4 ms·

This is well-studied. I wish we had an answer to this conundrum. For what it's worth, HN for now is still the community with the highest quality discussion that

by PakG1 4y ago

This is well-studied. I wish we had an answer to this conundrum. For what it's worth, HN for now is still the community with the highest quality discussion that I can find. #2 is far far far behind.

inferiorhuman 4y ago
That's a shame considering HN is fucking awful when it comes to anything that deviates from software development. Anything regarding health, social, or environmental sciences tends to attract comments that would make even Mehmet Oz cringe. Anything about San Francisco is filled with people foaming at the mouth. It's not really a new thing but it is tiresome and rather sad that you can't read something "off-topic" without wading through a bunch of, for example, climate change deniers.
- PakG1 4y ago
  This is really weird because I can't remember the last time I've seen climate change deniers on HN. Your experience seems different from mine.
- adamwk 4y ago
  Ignoring the Oz comment I agree. I wish I could see San Francisco or mental health articles and read comments with similar quality as the tech stuff. Anytime psychiatry is mentioned there’s 100’s of parrots claiming SSRIs are a scam
- gregjor 4y ago
  The H in Hacker News kind of gives it away. Not only tech/software, but politics usually considered off-topic. Social, health, environmental topics get discussed here unless/until they veer into political arguments. Or conspiracy theories. I haven't lived in San Francisco in decades so I find those discussions uninteresting. Those can either show the demographics of the HN audience or the Bay Area oriented tech world, or both. Have never seen climate change denial on HN. When the COVID pandemic started HN hosted quite a few conversations about origins, severity, treatments, vaccine effectiveness, etc. That toned down over time but I still see posts almost daily about the possible origins of the virus, which probably interests some people but seems mostly irrelevant to me.
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  This has been my experience as well. When it comes to technology and engineering the conversations are top notch. When it comes to social issues or politics it’s certainly better than Facebook or YouTube comments, but it’s certainly not anywhere near as good. Despite commonly expressed beliefs to the contrary here, HN is also an echo chamber even if different and sometimes better.

by PakG1 4y ago

This is well-studied. I wish we had an answer to this conundrum. For what it's worth, HN for now is still the community with the highest quality discussion that I can find. #2 is far far far behind.

inferiorhuman 4y ago

That's a shame considering HN is fucking awful when it comes to anything that deviates from software development. Anything regarding health, social, or environmental sciences tends to attract comments that would make even Mehmet Oz cringe. Anything about San Francisco is filled with people foaming at the mouth. It's not really a new thing but it is tiresome and rather sad that you can't read something "off-topic" without wading through a bunch of, for example, climate change deniers.

PakG1 4y ago
This is really weird because I can't remember the last time I've seen climate change deniers on HN. Your experience seems different from mine.
adamwk 4y ago
Ignoring the Oz comment I agree. I wish I could see San Francisco or mental health articles and read comments with similar quality as the tech stuff. Anytime psychiatry is mentioned there’s 100’s of parrots claiming SSRIs are a scam
gregjor 4y ago
The H in Hacker News kind of gives it away. Not only tech/software, but politics usually considered off-topic. Social, health, environmental topics get discussed here unless/until they veer into political arguments. Or conspiracy theories. I haven't lived in San Francisco in decades so I find those discussions uninteresting. Those can either show the demographics of the HN audience or the Bay Area oriented tech world, or both. Have never seen climate change denial on HN. When the COVID pandemic started HN hosted quite a few conversations about origins, severity, treatments, vaccine effectiveness, etc. That toned down over time but I still see posts almost daily about the possible origins of the virus, which probably interests some people but seems mostly irrelevant to me.
alphabettsy 4y ago
This has been my experience as well. When it comes to technology and engineering the conversations are top notch. When it comes to social issues or politics it’s certainly better than Facebook or YouTube comments, but it’s certainly not anywhere near as good. Despite commonly expressed beliefs to the contrary here, HN is also an echo chamber even if different and sometimes better.