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Ask HN: Is HN Dying?
I've been reading HN on and off for a few years now and used to be impressed by the quality of the conversations. But since the pandemic, I've noticed that comment quality has decreased. Comments are shortening and discussions are now almost indistinguishable from Reddit.
- andrewfromx 4y agoNo. It's still the absolute best. And often I will read just the comments on big stories vs. the stories themselves. I never do that on reddit.
- minimaxir 4y agoIt's more that Reddit is getting better (surprisingly) than Hacker News is getting worse.
- PaulHoule 4y agoIf you took out the image memes, ads for the mobile app, and dark pattern ad blending with content you might find some good stuff on Reddit.
- minimaxir 4y agoThe OP is going on the quality of discussion rather than the platform itself. Reddit has always required self-curation even before they went full dark-pattern.
- PaulHoule 4y agoI like what I see when I point my RSS reader at it.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoI disagree. Reddit is great if you want to read one of the 6 accepted opinions on a given subreddit. For anything else, it's the downvote arrow or subreddit permaban.
- haunter 4y agoAre you implying it's not the same here? There are countless comments and posts that gets flagged almost instantly because it goes against the hivemind here. And no not because they are low quality or they miss the mark on some imaginary quality test. I read HN through RSS and if you catch up say 1 or 2 days later you can see a lot of flagged or even straight up removed posts with a lot of comments and points too which means some people would actually find the content interesting or HN-worthy.
- PaulHoule 4y agoThat’s a real problem. I consider myself a leftist and thought HN was too libertarian in 2010 but that it’s gotten more balanced since then. I used to be involved with proggit and thought they were a bunch of communists who could not stand it that you were interested in the business end of things or at all into programming for the money. Anybody else could find subreddits that they think cringeworthy, a barren wasteland, or worse. (As for my politics I seem to be the leftmost in a right leaning batch or the rightmost in a left leaning batch.)
- kube-system 4y ago> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- hotpotamus 4y agoThere's actually interesting info about this in the site guidelines.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smt88 4y ago> Comments are shortening and discussions are now almost indistinguishable from Reddit. I couldn't disagree more. Comments here are still substantial, jokes are downvoted, trolls are flagged. HN has actually gotten better in the last few years afte4 they resumed demoting of political content. It's much harder to find a flamewar on HN than it was in, say, 2017.
- TorontoTheGood 4y agoAgree, with the odd doomer exception.
- wunderland 4y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32225652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32225652
- jerkstate 4y agoI am loathe to comment on this topic due to it being against the site guidelines but I have noticed a distinct up-tick in both meme comments and shallow joke comment threads. It’s a little cringe to read, but there is still plenty of substantiative conversation here, so I wouldn’t exactly say it’s turning into Reddit; but there is definitely an element of Reddit (and 4chan for that matter). I think it’s increasing, but I don’t have the data to back it up. For now I can just downvote unsubstantial comment trees and move on.
- winternett 4y agoAi babble is flooding everything... A lot of companies are eagerly laying off employees to have chat GPT churn out the same tone-empty and nothing-new derivative-article content everywhere. Coupled with anti-competitive SEO tactics, bot spam, human spam, subliminally suggestive marketing, long winded CTA clickbait videos, and paid ad promotion on social media, the Internet is ripe with all sorts of annoying schemes and scams to get attention that is totally destroying all hope for effective information and communication pretty much everywhere you go online now. I hope people will wake up and start striking against platform dictatorships and profiteering for everything, but I doubt it will happen, and I think there will simply be a lot of meltdowns everywhere and frustrated people that will eventually learn that we'll all see a lot less ads if we go back to meeting up at coffee shops, diners, and bowling alleys for our entertainment off this "scorched hellscape of a parking-meter-esque pay for being unfulfilled" Internet. Sorry for the rant. :P
- dang 4y agoIf people see AI-generated comments on HN they should flag them and let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. HN is a place for humans to converse, and bots have never been allowed.
- stuntkite 4y agoI just had this thought that now with LLMs we are basically on the front side of something similar to space debris lock in for the global internet.
- gardenhedge 4y agoHN is still 100% distinguishable from Reddit which is now worse than YouTube used to be for commenting. I can't think of anywhere worse than Reddit right now.
- altdataseller 4y agoFor some subreddits (minus the controversial ones), the quality of discussion is pretty damn good. Of course there's also memes and annoying people who don't respond seriously to posts, so you do have to shift through a lot of noise.
- kylecazar 4y agoI don't think it's dying, even if it's changed, I still find the linked articles and discussion to be superior to all other popular and similar sites.
- thefourthchime 4y agoI would say HN has become less intimidating. A couple of years ago I was petrified of posting here because something I said wasn't 100% correct, or not insightful enough. I feel like it's relaxed a bit since then. As for comparing HN to reddit?! No, reddit is a sea of mindless groupthink that upvotes jokes, cute animals and general internet junk.
- tkiolp4 4y agoFor me HN is dying because of the increasing amount of negative/depressing news we have in the front page year after year. I know that covid happened, and the war, and recession, and what not… but I do not come to HN for that. I come for Hacker news. The other kind of news I got at my usual newspaper. Layoffs, RTO, stupid CEOs decisions… I couldn’t care less. But I guess HN is what their owners want from it, so I better quit soon.
- dang 4y agoI promise you the owners don't want a site about layoffs, RTO, and stupid CEOs decisions.
- dzikimarian 4y agoI think it got less focused on technology over time and probably more people without technical background joined. In result more often than before happens, that someone is discussing topic, that isn't theirs area of expertise.
- linuxandrew 4y agoIt is official; Netcraft now confirms: Hacker News is dying
- sacnoradhq 4y agoHey don't knock my Netcraft Toolbar for IE 6!
- cpach 4y agoI still enjoy HN, after all these years. The community is much broader now than it was in, say, 2010, but I find the discussions to be of good quality. Much of that is thanks to 'dang’s splendid moderation.
- throwawaysalome 4y agoComments are shortening If only that were true. Still too many narcissists compelled to recount their life's vicissitudes in every comment.
- sacnoradhq 4y agoSeems kind of presumptively critical and assuming malice. Some people are just verbose.
- sacnoradhq 4y agoPerhaps the questions to ask are: 0. Who aren't around HN anymore, and for what reason(s)? 1. Who stuck around HN for a long time, and for what reason(s)? 2. Who joined HN recently and how did they find out about it? 3. Where are 0. people at now? I think forums fall either of 6 ways: A. To uncivilized behavior B. To continual witch hunt C. Arbitrary, immature, clique moderation D. To lack of contribution through active participation and content creation E. To egotistical participants who push others aside: individuals who disagree loudly, constantly, and proclaim they are always right while lacking an ability to recognize ideas that weren't theirs F. To mediocrity: someone signs up to HN because they saw it on the news, not because they're applying to YC or work in some obscure, high-bar-to-entry subject matter expertise field