6 ms·

To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. When I'm researching something I frequently do a site:news.ycombinator.com search on DuckDuckGo to se

To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. When I'm researching something I frequently do a site:news.ycombinator.com search on DuckDuckGo to see what HN users have to say about the topic. I've been doing this for a long time, only recently I decided to get over my fear of participating in the internet and created an account to comment now and then when I have something to say. And I can see how participating too much can be unhealthy. It's easy to start obsessively refreshing, searching for something new. It's easy to get drawn into silly arguments that don't really matter, or lengthy discussions of semantics that don't really help uncover some new truth. But the benefit of the back-catalog cannot exist if there aren't people who share their wisdom, so I hope enough people continue to contribute.

narag 6y ago
To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. That's not a very flattering thing to say. I do the same as you. Yesterday I wanted information about Monero and did the site: trick with good results. What I find annoying is the partisan chilling effect. Not just discussions about politics, that I try to avoid because I know it's doomed. But about anything. There is a front-page technical programming discussion where I started to compose a comment and gave up, thinking that it would be downvoted as hell, not because it's outrageus or false, just unpopular opinion.
- goto11 6y ago
  Do you have some examples of quality technical comments (conforming to the guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) being downvoted to hell? (Not disputing you at all, just curious for some concrete examples.)
  - cj 6y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS887US887&hl=en-US&sxsrf=ALeKk00ltlOggJncJkI_G_PYucBptWazsQ%3A1602157602955&ei=Ivx-X_zvOe2iggfJ2aigBQ&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+not+sure+why+you%27re+being+downvoted%22&oq=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+not+sure+why+you%27re+being+downvoted%22&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEANQritYrZ4BYMWiAWgCcAB4AIABuAKIAYYEkgEFMy4zLTGYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS887US887&hl=en...
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      So I guess the answer is no, given that the first two comments are not technical comments, and while they were perhaps pithy or correct in their observations, they were not quality comments either. Of I course I myself feel that I have been unfairly downvoted in the past, but I do have a more strict rule for when I would downvote someone than most people seem to have. On the other hand all my upvotes have been 100% totally deserved, I'm just lucky that way.
  - narag 6y ago
    I have a lot of examples, so why not show concrete examples? Because then those comments become the discussion and I don't want to go into a discussion that I've already said it's polarized, shaped as a popularity contest and thus rigged. Maybe it's OK downvoting comments because they're factually wrong. But this has become downvoting comments because the downvoter has a different opinion. As soon as there is a very popular opinion, you can't even state facts that contradict that opinion without being downvoted. I'm not here to promote some agenda. If I find uneasy to express an opinion, I just shut up, I don't lose anything personally. Edit: if you really want, you can pass a comment through the barrier, with a lot of pre-emptive disclaimers and anticipating objections, seven paragraphs of socratic explanations and trying to sound so erudite as to seed a doubt to the knee-jerk downvoter. Too much work for simple stuff.
- paganel 6y ago
