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102 points by kmstout 7 days ago

16 comments

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If you have fond memories of misspending entirely too much of your youth on web-based message boards, or you would like to misspend more of your nights and weekends on them now, Google has you covered. Simply add

  inurl:viewtopic.php
to any query, and most, if not all, of your results will be discussion threads on boards running atop phpBB. Similarly, using

  inurl:"index.php?topic="
seems to get Simple Machines fora, and

  inurl:showthread.php
will unearth vBulletin fora. You can also combine them, like so:

  croissant AND (inurl:viewtopic.php OR inurl:showthread.php OR inurl:"index.php?topic=")
Happy holidays, and good hunting.
chistev 7 days ago

I posted this 23 days ago -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100511

I've been enjoying past discussion threads on HN, currently in 2012.

Interesting conversations about how Facebook would fail back then, lol, and about how Bitcoin would not be as valuable as it is today. Who would have known?

Great site, this.

Reply View 9 replies
  • stackghost 7 days ago

    HN is (in)famous for being bad at predicting success or failure, cf. Dropbox.

    Lots of very intelligent people here but, no offense to anyone, this is the last place I'd come to get product advice.

    Reply View 8 replies
    • samyar 7 days ago

      Hn is the place where smart ppl give you feedback. I have benefited in many ways from hn.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • lisbbb 6 days ago

        Except most of them are just book smart (if that) and have little real-world experience.

        Reply View 0 replies
    • wojciii 4 days ago

      Funny you say this.

      I noticed that product that succeeded are almost always products that I wouldn't buy.

      So I could be used to determine the success of products. If I like it ..forget it. If i wount buy it, the the uneashed masses will and it will be a commercial succes.

      I should sell this as a service ..

      Reply View 2 replies
    • thekevan 7 days ago

      That's selection bias. Most replies in the post were positive.

      BrandonM's comment also wasn't that unreasonable in my opinion. Imagine telling someone many years ago that we'd use an app on our phones to get in stranger's car and pay a lot for the privilege as well. His reaction to Dropbox wasn't on point but wasn't tone deaf.

      Drew from Dropbox responded to the post at the time and BrandonM responded positively, praising the product.

      It was overall a mature and very fair way of saying it wasn't for him.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • lisbbb 6 days ago

      It's because this site is inhabited by redditors who downvote comments such as yours for no other reason except to preserve the paper thin veneer of their superiority.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • chistev 7 days ago

      Lol. It's not just a HN thing. Humans just suck at predicting the future when that future involves the actions of other humans. Too many variables.

      If you had read old discussion threads you'd never know Facebook would be the behemoth it is today.

      Reply View 0 replies
davedx 7 days ago

There must be a vbulletin version too!

Reply View 0 replies
FergusArgyll 7 days ago

And if you do find an old php message board, absolutely do not add

  ?topic=../../../../etc/passwd
Reply View 3 replies
  • wheybags 7 days ago

    My first php script was a file upload server for a lan party. Luckily nobody tried to upload a file named ../index.php, because I realized afterwards that it would have worked :p

    Reply View 0 replies
  • 6510 7 days ago

    I've just tried it on mine but nothing fun happened. What is suppose to?

    Reply View 1 reply