7 ms·

Ask HN: Other communities like HN?

100 points by espitia 10y ago

I am always impressed by the quality and depth of the commentary on HN. After having read the articles posted, I gain a lot of value by having my perspective challenged many times over in the comments. As HN is focused on tech only, do you guys know of similar communities (quality of commentary/discussion) around the web that focuses on other niches?

ctrlrsf 10y ago
Investing advice inspired by Jack Bogle: https://www.bogleheads.org https://www.bogleheads.org
- movedx 10y ago
  Great advice on here. Index ETFs all the way.
zacmps 10y ago
Parts of reddit are good. They're probably the closest thing you'll find to HN though many here would have to admit it.
- sebleon 10y ago
  any subreddits in particular you recommend?
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    It really depends on your interests. Most mainstream programming languages have dedicated subreddits, so that's a good place to start. /r/programming is a great place for general programming news, but it usually overlaps with HN. /r/netsec is another excellent subreddit with general security-related news and content. I think the beauty of Reddit is that it's all up to you to curate the content, which obviously makes it hard to recommend things to read for others :P Here is a list of my favorite subreddits for anyone who wants an idea of what's available on Reddit: Tech-related: - https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/ https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/ (programming jokes) - https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/ https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/ (video game emulation news and discussion) - https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/ Non-tech: - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DepthHub/ (a better version of /r/BestOf) - https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shittyaskscience/ (the opposite of AskScience) - https://www.reddit.com/r/VXJunkies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/VXJunkies/ (try to figure this one out :P) - https://www.reddit.com/r/bertstrips/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bertstrips/ (beware: offensive content) - https://www.reddit.com/r/totallynotrobots/ https://www.reddit.com/r/totallynotrobots/
    - sebleon 10y ago
      Very awesome, thanks for the extensive list!
    - kungtotte 10y ago
      I'd like to point out that the less general the subreddit, and the fewer visitors it has, the better the content (both submissions and comments) is. There are some exceptions, and technical subs are generally better than more mainstream ones.
  - elchief 10y ago
    /r/nfl is the funniest (in a dumb funny kinda way) during the NFL season /r/netsec is nice and serious and nerdy
    - mwill 10y ago
      Most sports have a pretty good, high quality subreddit, /r/mma is hands down my most visited non news/programming subreddit.
  - akkartik 10y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/u/akkartik/m/programming https://www.reddit.com/u/akkartik/m/programming https://www.reddit.com/u/akkartik/m/thehumancondition https://www.reddit.com/u/akkartik/m/thehumancondition (I got the name of the second multireddit from http://hubski.com/tag/thehumancondition http://hubski.com/tag/thehumancondition. Hubski is another interesting community.)
    - noahjk 10y ago
      Neither of these links are working for me.
      - akkartik 10y ago
        Looks like multireddits don't work on the mobile version, so if you're on a phone request the desktop version somehow.
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I gave up on reddit partially after they removed the warrant canary and almost entirely after they were was caught editing comments, and the suit responsible was not asked/forced to resign. I'll occasionally read /r/mechanicalkeyboards and other communities I enjoyed, but as a whole, I find most of the site has turned into an echo chamber. I tried voat for a while, but that pretty much degraded into a cesspool of racism.
frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
metafilter.com is a good general/link-aggregatey site. It's got a strong "SJW" contingent though, so take that into account.
notaplumber 10y ago
There's https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ it's invite-only to comment, but not hard to get.
- vosper 10y ago
  I like the content on lobste.rs, the signal-to-noise ratio is great if you are looking for technical discussion only. It seems to be slowly picking up steam, too. I truly hate to ask, but if anyone would send me an invite to be able to contribute I would appreciate it.
  - jonalmeida 10y ago
    Sent.
    - vosper 10y ago
      Thank you :)
- gsylvie 10y ago
  If you want a lobste.rs invite, email me. sylvie / bit-booster.com
  - gozali 10y ago
    Can you please invite me gozali-at-gmail.com? Thanks
    - stephenr 10y ago
      Done
- deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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lolptdr 10y ago
These Hacker News clones seem like good candidates for decent communities: http://www.datatau.com/news http://www.datatau.com/news https://www.designernews.co/ https://www.designernews.co/
- sillysaurus3 10y ago
  Looks like DataTau has an average of one comment every few days, though.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
slatestarcodex has a great community following it and good moderation.
- thedudemabry 10y ago
  I was introduced to this site by a colleague, and it is indeed a good place to see thoughts explored. While I sometimes disagree with the conclusion reached by the author, the tone puts a great deal of emphasis on humility and empathy. It's a very welcome place to immerse myself in alternate views to my own.
paulshapiro 10y ago
MetaFilter still kicks ass.
- sien 10y ago
  The politics seem to have gotten heavier on MeFi in the past few years. Now if you're not firmly on the Left you're really not welcome there. It's still good for some culture stuff though. HN is probably better on politics because there is real diversity of opinion.
  - thenewwazoo 10y ago
    I'm not sure if I disagree with you, or if the exceptions prove the rule. There are some vocal right-wing commenters, but the community reacts rather badly to dissenting voices that are perceived as "fighty" or grinding an axe. I think also there's a certain attitude of inclusiveness that runs contrary to right-wing culture, and things go badly when such concerns are dismissed (for whatever reason, but anti-"PC"-just-plain-talk springs to mind).
