Hacker News but for Independent Blogs
181 points by headalgorithm 5 hours ago | 61 comments

janaagaard 4 hours ago
I think the links should open in the same window (like they do here on HN) instead of in a new tab/window. If I want a separate tab, I can Cmd+click and Browsers don't have the reverse option for opening in the same window.
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OGWhales 12 minutes ago
Another way is to use middle click on a mouse, and you can use the same to close the tab when you are done as well.
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AbuAssar 4 hours ago
nope, I prefer open in new tab by default
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kpopendurer 3 hours ago
In general, it's better not to force an action onto users. You might prefer things opening in a new tab, but you always have that option. If it's forced on users, it is frustrating for those who would prefer that not to happen.
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ffsm8 2 hours ago
And yet we're here, discussing how a developer should change their own application because their preference is wrong

If you don't like it, adjust it for yourself with an extension or script.

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adrithmetiqa 2 hours ago
Exactly. This is a design choice and there’s no right or wrong here.
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hk__2 60 minutes ago
Yes there is a right and wrong. The default browser behavior is the design that every user expects, so unless there is a very strong argument for a different way, this is the _right_ design.
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jaapz 2 hours ago
the difference is that with tab-open default, there is no way for me to open the link in this window

with this-window default (or actually, the browser-default-default), I can middle click and it'll open in a new tab regardless

pretty funny to have this discussion though, takes me back to the HTML4 and XHTML days

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cstever 41 minutes ago
XHTML ftw :)
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chrysoprace 3 hours ago
That's a good user setting, but as opening in the same tab is the default browser behaviour then it should really stay that way. Opening in a new tab takes control away from the user.
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RossBencina 2 hours ago
This. Principle of least surprise.
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el_io 2 hours ago
Exactly. I prefer to open in the same page. If I want to open in new tab then I can always Ctrl + Click. I don't think I can do the reverse though.
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reactordev 3 hours ago
Next they’ll be defending full screen div paywalls.
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akoboldfrying 56 minutes ago
And people who prefer the other way can just hold down _____ while clicking to open it in the current tab instead.

Good ol' _____-clicking saves the day again!

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em-bee 35 seconds ago
only on a mac, and probably only on safari which leaves the majority of people in the lurch.
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AbuAssar 2 hours ago
why the downvotes, I meant to demonstrate that I prefer the current behaviour so the site developer knows.
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markdown 2 hours ago
The downvoters meant to demonstrate that they prefer the standard/expected behavior and would like OP to ignore your opinion on the matter.
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nathell 3 hours ago
I’ve been perusing Bubbles increasingly often since discovering that my blog is syndicated there, a few weeks ago.

It feels really refreshing compared to doomscrolling of social media, or indeed even to HN. It’s so diverse and humane. The indie blogosphere is coming to life.

Kudos to the author. A great idea, splendidly executed. I hope it grows and doesn’t change much.

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flir 2 hours ago
Just glanced at the front page - it seems to be very "blog posts about blogging" (4 out of the top 5 posts right now). Is it always like that?

The "My" tab looks like it covers the same ground as a feed reader would. I wonder who the audience is for that feature.

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jl6 42 minutes ago
Is blogging always like that? Always has been.
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bovermyer 45 minutes ago
The Briefings have been most useful for me. It feels more curated and less firehose-y.

https://bubbles.town/briefing

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frereubu 14 minutes ago
Would love a version of this on HN.
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zingar 9 minutes ago
Is this “hacker news”-esque in terms of being a social bookmarking site? I don’t see much by way of the same topics, and don’t think the difference is only whether it’s Indy or not.
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exitnode 4 hours ago
Very cool but I would like to be able to create an account with my mail address instead of using a Mastodon account because I am trying to avoid social media.
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solid_fuel 4 hours ago
It looks like there's an RSS feed at the bottom. If you don't want to use the social aspects of the site, maybe just use that in an RSS reader?

*Link: https://bubbles.town/rss

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holtwick 4 hours ago
The briefing pages also have RSS, this way you see the most relevant stuff https://bubbles.town/editions
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brulx126 2 hours ago
I haven't tried but in principle you only need a Mastodon compatible authentication, there are other services that are not twitter clones. See for example https://fedi.tips/what-other-kinds-of-servers-are-on-the-fed... or more complete https://fediverse.observer/allsoftwares
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rsolva 2 hours ago
I do NOT consider the Fediverse and the myriads of implementations of it to be social media, but rather a social web. More like websites with the abilities to communicate and interact in different and interesting ways.

Social media is dead, and has been for a while. Many use it still, but it is not primarily social. The social part was mainly a ploy to get peoples attention and then badly abusing it in ever more creative and sinister ways.

