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I've been through a lot of web communities. HN is easily the most intellectual, respectful, and diverse. The simple reason is that we like to be here! In the s

I've been through a lot of web communities. HN is easily the most intellectual, respectful, and diverse. The simple reason is that we like to be here! In the same way that it takes a village to raise a child, your understanding of the world around you is drastically deepened by various points of view. I don't expect to find a better village anytime soon.

opportune 9y ago
I'm very curious as to whether there are any other communities on the web that are as generally "high quality" as HN (bonus points if those communities are tech-focused or tech-adjacent). Anybody got any links? To date HN has the highest (consistent) quality of any online community I've encountered
- chrisper 9y ago
  I'd say Quora is rather good as well.
  - sleavey 9y ago
    Nowhere near as high quality as it used to be though. I stopped my email digest there a year ago.
    - opportune 9y ago
      Yeah I agree with this. I've tried to use Quora before (about 2 years ago) but couldn't get my signal/noise ratio nearly as good as I wanted it to be
      - hutzlibu 9y ago
        It was very good in the beginning. Now it is mostly people trying to show off any way they can. And it attracted too many ... well, let's call them ordinary mainstream people.
- hobofan 9y ago
  lobster.rs[0] is pretty good for tech (specifially software development) topics. [0]: https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/
  - corobo 9y ago
    My first impression: "Deldo is a sex toy control and teledildonics mode for Emacs"
  - abhishekjha 9y ago
    It is pretty good though. Never got an invite and din’t know how to. :( Seems like a very closed group.
- petercooper 9y ago
  https://www.metafilter.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/ - it's been going for almost 20 years. Not really tech per se, but is tech/liberal/academic leaning.
  - verylittlemeat 9y ago
    Just a note, you have to pay a one time fee of $5 to comment on metafilter. Also I say the following as a long time member of metafilter: it's really gone downhill. If you're the type of person who thinks dissenting opinion on hacker news is restricted you will probably be shocked by what goes on at metafilter. They have a serious problem with passive aggressive bullying and groupthink on political and social justice issues.I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the conversation there has been hijacked by a handful of aggressive users who shameless brigade threads to their narrative. Metafilter is a shadow of what it was even 5 years ago. That said, ask.metafilter.com is the best part of metafilter and is worth the $5 price of admission alone.
chris_st 9y ago
This says it quite well. I'd just add that frequently someone will mention something, anywhere from some open-source project to some deep area of science, and the author mentioned, (who is already a member!) chimes in with clarifications and further explanation. Wow.
mdnormy 9y ago
Completely agree. To add to that, HN also makes me feel inadequate, but in a good way. That in return "forces" me to always improve and strive for the better especially in my career.
_jcwu 9y ago
I remember when I first joined that I really liked how people who disagree here do not downvote but rather challenge you through a comment. It was a nice change from reddit... But times have changed and people love to downvote here these days.
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  I think hacker news does an ok job at mitigating this by not allowing you to downvote until you reach a certain amount of karma. Obviously that creates its own problems but at least you have to have a little bit invested in the community before you can start trying to dictate the conversation.
- sanderjd 9y ago
  Honest question: how do you know? There doesn't seem to be any public voting data available. Is this just an impression you have?
meesterdude 9y ago
> HN is easily the most intellectual, respectful, and diverse. I might agree with the first point, but the latter two have a checkered past, and would indeed be two points of improvement I think we as a community would do well to focus more on.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  Well I agree fully with his point, when it's weighted against the rest of the internet, it's spot on. :)
hycaria 9y ago
I would not say diverse though. This community is hugely biased towards an american, transhumanist point of view. There's an "european" minority who does not seems as egocentric (and libertarian maybe ?) as the majority, which is a bit reassuring. Anyways as much as I like HN and its often insightful comments, this has proven me that I would have a hard time living/working in the US as we don't share the same values at all it seems. I kinda understand the valley's spirit better though, which is nice considering its huge impact on everyone's tech life.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  > This community is hugely biased towards an american, transhumanist point of view. I used to think this too, but after thinking about it a little more, I've come to the conclusion that the perception of bias towards a certain viewpoint in any thread is colored by the day of week (some old-timers frequent on weekends), the time of day (US lunch breaks and close of business), and the members who are drawn to the topics that you are interested in. In other words, my perception of the "prevailing" bias tends to fluctuate with the time of day (I don't have a fixed schedule for visiting HN) or topics I currently have open. Sometimes, out of curiosity, I click on a random thread (typically high comments/upvotes) with a title that I would ordinarily have not clicked on, just to get a sense of what the community is yapping about :).
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  What do you understand by "american, transhumanist" point of view? And I am a european, though I don't see libertarian views beeing the majority at all ... rather the contrary ..
  - hycaria 9y ago
    American as in use your car because public transportation is for poor people anyways (and who cares about ecology nowadays when everything will be resolved with technology ? -at least according to some people here, see second point-), be fat and sick. I really have the impression that people are not so healthy overall, I mean of course there's a bias as you don't speak to talk about your fine shape, but still. Transhumanist as in there will always be some guy in every biology/medicine thread to talk about how we will evolve as a species, or claim that immortality is achievable or the likes. This is especially prominent here (and was shocking to me at first), because these opinions are not so common otherwise (in society or online communities). I guess it's just the demographics and personal interests of people here that explain this phenomenon, but I was very surprised.