  - digitalzombie 10y ago
    > HN is probably better on politics because there is real diversity of opinion. Uh.. it's a little lean to left and then there are random hard right comments though. To be perfectly honest, I think the hard right see anything that isn't hard right is left tbh, that include moderates. And the demographic for HN especially programmers are liberal iirc. There were articles on how big tech companies employee voted and also the fact that silicon valley is situated in the most liberal of California. The threads that have some sort of discord seems to disappear in an hour. Like the recent basic income one. Politics are kept to a minimum or hardly any at all.
tschellenbach 10y ago
My favorite is Lobsters: lobste.rs
- saiprashanth93 10y ago
  I would like an invite, if you have any. Thank you!
  - swah 10y ago
    Not sure if you already received, sent another one anyway.. cheers
kumarski 10y ago
I've built several fb groups I built from the ground up, but cap membership at 200 members. Still want to build out cronofy.com integration to help members connect/meetup in person.
emmelaich 10y ago
If you're of a rationalist / philosophical bent you might like http://lesswrong.com http://lesswrong.com "Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality."
- elevenfist 10y ago
  ...just be aware there isn't much evidence supporting most of what's on there...
mooneater 10y ago
https://feedit.agfunder.com/ https://feedit.agfunder.com/ for agriculture and food related technology and investment.
- simonrobb 10y ago
  Early days yet for #feedit, but if enough people join the conversation it's going to be a great community.
derrekl 10y ago
For beer: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/ https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/ That links to the forums where you see some good discussion. Also the reviews of beer on the site are quite extensive.
- vinylkey 10y ago
  The founders of beeradvocate are jerks (to put it lightly). I try to stay far away from that site. Small example here: http://beerstreetjournal.com/tweet-from-beer-advocate-founder-gets-bad-feedback/ http://beerstreetjournal.com/tweet-from-beer-advocate-founde...
dotancohen 10y ago
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned /. yet. http://slashdot.org http://slashdot.org Chips&Dips, er Slashdot, was the original high-quality tech forum on the internet. In recent years it has gone to trash, but it is still the model community-driven tech news forum and occasionally has very good commentary.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I left there for SoylentNews a few years ago. Both of them seem to dip deeper into toxicity than I like. HackerNews is refreshing in that respect; things stay very civil here. Slashdot's a classic, but I don't think I can really recommend it as "another community like HN". Maybe I could've, some years ago.
BadassFractal 10y ago
I've had a very conflicted experience with SomethingAwful in the past. Parts of it feel like a quality and tight community, others are just endless shitposts. They might have severely dipped in activity as well over the past few years.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  The problem is that for some forums, shitposting is considered quality ;)
skdotdan 10y ago
Reddit. For instance, the programming subreddit.
sova 10y ago
Full disclosure: this is a project I'm working on, and comment functionality is coming. Nonforum.com is for sustainable / resilient agriculture+composting+earthships, alternative lifestyles, personal experiences, and forward-minded things that would otherwise not really have a home on the 'net. There's a small write-up of things we are trying to foster at https://nonforum.com/about.html https://nonforum.com/about.html (or just click on the (non) logo card on the front page) Still pretty nascent, and I haven't submitted a show HN yet because there's no commenting functionality up yet. On the bright side, nonforum functions as a nice link-sharing platform, and votes and submissions show up in real-time (no page refresh required). Currently in semi-open beta (one needs an account to submit new links/write-ups and to vote on things), you can request an invite code by providing your e-mail, or, at the moment just asking me to send you one. https://nonforum.com/ https://nonforum.com/
mendeza 10y ago
Indie Hackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/ https://www.indiehackers.com/) in my opinion is an up and coming badass community. Not much content on there, but the content thats there is nothing I have seen anywhere else
- yitchelle 10y ago
  Their podcast is pretty good. I like their interviewing style.
kriro 10y ago
For (online)poker there's forumserver.twoplustwo.com
zerr 10y ago
I wonder if there are similar sites but more bootstrappers oriented (rather than investors' pocket burners).
luord 10y ago
One I frequent is https://hashnode.com https://hashnode.com It's still not very big but seems to be growing. And it's completely bereft of political talk, which I find refreshing.
antingate2 10y ago
If you really want to have your perspective challenged many times and want a community that values truth and only raw truth over hurt feelings or political correctness go to https://boards.4chan.org/pol/catalog https://boards.4chan.org/pol/catalog Remember it has absolute free speech (anything legal in US) Just suspend the initial disgust and read the comments, you'll surprisingly find very deep commentary and raw truth morsels of this indifferent universe. Like coffee it's an acquired taste.
Harkins 10y ago
This site isn't only focused on tech, there's also a lot of tech entrepreneurship - particularly the VC-funded Bay Area variety, and also a bit of gossip about that community. For tech, https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs is decent. There's more interest in papers and proofs-of-concept than here. (Give a link to your profile on Twitter/GitHub/here in #lobsters on Freenode and someone will give an invite pretty quickly.) For bootstrapped entrepreneurship, https://barnacl.es https://barnacl.es (my site) is small but welcoming and growing. (No invite needed.)
evolve2k 10y ago
http://designernews.co http://designernews.co for well, Designer News.