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HN has shifted from a tech entrepreneur centered content to tech worker centered content over the last few years. There are fewer founder stories, VC/funding st

HN has shifted from a tech entrepreneur centered content to tech worker centered content over the last few years. There are fewer founder stories, VC/funding stories, leadership stories, and more labor, social, and arguably political stories. I can't see how someone could frame this as HN loosing its focus, but I'm going to argue something else: we're cooperatively territorializing hacking outside of tech a way that evokes more of the TMRC[1] definition than the 90's SV definition. 1. http://tmrc.mit.edu/hackers-ref.html http://tmrc.mit.edu/hackers-ref.html

sieabahlpark 4y ago
PhasmaFelis 4y ago
Yeah, kinda seems like it's shifting somewhat away from tech bros and towards actual hackers.
Normille 4y ago
'Hacker News'? I thought it was 'Twitter News' these days.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Right, I'm talking about over a timespan of like 10 years.
- dang 4y ago
  Meanwhile other users have the opposite complaint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33648369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33648369 It's an optimization problem that never reaches anyone's optimum!
  - searchableguy 4y ago
    Question: why not write custom code to ping yourself at email when someone @dang? Just curious because I would have figured it would do something given how often everyone uses it.
    - dang 4y ago
      I don't know. Maybe because it's better for it to require a bit of activation energy.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Not really. The "Show HN" content is more in-line with the TMRC definition. The labor and social content is orthogonal to hacking, it's more about the experience of low and middle-level software engineers/managers in large tech companies. The "techbros" of old HN actually talked about what and how they were building, though the puff personality/PR pieces were pretty stupid also. If we could have more actual hacking or building content, I'd be over the moon, but that's not what's happening here. I'm actively looking for a more interesting/balanced forum than HN at this point. Not every discussion about tech has to be from the point of view of a mid-level Big Tech/F100 engineer.
- dang 4y ago
  > If we could have more actual hacking or building content, I'd be over the moon, but that's not what's happening here Can you give some specific examples of what you'd like to see more of? Edit: do these count? They're currently all in the top 10: Show HN: Run unsafe user generated JavaScript in the browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673047 - Nov 2022 (3 comments) TinyBIOS – A minimalist open-source BIOS project for fun - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670963 - Nov 2022 (13 comments) Redbean Tiddlywiki Saver - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670382 - Nov 2022 (14 comments) Show HN: A Browser-Based First Programming Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670353 - Nov 2022 (28 comments) HelenOS: a microkernel-based, multiserver OS from scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670177 - Nov 2022 (47 comments)
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Today (right now's) frontpage is fantastic, I'm super happy. I realize there's only so much y'all moderators can do given that this deluge of tech news is coming from the users of this site. Thanks for doing what y'all do, and yeah these are great posts!

sieabahlpark 4y ago

PhasmaFelis 4y ago

Yeah, kinda seems like it's shifting somewhat away from tech bros and towards actual hackers.

Normille 4y ago

'Hacker News'? I thought it was 'Twitter News' these days.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
Right, I'm talking about over a timespan of like 10 years.
dang 4y ago
Meanwhile other users have the opposite complaint: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33648369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33648369 It's an optimization problem that never reaches anyone's optimum!
- searchableguy 4y ago
  Question: why not write custom code to ping yourself at email when someone @dang? Just curious because I would have figured it would do something given how often everyone uses it.
  - dang 4y ago
    I don't know. Maybe because it's better for it to require a bit of activation energy.

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

Not really. The "Show HN" content is more in-line with the TMRC definition. The labor and social content is orthogonal to hacking, it's more about the experience of low and middle-level software engineers/managers in large tech companies. The "techbros" of old HN actually talked about what and how they were building, though the puff personality/PR pieces were pretty stupid also. If we could have more actual hacking or building content, I'd be over the moon, but that's not what's happening here. I'm actively looking for a more interesting/balanced forum than HN at this point. Not every discussion about tech has to be from the point of view of a mid-level Big Tech/F100 engineer.

dang 4y ago
> If we could have more actual hacking or building content, I'd be over the moon, but that's not what's happening here Can you give some specific examples of what you'd like to see more of? Edit: do these count? They're currently all in the top 10: Show HN: Run unsafe user generated JavaScript in the browser - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673047 - Nov 2022 (3 comments) TinyBIOS – A minimalist open-source BIOS project for fun - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670963 - Nov 2022 (13 comments) Redbean Tiddlywiki Saver - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670382 - Nov 2022 (14 comments) Show HN: A Browser-Based First Programming Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670353 - Nov 2022 (28 comments) HelenOS: a microkernel-based, multiserver OS from scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33670177 - Nov 2022 (47 comments)
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Today (right now's) frontpage is fantastic, I'm super happy. I realize there's only so much y'all moderators can do given that this deluge of tech news is coming from the users of this site. Thanks for doing what y'all do, and yeah these are great posts!