Roadmap
107 active ideas across 11 priority tiers. Top of list = highest impact-to-effort. Sortable interactive version at austinspring.com/bbs/todo/.
Tier 1 — ship next (best impact-to-effort)
- ✅ Topic series auto-linking — queued
- ✅ "The Classics" curated index — shipped 2026-04-19
- ✅ Pin Porch #1 — shipped 2026-04-19
- Mobile responsive polish (~4h)
- ✅ Yapp epigrams in welcome/about/signup — shipped 2026-04-19
- ✅ OG / Twitter cards on every thread — shipped on 3,110 pages
- ✅ sitemap.xml per conference — 3,180+ URLs live
- ✅ Schema.org DiscussionForumPosting markup — shipped on 3,110 pages
- Welcome message per conference (~3h, schema ready)
- Markdown in posts (~3h, lib installed)
- ✅ Rate limiting (per-IP sliding window) — shipped 2026-04-19
- ✅ CSRF tokens (hand-rolled HMAC) — shipped 2026-04-19
- ✅ Admin queue UI — shipped, soft-delete with reasons
- ✅ Pin topic (DB col + sort) — shipped, UI to flip is TODO
- ✅ "Last 333" pulse view — shipped at /recent?n=333
Tier 2 — killer features (1-2 days each)
- Unread since last visit (yapp's killer feature) — schema:
read_log(user_id, conf, thread_num, last_read_at)
- Full-text search across archive + comments + live (SQLite FTS5)
- Per-conference hosts (delegated moderation) — yapp tier 3-of-4 model
- Topic subscriptions / watchlist — ⭐ button + email when reply lands
- @mentions — @handle pings their profile + email
- "Suggest new topic" flow — only hosts create; users suggest
- Permalink + preview card for individual posts
- Reply-to-response (Re: #234) with quote of preceding response
- Edit window (15 min after post)
- "Forget this topic" per-user hide
Tier 3 — strong additions (1-4 hours each)
- Per-conference participant list
- Per-thread RSS
- "Anniversary" content cadence ("Today in 2001…")
- Per-conference accent color / theme
- Anchor links + "copy link to this response"
- Self-delete within 15 min
- Block list (ignore a handle)
- "Report this comment" flow
- Censor / soft-redact a response (host)
- Member onboarding: post-signup land at "introduce yourself"
- Hand-written welcome on signup (from Paul)
- Bulletin (one-time notice per conf)
- Filter buttons on conference index (all / unread / 7d / hidden)
- Sticky mini-nav on scroll
- Keyboard shortcuts (j/k/n/p//)
- Image embedding (host-approved domains)
- Edit history (audit trail)
- "This thread turned N years old today"
Tier 4 — cross-network plays
austinspring.com lives in a network of ~100 sites. Thematic conferences cross-link to topical reference sites.
- ✅ /bbs/drool/ ↔ firth.com network (5 sites bidirectional)
- ✅ /bbs/austen/ ↔ austen.com
- tvreviewer.com → /bbs/tv/ — embed top viewer reactions
- atxtechnewsnow.com → /bbs/austin/, /bbs/web/
- bnbhot.com → /bbs/hotsprings/
- Inline "1996 reactions to this film" on firth.com film pages
- Cross-conference tagging (#colin-firth spans drool + tv + movies)
Tier 5 — discovery & SEO
- ✅ robots.txt with explicit allows
- ✅ sitemap.xml + bbs-sitemap.xml + 71 per-conference sitemaps
- Canonical tags on archive pages
- Internet Archive cross-listing (Dublin Core record)
- Wikipedia stub for "The Spring (BBS)"
- Mastodon/Bluesky presence for @springnet
- CDN in front of static (Cloudflare free)
Tier 6 — community growth (one-shot moves)
Need sysop's call before pulling triggers. Each is a single launch event.
- HN launch post on May 1 — "I recovered my 1996 BBS — you can post on it again"
- Twitter/X thread from @springnet
- r/Austin post
- Slate / Verge / Wired pitch
- "Lost members" wall on /about/ (crowdsource the diaspora)
- Periodic seed topics from sysop (weekly)
- Spring podcast (interviews with former members)
- Annual virtual reunion
Tier 7 — governance & safety
- Sysop tier above hosts (yapp's tier 4)
- Auto-ban on N reports in M days
- Honeypot field on signup
- Account dormancy flag (2yr inactive)
- Public moderation log (transparency)
- Lazy email verification (after first post)
Tier 8 — ops / archival integrity
- JSON export of entire archive (preservation)
- Public JSON API (/bbs/live/api/)
- Checksum verification of cached threads (SHA256)
- Weekly B2 restore drill (verify backups actually work)
- Auto-retry missing-thread fetches weekly
- ✅ Healthz endpoint (/bbs/live/stats.json — partial)
- Structured JSON access logs
- Nightly git commit + push of changes
Tier 9 — voice & polish
- "1996 mode" CSS toggle
- Member signature lines (yapp-era)
- Better seed/response visual differentiation
- Line-break cleanup in parsed yapp responses
- 404 page in BBS style
- Help page with screenshots
- Hover preview on conference index
Tier 10 — accessibility
- ARIA labels on interactive elements
- Keyboard focus styles
- prefers-reduced-motion respect
- Font-size preference toggle
- High-contrast theme variant
Tier 11 — speculative / fun
- Random topic shuffler /bbs/surprise/
- Time capsule posts (visible only after a date)
- Thread timeline sparkline (post-volume-over-time)
- "Whatever happened to..." letter-writing campaign
- Spring Zeitgeist visualization (word cloud per conf per year)
- Threaded family tree (who-replies-to-whom network graph)
- Print-to-zine annual best-of
- Spring radio playlist
- Typewriter sound on keystrokes (opt-in)
- CRT phosphor flicker toggle
- Konami code easter egg
- "Translate to 1996" browser extension
- Daily digest email (opt-in)
- Handle-aging badge ("1996 original member")
Quick-pick cheat sheet
| Have | Do |
|---|
| 30 min | Pin Porch #1 (done) · yapp epigrams (done) · hand-written welcome · robots.txt (done) · r/Austin post |
| 2 hours | Classics index (done) · OG cards (done) · sitemap (done) · pin topic UI · last-333 (done) · CDN front |
| A day | Unread-since-last-visit · search · watchlist · @mentions · HN launch post + monitoring |
| A weekend | Per-conference hosts (single biggest scale unlock — 2 days well spent) |