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Hacker News is in absolutely no way a “masterpiece”; it’s a site, one of many, that aggregates articles, sorted by popularity. Because it’s run by the largest

Hacker News is in absolutely no way a “masterpiece”; it’s a site, one of many, that aggregates articles, sorted by popularity. Because it’s run by the largest startup accelerator in the world, it attracts people other sites don’t. The only special thing about HN is its association with YC. That’s it. But people have this inherent need to worship just about anything, so we get self congratulatory articles like this one. Maybe the fact that this article does well here will make a few of you see through the bull crap? Probably not, but a girl can dream…

Traubenfuchs 4y ago
The only other forum most people know is reddit, which is mostly a braindead wasteland. In contrast to that, Hacker News is a masterpiece.
- Chris2048 4y ago
  That wasn't always the case, and there are still a few good sub-reddits to prove this. In the case of Reddit, it was purposefully trashed by its new owners who decided that anything less than a east-coast-lib groupthink would prevent growth, or something - or maybe they are just incompetent. Feels a similar story with Stack-Overflow.
- nunez 4y ago
  reddit is infinitely curate-able. if you remove all the default subs and sub to communities about topics you care about, it is a much better experience (except for large communities; those are trash, but large forums back in the day were also trash)
- desperadovisa 4y ago
  Unfortunately that’s probably true, despite the facts that a) Reddit is a gigantic mixed bag of quality, and thinking Reddit is “all bad” is admitting to not understanding how to use it, and b) being unable to understand that the category isn’t actually “forums” is sad. You can get this level of quality (which is to say, not the real draw of HN in the first place) by directly visiting the sites posted here.
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    a) Any community I ever found on reddit is, over time, infested by mediocrity, non relevant content and (leftist political & identity) hugboxing. Reddit attracts averageness and lowest common denominator content and that is just terribly boring and off putting. I really don't know how to put this in a way that doesn't appear arrogant. In the end the best summary I can offer is: Reddit is a garbage dump. You can find diamonds in a garbage dump, but don't expect it to happen often. b) Hacker News and subreddits are variants of forum though? I understand your idea of being able to get this yourself on the linked pages, but I have to say I really enjoy the preselection hacker news users do for me.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - desperadovisa 4y ago
      a) I cannot emphasize this enough, but... So. Does. HN. It's actually a lot worse here, because it's faux intellectualism. The "hugboxing" here is so much more egregious, because people think they're above it. b) The link aggregation and the conversations are two distinct features, and only some tiny percentage of good content actually makes its way here, and even when it does, HN is extremely temporal, so if you "miss" it, you're SOL. But I really, truly, emphatically, want to make something clear: HN users are not in any way immune to any of the things you seem to take issue with over on Reddit. Your problem isn't with HN or Reddit, your problem is with people, as what you've listed is true and inherent in any collection of humans interacting with one another (specific ideology notwithstanding).
    - clove 4y ago
      On (a): Reddit can be extremely useful as a search engine. Adding site:reddit.com to a search for, say, a product or troubleshooting, will generally give you better results than the Google default. It's also pretty good for search for local issues (e.g., "Where can I find X in Y?") and for quick answers that are usually buried under a whole blog post otherwise for SEO purposes (e.g., "How do I unlock secret X in game Y?"). The latter Google default search will give you blog posts that get to the answer after several paragraphs of "Game Y is a game full of secrets, which is why gamers really love it" and "Secret X is really a game-breaking weapon that will make your character extremely strong for the last half of the game." In short, Reddit serves a purpose that Google used to serve.
h2odragon 4y ago
HN's active but not obtrusive moderation is pretty special. dang's gift for patient explanations is quite special. Not unique, but worth note because its so rare and worth emulation.
- desperadovisa 4y ago
  No, dang is objectively terrible at moderation. Just look at his comments history to understand how bad he is at dealing with issues. Zero effort to mediate or perspective take; dang’s first impression is the only view that matters, regardless of how wrong or misinformed. Dang worship is just one example of how HN is no better than any other social media, and the fact that he still has a job is an indication it may be meaningfully worse.
  - h2odragon 4y ago
    I would say he is open to "the wrong and misinformed" in the hope that they become less misinformed, at least. How are you so certain you've the correct position on anything, if you can't consider other points of view? How can you understand others actions if you will not listen to their attempts to explain their motivations?
    - desperadovisa 4y ago
      ? How is dang so certain he (has) the correct position on anything, if he can't consider other points of view? How can he understand others actions if he will not listen to their attempts to explain their motivations? He doesn't do any of that, he just states some basic, "Stop doing <value judgement about user's behavior>." No discussion, no insight gathering, nothing. He's a garbage moderator. You can literally observe it in his comment history [0]. His most recent comment (at time of writing)[1] exemplifies this perfectly: > You don't have to agree with anyone's views but this style of argument is deathly to the curious conversation we want here. No, it is not. This is simply wrong, and "this style" is dismissive and rude. But that's not up for debate, as dang has decreed it so. The only reason he writes anything at all here is to explain why the person is, to him, wrong. Zero attempt whatsoever to understand an alternative perspective. Awful, terrible moderation skills. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32640951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32640951

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

The only other forum most people know is reddit, which is mostly a braindead wasteland. In contrast to that, Hacker News is a masterpiece.

