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I have mixed feelings about this secession from HN. It's great that there's a separate place for Indians to meet and talk, but I fear it may leach from the dive

I have mixed feelings about this secession from HN. It's great that there's a separate place for Indians to meet and talk, but I fear it may leach from the diverse culture here.

plinkplonk 16y ago
I don't think you need to worry. Many Indian HN folks have no plan to join "HN India" (note the quotes). I personally think this is a distasteful effort (specifically the use of the HN name for an independent site without permission vs just using the open source code), or at best a naive one, which will sputter along for a while and then die.The discussion so far on "HN India" is extremely sub par as compared to HN, and certainly not worth switching or even joining. Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community. Sure there are a few India specific issues but they'll be discussed to death in a few weeks and then the forum will stagnate. Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context. This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-)), but if they pull it off and create an ultra vibrant community, more power to them. I just don't see it happening. And as long as they are ripping off the HN Name (and brand) I won't even think of joining.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- paraschopra 16y ago
  I think it is a good effort. There are many India-specific issues that are not relevant to the whole of HN, even though many Indians may find it interesting.
- yarapavan 16y ago
  Yes, it would've been better if they haven't copied/modeled after HN. And am still not convinced of the idea that only India specific content should be posted/allowed in "HN India". Do something original. HNI folks, may be you are tying to do a TEDx copy?
- thevivekpandey 16y ago
  Hey, you keep editing your post repeatedly. I posted a reply to your comment, and after a few minutes I saw that your post has been edited in a way that my reply to it was irrelevant. And then, it happened again. Kindly try to avoid this.
  - kranner 16y ago
    You can quote the parent post's context in your reply to keep a safe copy.
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "Hey, you keep editing your post repeatedly." Yeah that's how I write these things. I refine my writing a few times before I am satisfied. Editing already posted content is what the edit button is for. I write, post, read it over, see that something didn't come out exactly as I wanted, rewrite that and so on. This is a forum post, not a formal essay that I should get exactly right before I post, then to remain untouched forever. The edit facility is provided so people can edit their posted content and that is exactly how I use it. As to your replies becoming irrelevant I have no hand in that. I don't read replies and then re-edit (though I can see how it may feel that way to you,especially if you dashed off a reply before I finish rewriting some sentence or the other). Frankly when I (re)write something the (ir)relevance of any unseen replies posted is the least of my concerns. "Kindly try to avoid this." Change the way I write to accommodate your preferences? Thank You for the suggestion but I decline ;-) If it bothers you that much wait a quarter hour or so before you pen your reply. Or save the first version you see and quote it. If you can wait an hour, the post becomes locked and uneditable. Don't be so quick to reply if you want a guarantee of immutability and "relevance". Or just learn to live with the ephemerality of your replies. Or just don't reply to me. Whatever. (Feel free to downvote this if it wasn't the answer you were looking for ;-)) (fwiw I rewrote bits and pieces of this reply eight times in about four minutes,without ever checking for any replies)
- rams 16y ago
  "Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community." - So true !!! I have been thinking about this very topic for the last month or so.
- thebootstrapper 16y ago
  "Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context." 100% agree. "This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-))" Exactly I got down voted when i said "Its unnecessary"
- sandGorgon 16y ago
  I concur with your distaste for the domain name (@prateek - no use garnering such animosity. Just drop the name and pick something else - desihacker.in is available. you might even get some good press.) But having a local technology discussion group might not be all that useless - let me explain. There are other hi-tech communities in India, similar to HotHardware or Extremetech which are hugely popular in the community (e.g. http://www.erodov.com/forums/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud9-review-ln2-overclocking-results/33458-page5.html http://www.erodov.com/forums/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud9-review-ln2...). So this is not something that is of unproven relevance. India has a chicken and egg problem in terms of programming intellectual prowess. The community is driven primarily by that which can lay down your daily supper - Java/JSP/VB/ASP . By virtue of the existing tech leadership pool, most innovation is driven from the west. And it takes a long time before the community takes root in India. <begin rant> I blame the community for it. For instance, it would make far greater sense for the Linux community to try and hold their top level conferences in India - which could very well be their biggest customer base (the west is lost to the fruit seller already). Did you know Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. sell laptops with Ubuntu/Freedos preinstalled in India (off the shelf) ? </end rant> Point being, I think India does need a sunrise period for its technology community to be shepherded in. Hacker News is definitely too advanced in its expectation of the community for... say a fresh-behind-the-ears college student in India. This community might also be too Yank in its vernacular. Yes, there are a lot of Indians around, but we are all comfortable with the vernacular, prefer it even. That is definitely, definitely not true for most Indians who might feel completely alienated (especially the younger ones) For all the other Indians, torn between feelings of loyalty and betrayal, I encourage to search out and mentor the fledgling community back home - they need your help so that eventually they can come here and start flaming!
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    @sandgorgon. Good Points all. A couple of minor points. My distaste is not so much about the name per se as the casualness of the ripoff. One email to the original site's owner (in this case PG) would have set things right one way or another before launching. Apparently this is being done now. Better late than never. pg will probably wave this through (or not) and that will be that. Then the "HNI" folks can focus on quality ;-) As to the need for a community to "shepherd in" bright kids, it is an interesting idea but I am not so sure this is an answer to that need or even whether that need even exists in any deep fashion. (I speak as someone mentoring some ultra bright students working in Machine Learning). Something like Google Summer of Code might work much better. But, you maybe right. Maybe "shepherding" is what people need and perhaps a localized HN-lite site is what is needed. For some reason I am not too comfortable with the idea. I need to think about this. Thank you for your thoughts. They made me (re)think.
kingsidharth 16y ago
No one is leaving HN, Just taking some India specific discussions there.
pocha 16y ago
Small disagreement. I am working on an initiative to create a platform to connect co-Founders. We floated the issue on various places in LinkedIn (the places are frequented globally). We got a good response, but I wanted to start with a local effort first. There was no India specific place where I could have floated the idea to get the feedback. Did that at Hacker News India & got the validation results. I think its a great place for people, not only to validate their idea inside India, but also to show-case their India-specific effort to Indian audience. There are numerous google-groups inside India that can help you, but the whole concept of karma, up-vote, down-vote is missing; for which I think I should thank Prateek whole-heartedly for the much needed initiative.
captain_mars 16y ago
As some others have said, I feel there is a need for a place to discuss India-specific issues. However, those issues will be irrelevant to most members of HN, so out of respect for the Signal-to-Noise ratio here, I don't post such threads. In the past I've actually toyed with the idea of creating a website for Indian coders, but other projects got in the way. However, I'm uncomfortable with the name chosen for this website (HNI), and won't be joining it unless it gets a new name.