  > Not just discussions about politics, I still find HN to be one of the most politics-free places on the Internet, which is nice. Granted, I avoid almost everything that talks about US computer programmers vs the rest of the world computer programmers, discussions which tend to have not that nice xenophobic nuance to them, but the rest of the discussions are pretty civil. Also (and of course), I also avoid almost everything related to Apple-Google-Tesla, the conflict of interests in here are too big (lots of Apple/Google employees, lots of owners of Tesla shares), so I realise that nothing productive can come out of those conversations. Surprisingly, I find that Microsoft employees are a lot more open to criticism, and I say that as a person who used to dislike MS massively (I still hold them partly responsible for the failure of OLPC)
  - tupputuppu 6y ago
    I'd really be interested in hearing which TECHNICAL forums are more political?
    - paganel 6y ago
      I personally don't regard this as a technical forum, more like a general-discussion forum of things that are of interest to (mostly) technical people.
    - ModernMech 6y ago
      Slashdot. I dare you to wade into a political discussion there. It’s all name calling and vitriol. So toxic.
  - Applejinx 6y ago
    I find HN to be a very specific political demographic of great interest, so when I read it, it's with the specific intent of exposing myself to the point of view of this very specific political demographic. That's not the same thing as a specific POV or catechism: the demographic actively seeks novel answers and ideas in certain ways so long as larger assumptions remain unchallenged, and even then the right framing can work wonders. It's the demographic that remains consistent, even predictable. The position of this demographic isn't always a given.
- m463 6y ago
  I was surprised that trump being hospitalized for covid hadn't been posted and submitted a link, but it was flagged. Puzzled I checkd the FAQ, which led me to the guidelines and there I found the magic: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. So politics is mercifully off-topic by design. check them out: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - krapp 6y ago
    >So politics is mercifully off-topic by design. And yet, in spite of Hacker News' disdain for both politics and repetition, any story about Julian Assange, including daily posts about his hearing, will remain untouched[0]. What's really off topic isn't politics, but politics HN doesn't agree with. [0]https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=assange%20hearing&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      If it’s novel enough, or it won’t attract enough down or up votes regardless, then I don’t really see the issue with this. Nobody cares enough about Assange, but a Trump post would be a bloodbath.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Try posting that maybe, just maybe, Assange is a rapist and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations and see what happens.
        oarsinsync 6y ago
        > > It's easy to get drawn into silly arguments that don't really matter, or lengthy discussions of semantics that don't really help uncover some new truth. > Assange is a rapist and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations You can see where I'm going here. "Assange is an alleged rapist, and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations" will probably get you further.
henrik_w 6y ago
Ditto for looking at older posts/discussions. I usually use https://hn.algolia.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/ when searching Hacker News though.
melicerte 6y ago
Great to have you on board, commenting here and there :)
augusto-moura 6y ago
Tip: DuckDuckGo has the !hn bang for searching in the algolia page, so just stick it to the end of your query instead of site:news.ycombinator.com and you are good to go!
- webo 6y ago
  I noticed the algolia search is not very good and doesn’t go back as far. I think it limits results to 6 years or so.
  - augusto-moura 6y ago
    Weird, because the front page with the most popular of all time show posts from 9+ years ago, but if you search something popular like "microsoft" and sort by date it only goes back a few months. I think it truncates by a 1000 results or so
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