Chris2048 4y ago
That wasn't always the case, and there are still a few good sub-reddits to prove this. In the case of Reddit, it was purposefully trashed by its new owners who decided that anything less than a east-coast-lib groupthink would prevent growth, or something - or maybe they are just incompetent. Feels a similar story with Stack-Overflow.
nunez 4y ago
reddit is infinitely curate-able. if you remove all the default subs and sub to communities about topics you care about, it is a much better experience (except for large communities; those are trash, but large forums back in the day were also trash)
desperadovisa 4y ago
Unfortunately that’s probably true, despite the facts that a) Reddit is a gigantic mixed bag of quality, and thinking Reddit is “all bad” is admitting to not understanding how to use it, and b) being unable to understand that the category isn’t actually “forums” is sad. You can get this level of quality (which is to say, not the real draw of HN in the first place) by directly visiting the sites posted here.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  a) Any community I ever found on reddit is, over time, infested by mediocrity, non relevant content and (leftist political & identity) hugboxing. Reddit attracts averageness and lowest common denominator content and that is just terribly boring and off putting. I really don't know how to put this in a way that doesn't appear arrogant. In the end the best summary I can offer is: Reddit is a garbage dump. You can find diamonds in a garbage dump, but don't expect it to happen often. b) Hacker News and subreddits are variants of forum though? I understand your idea of being able to get this yourself on the linked pages, but I have to say I really enjoy the preselection hacker news users do for me.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - desperadovisa 4y ago
    a) I cannot emphasize this enough, but... So. Does. HN. It's actually a lot worse here, because it's faux intellectualism. The "hugboxing" here is so much more egregious, because people think they're above it. b) The link aggregation and the conversations are two distinct features, and only some tiny percentage of good content actually makes its way here, and even when it does, HN is extremely temporal, so if you "miss" it, you're SOL. But I really, truly, emphatically, want to make something clear: HN users are not in any way immune to any of the things you seem to take issue with over on Reddit. Your problem isn't with HN or Reddit, your problem is with people, as what you've listed is true and inherent in any collection of humans interacting with one another (specific ideology notwithstanding).
  - clove 4y ago
    On (a): Reddit can be extremely useful as a search engine. Adding site:reddit.com to a search for, say, a product or troubleshooting, will generally give you better results than the Google default. It's also pretty good for search for local issues (e.g., "Where can I find X in Y?") and for quick answers that are usually buried under a whole blog post otherwise for SEO purposes (e.g., "How do I unlock secret X in game Y?"). The latter Google default search will give you blog posts that get to the answer after several paragraphs of "Game Y is a game full of secrets, which is why gamers really love it" and "Secret X is really a game-breaking weapon that will make your character extremely strong for the last half of the game." In short, Reddit serves a purpose that Google used to serve.

h2odragon 4y ago

HN's active but not obtrusive moderation is pretty special. dang's gift for patient explanations is quite special. Not unique, but worth note because its so rare and worth emulation.

desperadovisa 4y ago
No, dang is objectively terrible at moderation. Just look at his comments history to understand how bad he is at dealing with issues. Zero effort to mediate or perspective take; dang’s first impression is the only view that matters, regardless of how wrong or misinformed. Dang worship is just one example of how HN is no better than any other social media, and the fact that he still has a job is an indication it may be meaningfully worse.
- h2odragon 4y ago
  I would say he is open to "the wrong and misinformed" in the hope that they become less misinformed, at least. How are you so certain you've the correct position on anything, if you can't consider other points of view? How can you understand others actions if you will not listen to their attempts to explain their motivations?
  - desperadovisa 4y ago
    ? How is dang so certain he (has) the correct position on anything, if he can't consider other points of view? How can he understand others actions if he will not listen to their attempts to explain their motivations? He doesn't do any of that, he just states some basic, "Stop doing <value judgement about user's behavior>." No discussion, no insight gathering, nothing. He's a garbage moderator. You can literally observe it in his comment history [0]. His most recent comment (at time of writing)[1] exemplifies this perfectly: > You don't have to agree with anyone's views but this style of argument is deathly to the curious conversation we want here. No, it is not. This is simply wrong, and "this style" is dismissive and rude. But that's not up for debate, as dang has decreed it so. The only reason he writes anything at all here is to explain why the person is, to him, wrong. Zero attempt whatsoever to understand an alternative perspective. Awful, terrible moderation skills. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32640951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32640951