I have mixed feelings about this secession from HN. It's great that there's a separate place for Indians to meet and talk, but I fear it may leach from the diverse culture here.

plinkplonk 16y ago

I don't think you need to worry. Many Indian HN folks have no plan to join "HN India" (note the quotes). I personally think this is a distasteful effort (specifically the use of the HN name for an independent site without permission vs just using the open source code), or at best a naive one, which will sputter along for a while and then die.The discussion so far on "HN India" is extremely sub par as compared to HN, and certainly not worth switching or even joining. Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community. Sure there are a few India specific issues but they'll be discussed to death in a few weeks and then the forum will stagnate. Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context. This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-)), but if they pull it off and create an ultra vibrant community, more power to them. I just don't see it happening. And as long as they are ripping off the HN Name (and brand) I won't even think of joining.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
paraschopra 16y ago
I think it is a good effort. There are many India-specific issues that are not relevant to the whole of HN, even though many Indians may find it interesting.
yarapavan 16y ago
Yes, it would've been better if they haven't copied/modeled after HN. And am still not convinced of the idea that only India specific content should be posted/allowed in "HN India". Do something original. HNI folks, may be you are tying to do a TEDx copy?
thevivekpandey 16y ago
Hey, you keep editing your post repeatedly. I posted a reply to your comment, and after a few minutes I saw that your post has been edited in a way that my reply to it was irrelevant. And then, it happened again. Kindly try to avoid this.
- kranner 16y ago
  You can quote the parent post's context in your reply to keep a safe copy.
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "Hey, you keep editing your post repeatedly." Yeah that's how I write these things. I refine my writing a few times before I am satisfied. Editing already posted content is what the edit button is for. I write, post, read it over, see that something didn't come out exactly as I wanted, rewrite that and so on. This is a forum post, not a formal essay that I should get exactly right before I post, then to remain untouched forever. The edit facility is provided so people can edit their posted content and that is exactly how I use it. As to your replies becoming irrelevant I have no hand in that. I don't read replies and then re-edit (though I can see how it may feel that way to you,especially if you dashed off a reply before I finish rewriting some sentence or the other). Frankly when I (re)write something the (ir)relevance of any unseen replies posted is the least of my concerns. "Kindly try to avoid this." Change the way I write to accommodate your preferences? Thank You for the suggestion but I decline ;-) If it bothers you that much wait a quarter hour or so before you pen your reply. Or save the first version you see and quote it. If you can wait an hour, the post becomes locked and uneditable. Don't be so quick to reply if you want a guarantee of immutability and "relevance". Or just learn to live with the ephemerality of your replies. Or just don't reply to me. Whatever. (Feel free to downvote this if it wasn't the answer you were looking for ;-)) (fwiw I rewrote bits and pieces of this reply eight times in about four minutes,without ever checking for any replies)
rams 16y ago
"Imo, there isn't enough of a critical mass of India specific issues related to hacking/startups/programming etc sufficient to support a whole new community." - So true !!! I have been thinking about this very topic for the last month or so.
thebootstrapper 16y ago
"Discussion about programming/hacking/startups/other matters of intellectual interest are in general best done in a global context." 100% agree. "This is an unpopular view point amongst certain folks here in India(and I fully expect to be downvoted ;-))" Exactly I got down voted when i said "Its unnecessary"
sandGorgon 16y ago