opportune 9y ago

I'm very curious as to whether there are any other communities on the web that are as generally "high quality" as HN (bonus points if those communities are tech-focused or tech-adjacent). Anybody got any links? To date HN has the highest (consistent) quality of any online community I've encountered

chrisper 9y ago
I'd say Quora is rather good as well.
- sleavey 9y ago
  Nowhere near as high quality as it used to be though. I stopped my email digest there a year ago.
  - opportune 9y ago
    Yeah I agree with this. I've tried to use Quora before (about 2 years ago) but couldn't get my signal/noise ratio nearly as good as I wanted it to be
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      It was very good in the beginning. Now it is mostly people trying to show off any way they can. And it attracted too many ... well, let's call them ordinary mainstream people.
hobofan 9y ago
lobster.rs[0] is pretty good for tech (specifially software development) topics. [0]: https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/
- corobo 9y ago
  My first impression: "Deldo is a sex toy control and teledildonics mode for Emacs"
- abhishekjha 9y ago
  It is pretty good though. Never got an invite and din’t know how to. :( Seems like a very closed group.
petercooper 9y ago
https://www.metafilter.com/ https://www.metafilter.com/ - it's been going for almost 20 years. Not really tech per se, but is tech/liberal/academic leaning.
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  Just a note, you have to pay a one time fee of $5 to comment on metafilter. Also I say the following as a long time member of metafilter: it's really gone downhill. If you're the type of person who thinks dissenting opinion on hacker news is restricted you will probably be shocked by what goes on at metafilter. They have a serious problem with passive aggressive bullying and groupthink on political and social justice issues.I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the conversation there has been hijacked by a handful of aggressive users who shameless brigade threads to their narrative. Metafilter is a shadow of what it was even 5 years ago. That said, ask.metafilter.com is the best part of metafilter and is worth the $5 price of admission alone.

chris_st 9y ago

This says it quite well. I'd just add that frequently someone will mention something, anywhere from some open-source project to some deep area of science, and the author mentioned, (who is already a member!) chimes in with clarifications and further explanation. Wow.

mdnormy 9y ago

Completely agree. To add to that, HN also makes me feel inadequate, but in a good way. That in return "forces" me to always improve and strive for the better especially in my career.

_jcwu 9y ago

I remember when I first joined that I really liked how people who disagree here do not downvote but rather challenge you through a comment. It was a nice change from reddit... But times have changed and people love to downvote here these days.

verylittlemeat 9y ago
I think hacker news does an ok job at mitigating this by not allowing you to downvote until you reach a certain amount of karma. Obviously that creates its own problems but at least you have to have a little bit invested in the community before you can start trying to dictate the conversation.
sanderjd 9y ago
Honest question: how do you know? There doesn't seem to be any public voting data available. Is this just an impression you have?

meesterdude 9y ago

> HN is easily the most intellectual, respectful, and diverse. I might agree with the first point, but the latter two have a checkered past, and would indeed be two points of improvement I think we as a community would do well to focus more on.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
Well I agree fully with his point, when it's weighted against the rest of the internet, it's spot on. :)

hycaria 9y ago

I would not say diverse though. This community is hugely biased towards an american, transhumanist point of view. There's an "european" minority who does not seems as egocentric (and libertarian maybe ?) as the majority, which is a bit reassuring. Anyways as much as I like HN and its often insightful comments, this has proven me that I would have a hard time living/working in the US as we don't share the same values at all it seems. I kinda understand the valley's spirit better though, which is nice considering its huge impact on everyone's tech life.

sah2ed 9y ago
> This community is hugely biased towards an american, transhumanist point of view. I used to think this too, but after thinking about it a little more, I've come to the conclusion that the perception of bias towards a certain viewpoint in any thread is colored by the day of week (some old-timers frequent on weekends), the time of day (US lunch breaks and close of business), and the members who are drawn to the topics that you are interested in. In other words, my perception of the "prevailing" bias tends to fluctuate with the time of day (I don't have a fixed schedule for visiting HN) or topics I currently have open. Sometimes, out of curiosity, I click on a random thread (typically high comments/upvotes) with a title that I would ordinarily have not clicked on, just to get a sense of what the community is yapping about :).
hutzlibu 9y ago
What do you understand by "american, transhumanist" point of view? And I am a european, though I don't see libertarian views beeing the majority at all ... rather the contrary ..
- hycaria 9y ago
  American as in use your car because public transportation is for poor people anyways (and who cares about ecology nowadays when everything will be resolved with technology ? -at least according to some people here, see second point-), be fat and sick. I really have the impression that people are not so healthy overall, I mean of course there's a bias as you don't speak to talk about your fine shape, but still. Transhumanist as in there will always be some guy in every biology/medicine thread to talk about how we will evolve as a species, or claim that immortality is achievable or the likes. This is especially prominent here (and was shocking to me at first), because these opinions are not so common otherwise (in society or online communities). I guess it's just the demographics and personal interests of people here that explain this phenomenon, but I was very surprised.