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Why does everything about Lisp immediately make the front page? I've seen many interesting submissions about Java or C# - arguably much more popular languages;

Why does everything about Lisp immediately make the front page? I've seen many interesting submissions about Java or C# - arguably much more popular languages; unlike with Lisp most of those we'll never see on the front page. Why is HN so biased towards this one language. Can we please give other topics the same treatment?

steveklabnik 5y ago
This very website is authored in a Lisp variant designed by its founder. So yeah, the Lisp love here goes deep.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  Of course it is, but this doesn't make it ok for the moderators to skew the front page towards their own personal interests.
  - sulam 5y ago
    Here you go, you can learn how the algorithm works yourself. https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking... Fair warning, it's written in Lisp.
  - jjnoakes 5y ago
    Do you have evidence that the moderators are skewing things?
    - capableweb 5y ago
      I don't agree that HN skews towards Lisp (more like towards Rust or whatever is fashionable today, but I digress), and love Lisp in general. But, how would one be able to provide any sort of evidence of this happening without being moderator yourself?
      - jjnoakes 5y ago
        That's the point though, isn't it? Why claim things that you can't provide evidence for?
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      I think moderators can do some sort of repost/reset of the algo ranking to give a post a new chance. If the moderators are more or less like the readers, I guess it is no extra skew.
  - erik_seaberg 5y ago
    I think it’s the user base that pg drew in since even before HN. There have been 22 Lisp stories with 10+ upvotes in a month, but only five Java stories and two C# stories. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=java&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa... Java’s slowly become an acceptable language for mixed-skill teams but I don’t think there’s a lot of exciting news about it at least until Project Loom finally lands. I don’t know what would put C# onto more teams’ radar now that they announced feature completeness on Linux.
Jtsummers 5y ago
There was the day dedicated to Erlang: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11
- perihelions 5y ago
  I found the root cause: >"You can help the spike subside by making HN look extra boring. For the next couple days it would be better to have posts about the innards of Erlang" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 ("Why HN is slow lately", by pg)
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Is "innards of Erlang" supposed to be extra boring? Programming language implementation is totally interesting and Erlang in particular just does a lot of cool things and it'd be awesome to learn how it does it. I suppose I'm not normal...
    - vnorilo 5y ago
      I think pg just meant something hn audience cares about, but mainstream media won't. (Reading the erlang stuff with gusto now)
hellbannedguy 5y ago
ir193 5y ago
smalltalk
vidarh 5y ago
It's biased towards what we find interesting. I don't even write Lisp, but implementation tricks for dynamic languages interests me, and less common languages interests me, and it's the same for a lot of the more active users here.
musicale 5y ago
Why can't I read comments (however unpopular they may be) because they are a very faint grey? Clearly some people thought this was worth responding to, but it's hard to understand the responses if I can't read the original question. Personally I'm in favor of removing "downvote to oblivion" because it degrades my experience of using HN.

steveklabnik 5y ago

This very website is authored in a Lisp variant designed by its founder. So yeah, the Lisp love here goes deep.

bitcharmer 5y ago
Of course it is, but this doesn't make it ok for the moderators to skew the front page towards their own personal interests.
- sulam 5y ago
  Here you go, you can learn how the algorithm works yourself. https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking... Fair warning, it's written in Lisp.
- jjnoakes 5y ago
  Do you have evidence that the moderators are skewing things?
  - capableweb 5y ago
    I don't agree that HN skews towards Lisp (more like towards Rust or whatever is fashionable today, but I digress), and love Lisp in general. But, how would one be able to provide any sort of evidence of this happening without being moderator yourself?
    - jjnoakes 5y ago
      That's the point though, isn't it? Why claim things that you can't provide evidence for?
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    I think moderators can do some sort of repost/reset of the algo ranking to give a post a new chance. If the moderators are more or less like the readers, I guess it is no extra skew.
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  I think it’s the user base that pg drew in since even before HN. There have been 22 Lisp stories with 10+ upvotes in a month, but only five Java stories and two C# stories. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=java&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa... Java’s slowly become an acceptable language for mixed-skill teams but I don’t think there’s a lot of exciting news about it at least until Project Loom finally lands. I don’t know what would put C# onto more teams’ radar now that they announced feature completeness on Linux.

Jtsummers 5y ago

There was the day dedicated to Erlang: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11

perihelions 5y ago
I found the root cause: >"You can help the spike subside by making HN look extra boring. For the next couple days it would be better to have posts about the innards of Erlang" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 ("Why HN is slow lately", by pg)
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Is "innards of Erlang" supposed to be extra boring? Programming language implementation is totally interesting and Erlang in particular just does a lot of cool things and it'd be awesome to learn how it does it. I suppose I'm not normal...
  - vnorilo 5y ago
    I think pg just meant something hn audience cares about, but mainstream media won't. (Reading the erlang stuff with gusto now)

hellbannedguy 5y ago

ir193 5y ago

smalltalk

vidarh 5y ago

It's biased towards what we find interesting. I don't even write Lisp, but implementation tricks for dynamic languages interests me, and less common languages interests me, and it's the same for a lot of the more active users here.

musicale 5y ago

Why can't I read comments (however unpopular they may be) because they are a very faint grey? Clearly some people thought this was worth responding to, but it's hard to understand the responses if I can't read the original question. Personally I'm in favor of removing "downvote to oblivion" because it degrades my experience of using HN.