I concur with your distaste for the domain name (@prateek - no use garnering such animosity. Just drop the name and pick something else - desihacker.in is available. you might even get some good press.) But having a local technology discussion group might not be all that useless - let me explain. There are other hi-tech communities in India, similar to HotHardware or Extremetech which are hugely popular in the community (e.g. http://www.erodov.com/forums/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud9-review-ln2-overclocking-results/33458-page5.html http://www.erodov.com/forums/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud9-review-ln2...). So this is not something that is of unproven relevance. India has a chicken and egg problem in terms of programming intellectual prowess. The community is driven primarily by that which can lay down your daily supper - Java/JSP/VB/ASP . By virtue of the existing tech leadership pool, most innovation is driven from the west. And it takes a long time before the community takes root in India. <begin rant> I blame the community for it. For instance, it would make far greater sense for the Linux community to try and hold their top level conferences in India - which could very well be their biggest customer base (the west is lost to the fruit seller already). Did you know Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. sell laptops with Ubuntu/Freedos preinstalled in India (off the shelf) ? </end rant> Point being, I think India does need a sunrise period for its technology community to be shepherded in. Hacker News is definitely too advanced in its expectation of the community for... say a fresh-behind-the-ears college student in India. This community might also be too Yank in its vernacular. Yes, there are a lot of Indians around, but we are all comfortable with the vernacular, prefer it even. That is definitely, definitely not true for most Indians who might feel completely alienated (especially the younger ones) For all the other Indians, torn between feelings of loyalty and betrayal, I encourage to search out and mentor the fledgling community back home - they need your help so that eventually they can come here and start flaming!
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  @sandgorgon. Good Points all. A couple of minor points. My distaste is not so much about the name per se as the casualness of the ripoff. One email to the original site's owner (in this case PG) would have set things right one way or another before launching. Apparently this is being done now. Better late than never. pg will probably wave this through (or not) and that will be that. Then the "HNI" folks can focus on quality ;-) As to the need for a community to "shepherd in" bright kids, it is an interesting idea but I am not so sure this is an answer to that need or even whether that need even exists in any deep fashion. (I speak as someone mentoring some ultra bright students working in Machine Learning). Something like Google Summer of Code might work much better. But, you maybe right. Maybe "shepherding" is what people need and perhaps a localized HN-lite site is what is needed. For some reason I am not too comfortable with the idea. I need to think about this. Thank you for your thoughts. They made me (re)think.

kingsidharth 16y ago

No one is leaving HN, Just taking some India specific discussions there.

pocha 16y ago

Small disagreement. I am working on an initiative to create a platform to connect co-Founders. We floated the issue on various places in LinkedIn (the places are frequented globally). We got a good response, but I wanted to start with a local effort first. There was no India specific place where I could have floated the idea to get the feedback. Did that at Hacker News India & got the validation results. I think its a great place for people, not only to validate their idea inside India, but also to show-case their India-specific effort to Indian audience. There are numerous google-groups inside India that can help you, but the whole concept of karma, up-vote, down-vote is missing; for which I think I should thank Prateek whole-heartedly for the much needed initiative.

captain_mars 16y ago

As some others have said, I feel there is a need for a place to discuss India-specific issues. However, those issues will be irrelevant to most members of HN, so out of respect for the Signal-to-Noise ratio here, I don't post such threads. In the past I've actually toyed with the idea of creating a website for Indian coders, but other projects got in the way. However, I'm uncomfortable with the name chosen for this website (HNI), and won't be joining it unless it gets a new name.