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I'd just hope Hacker News never "upgrades" itself in the next 15 years so I can still find archives of previous discussions, including this thread. Hacker News
by segfaultbuserr 7y ago
I'd just hope Hacker News never "upgrades" itself in the next 15 years so I can still find archives of previous discussions, including this thread.
Hacker News is the center of technology, just like the Usenet Groups were the center from the late 70s to the mid-90s, that must be preserved as computer history. Our generation can see how the Internet started and how 4.3BSD worked by reading the Usenet archives, the future generations deserve to be able doing the same, learn how the Silicon Valley in the 2010s worked by reading Hacker News archives.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago> Hacker News is the center of technology Let's not pat ourselves on the back too hard.
- segfaultbuserr 7y agoOkay, not the center, but possibly the largest general-interest forum near the center. Can you name another Internet forum where discussions are similar to general-interest Usenet tech groups, where even internal details or confidential information about tech companies such as Microsoft [0] or Oracle [1] leaks out from time to time? Mailing lists? Well, yes, but there are all single-topic forum. Twitter? Probably, but it's not a forum, and it's even responsible for killing the forums. Reddit? Those programming groups are large, but they are closer to newsfeed where you can submit links than a forum (Hacker News is also a newsfeed, but it's discussion-orientated, some people don't even read the news). Although some communities such as r/bitcoin has plenty of important history preserved here, but not a general-interest tech forum. 4chan? It has some historical significant for Internet subcultures, but probably not in general interest. Chatrooms? Yes. Freenode is still big, Discord has a lot of communities, but they are not forums. My conclusion about Hacker News being the center was after a long depression that the social media has killed large forums where long opinions are elaborated. But Hacker News is still kicking around, like it was 1995. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689391 (original comment deleted, reposted here: http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-we-are-slower-than-other-oper/ http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w...) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941
- nfoz 7y agoHN is just another slashdot. And slashdot looks like it's still going fine: https://slashdot.org/ https://slashdot.org/
- segfaultbuserr 7y agoYes, but I think it doesn't replace HN. The first difference is that Slashdot provides a summary of the news, so most Slashdot users do actually read the news, and makes a few points down in comment; unlike Hacker News, where many don't and just wait for a chance to jump in and post comments. Therefore, the contents are often of a different nature, HN is closer to a forum. Also, the current Slashdot is truly different from early Slashdot. It seems to be more corporative and commercial. On early Slashdot, you can occasionally see interviews and book reviews dedicated to the community, you rarely see those post nowadays, if any. Also, in recent years, Slashdot implemented (or refused to implement) changes and created a strong opposition within a subgroup of users, and gave to birth of forks of smaller site. While HN is still here and living well (I do know Lobster is a HN fork). So both HN and Slashdot needs archives, and they should know better not to push for destructive upgrades that makes reading historical posts difficult. Both work well today, but I don't know what would happen in the future.
- skinnymuch 7y agoHN is pretty corporate for YC companies and stuff.
- kadoban 7y agoIt still exists, I guess. It's a pale shadow of what it once was, and not even close to as useful or fun as HN.
- REDDitMen 7y agoAnd Slashdot looks like it's still going. To me it's more of an very early reddit.
- serf 7y ago
- chapium 7y agoAnd Silicon Valley municipal politics and health fads totally unsupported by anything other than good feels.