzanine

[https://github.com/stephenmcd/drum](https://github.com/stephenmcd/drum)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the overwhelming reponse guys

</comment><comment><USER24> If you have to ask....

</comment><comment><USER25> no, that's what reddit's for.

</comment><comment><USER26> anything written in python?</comment>