It’s sort of a different concept. Posts and users also have position in addition to age and score. The sorting algorithm gives you complete control over how much to weight each one. It’s like if new and hot existed on a continuous spectrum. It’s sort of like what Aaron Swartz initially wanted to do with Reddit where what you like would be able to inform what you might like in the future. But in this case you get complete control over how much that matters.
I’m adding bits and knobs here and there every day. Yesterday I added the ability to have posts that are hidden from the front page. It’s probably not a feature people will use every day but it’s there if someone wants it and it’s things like that I’m working on every day. In a little bit I’m going to add a “post whenever” feature in case someone wants to post a ton of content and have it actually post over time.
I’d say all and all the project has been a success for what I wanted to do with it and I’m happy with what I’ve built. The other side of it is trying to build community on the site. For example we do a movie night once a week on Saturdays.
Oh. Another thing that is different to most reddit clones is that every community exists. Like you don’t have to create a community to post to it. Just post to it. Different capitalization maps to the same community.
You guys should check it out. It would be super awesome if anynone wants to help fill in the more obscure topics.
Is it okay to openly say that you’ve cloned another product, or promote a product as a clone of another? I honestly don’t know the legal precedents, and know that there are many sites that have copied elements of other products that they intend to compete with, but reading the post title gave me a sinking feeling of Reddit lawyers perking up.
The site looks nice, and I really hope that I’m just being paranoid about possible legal exposure.
There are three issues:
For copyright, you have to make an exact copy - which OP didn’t do. Even then it’s not perfect protection, sometimes you’re still allowed to make copies (e.g. Google copied Java several years ago, and the court said that was OK).
For trademarks, there has to be confusion over who sells the product. OP isn’t trying to impersonate Reddit so they’re fine there as well.
With patents… yes, if Reddit owns any patents on their service, then OP has a problem. But I don’t think they do. Also patents are relatively short lived. You only get exclusive rights over your invention for a short period of time then everyone else is allowed (indeed encouraged) to copy it.