narag 6y ago

To me a large part of the value of HN is the back-catalog. That's not a very flattering thing to say. I do the same as you. Yesterday I wanted information about Monero and did the site: trick with good results. What I find annoying is the partisan chilling effect. Not just discussions about politics, that I try to avoid because I know it's doomed. But about anything. There is a front-page technical programming discussion where I started to compose a comment and gave up, thinking that it would be downvoted as hell, not because it's outrageus or false, just unpopular opinion.

goto11 6y ago
Do you have some examples of quality technical comments (conforming to the guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) being downvoted to hell? (Not disputing you at all, just curious for some concrete examples.)
- cj 6y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS887US887&hl=en-US&sxsrf=ALeKk00ltlOggJncJkI_G_PYucBptWazsQ%3A1602157602955&ei=Ivx-X_zvOe2iggfJ2aigBQ&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+not+sure+why+you%27re+being+downvoted%22&oq=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+not+sure+why+you%27re+being+downvoted%22&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEANQritYrZ4BYMWiAWgCcAB4AIABuAKIAYYEkgEFMy4zLTGYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS887US887&hl=en...
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    So I guess the answer is no, given that the first two comments are not technical comments, and while they were perhaps pithy or correct in their observations, they were not quality comments either. Of I course I myself feel that I have been unfairly downvoted in the past, but I do have a more strict rule for when I would downvote someone than most people seem to have. On the other hand all my upvotes have been 100% totally deserved, I'm just lucky that way.
- narag 6y ago
  I have a lot of examples, so why not show concrete examples? Because then those comments become the discussion and I don't want to go into a discussion that I've already said it's polarized, shaped as a popularity contest and thus rigged. Maybe it's OK downvoting comments because they're factually wrong. But this has become downvoting comments because the downvoter has a different opinion. As soon as there is a very popular opinion, you can't even state facts that contradict that opinion without being downvoted. I'm not here to promote some agenda. If I find uneasy to express an opinion, I just shut up, I don't lose anything personally. Edit: if you really want, you can pass a comment through the barrier, with a lot of pre-emptive disclaimers and anticipating objections, seven paragraphs of socratic explanations and trying to sound so erudite as to seed a doubt to the knee-jerk downvoter. Too much work for simple stuff.
paganel 6y ago
> Not just discussions about politics, I still find HN to be one of the most politics-free places on the Internet, which is nice. Granted, I avoid almost everything that talks about US computer programmers vs the rest of the world computer programmers, discussions which tend to have not that nice xenophobic nuance to them, but the rest of the discussions are pretty civil. Also (and of course), I also avoid almost everything related to Apple-Google-Tesla, the conflict of interests in here are too big (lots of Apple/Google employees, lots of owners of Tesla shares), so I realise that nothing productive can come out of those conversations. Surprisingly, I find that Microsoft employees are a lot more open to criticism, and I say that as a person who used to dislike MS massively (I still hold them partly responsible for the failure of OLPC)
- tupputuppu 6y ago
  I'd really be interested in hearing which TECHNICAL forums are more political?
  - paganel 6y ago
    I personally don't regard this as a technical forum, more like a general-discussion forum of things that are of interest to (mostly) technical people.
  - ModernMech 6y ago
    Slashdot. I dare you to wade into a political discussion there. It’s all name calling and vitriol. So toxic.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  I find HN to be a very specific political demographic of great interest, so when I read it, it's with the specific intent of exposing myself to the point of view of this very specific political demographic. That's not the same thing as a specific POV or catechism: the demographic actively seeks novel answers and ideas in certain ways so long as larger assumptions remain unchallenged, and even then the right framing can work wonders. It's the demographic that remains consistent, even predictable. The position of this demographic isn't always a given.
m463 6y ago
I was surprised that trump being hospitalized for covid hadn't been posted and submitted a link, but it was flagged. Puzzled I checkd the FAQ, which led me to the guidelines and there I found the magic: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. So politics is mercifully off-topic by design. check them out: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- krapp 6y ago
  >So politics is mercifully off-topic by design. And yet, in spite of Hacker News' disdain for both politics and repetition, any story about Julian Assange, including daily posts about his hearing, will remain untouched[0]. What's really off topic isn't politics, but politics HN doesn't agree with. [0]https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=assange%20hearing&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    If it’s novel enough, or it won’t attract enough down or up votes regardless, then I don’t really see the issue with this. Nobody cares enough about Assange, but a Trump post would be a bloodbath.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Try posting that maybe, just maybe, Assange is a rapist and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations and see what happens.
      - oarsinsync 6y ago
        > > It's easy to get drawn into silly arguments that don't really matter, or lengthy discussions of semantics that don't really help uncover some new truth. > Assange is a rapist and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations You can see where I'm going here. "Assange is an alleged rapist, and needs to at least go before the courts to test the allegations" will probably get you further.

henrik_w 6y ago

Ditto for looking at older posts/discussions. I usually use https://hn.algolia.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/ when searching Hacker News though.

melicerte 6y ago

Great to have you on board, commenting here and there :)

augusto-moura 6y ago

Tip: DuckDuckGo has the !hn bang for searching in the algolia page, so just stick it to the end of your query instead of site:news.ycombinator.com and you are good to go!

webo 6y ago
I noticed the algolia search is not very good and doesn’t go back as far. I think it limits results to 6 years or so.
- augusto-moura 6y ago
  Weird, because the front page with the most popular of all time show posts from 9+ years ago, but if you search something popular like "microsoft" and sort by date it only goes back a few months. I think it truncates by a 1000 results or so

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]