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Schiendelman 3 hours ago
+1 to this. Apple sign-in would be ideal, since it maps to single-identity more cleanly than a social media system.
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AbuAssar 4 hours ago
I'm curios why you are avoiding social media?
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exitnode 3 hours ago
Mostly because the "damn this is interesting" to "i don't care what you ate yesterday" ratio is not good enough to spend my time on it. These days I am much more enjoying exploring gopher holes, reading and writing blog posts. For realtime communications, I prefer IRC. For me, social media sits in between chatting and publishing content and is therefore neither fish nor fowl.
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rsolva 2 hours ago
I do NOT consider the Fediverse and the myriads of implementations of it to be social media, but rather a social web. More like websites with the abilities to communicate and interact in different and interesting ways.

Social media is dead, and has been for a while. Many use it still, but it is not primarily social. The social part was mainly a ploy to get peoples attention and then badly abusing it in ever more creative and sinister ways.

EDIT: This comment was meant to be posted to the parent comment!

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sdevonoes 2 hours ago
Because there’s little good about it
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globalnode 3 hours ago
Its a scam
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atulvi 12 minutes ago
> "5011 independent, personal blogs. One front page. Ranked by votes and freshness, shaped by you."

That line is so claude.

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whereistejas 58 minutes ago
This reminds me of Kagi's Small Web: https://kagi.com/smallweb/ or https://kagi.com/smallweb/river
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pchm 2 hours ago
I submitted a somewhat similar project yesterday to Show HN (didn’t resonate), although mine is purely based on AI scoring, with zero community features.

I call it bubblewire. Funny. I had no prior knowledge of bubbles.town until seeing it here now.

bubbles.town looks nice! Hope to see more projects that aim to bring back the good old web.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48552985

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latexr 2 hours ago
> (didn’t resonate), although mine is purely based on AI scoring

One reason for it not resonating might be that it’s yet another opaque algorithmic feed in a moment in time where people are getting sick and tired of them and wary of their manipulative features. And HN is so inundated with AI submissions that having yet another Show HN about it is uninteresting to many.

Would you visit HN if were just a link aggregator whose ranking was decided by hidden logic of a machine? A lot of people wouldn’t. We’re a social species, there is value in human curation—especially when driven by the community—that’s inherently lacking from algorithmic curation (AI or otherwise).

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pchm 60 minutes ago
That's true, provided that all activity (comments, voting) here is still coming from actual humans. That's no longer the case for community websites, I'm afraid.

It's an experiment made for the web of 2026, where you can no longer tell if the users are humans or bots.

If nobody's interested in that idea, I accept that.

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akoboldfrying 51 minutes ago
> Would you visit HN if were just a link aggregator whose ranking was decided by hidden logic of a machine?

I assumed it was...?

If not, who or what decides the ranking moment-by-moment? dang?

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viermalbe 5 hours ago
Bubbles dev here, thanks for the mention
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stakhanov 4 hours ago
I'm curious: What software is driving this? Is it a re-skin of the lobste.rs or HN open source software, or is it its own thing?

EDIT: ...just realized that's in the FAQ.

> Is it open source?

> Not yet. Maybe someday.

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viermalbe 4 hours ago
It runs on Go + sqlite on a Hetzner machine, built from scratch, not a re-skin.
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Semaphor 3 hours ago
Clearly inspired by HN, there are few sites where I have to zoom in to get any kind of readability ;)
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TopHatHipster 2 hours ago
What type of Hetzner box are you running this on?
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embedding-shape 3 hours ago
> not a re-skin

Is that something you're frequently accused of, or why the "disclaimer"?

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drcongo 3 hours ago
They were directly answering the post above which asked if it's a re-skin.
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BrenBarn 3 hours ago
The comment they were replying to specifically asked if it was a re-skin.
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embedding-shape 3 hours ago
Ah yes of course, finally paid the price of reading comments in isolation. Thanks and sorry :)
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viermalbe 3 hours ago
Not really, I just picked it up from the initial question from stakhanov.
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AbuAssar 4 hours ago
how do you decide which blog is included in the aggregation?
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viermalbe 3 hours ago
You can find the criteria in the FAQ: https://bubbles.town/faq#sources
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ShinyLeftPad 3 hours ago
try about page, it explains
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HardwareLust 18 minutes ago
Please make AI a category.
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RobotToaster 54 minutes ago
It would be great if this supported federation as a Lemmy community, given that Lemmy already has votes.
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ozgrakkurt 2 hours ago
This is it!! I can finally leave reading comments on hn or get bamboozeled by ai posts masquerading as something technical
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rsolva 2 hours ago
Oh, great, I can log in with my GoToSocial instance to comment and vote! I will definitely add this site alongside my HN addiction :)
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holtwick 5 hours ago
I love it!
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ochronus 3 hours ago
This is lovely
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socalgal2 3 hours ago
Just curious but isn't this just digg, metafilter?
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vee-kay 3 hours ago
Ah, this reminds me of StumbleUpon.
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