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Love Donald Sutherland, sad to see him go. That said, I think this is the signal that it's time to walk away from HN. It used to be a place for people to talk

Love Donald Sutherland, sad to see him go. That said, I think this is the signal that it's time to walk away from HN. It used to be a place for people to talk about technology, business, tech startups, and SV culture. Now it's celebrity news. Bye!

dang 2y ago
HN has always had a wider range of content than people tend to assume it has, and that's by design—when pg renamed it from "Startup News" to "Hacker News", that was the reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. For example, we had this thread 3 weeks after your account was created: RIP Michael Jackson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 - June 2009 (158 comments) And of course the "How is this even remotely hacker news?" question was already in full swing back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461 In other words, twere ever thus! This approach only works as long as no one class of story is over-represented to the point of being predictable, but that's ok because evading predictability is one of the core values of the site: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- ltbarcly3 2y ago
  This is my 3rd account, my 1st was made like a month after yours. Ahh yes, Donald Sutherland, never did a Startup but of course he was a notable Hacker. And of course his impact on world culture was right up there with Michael Jackson. I find your attempt to defend the trajectory of the site very convincing and I withdrawal my criticism. Lets get more celebrity news up on the front page, like it used to be... The fact that there was one article about Michael Jackson within a few months of when I created my 3rd account is absolutely evidence of whatever point you are making. I mean just look at all the articles about celebrities and politics and social policy: https://web.archive.org/web/20091207051053/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091207051053/http://news.ycomb... VS the frontpage RIGHT NOW, which does not have even one single article about programming, and very few about technology even in the broadest sense.
  - salad-tycoon 2y ago
    I haven’t been around long, I am not someone you would look up to either but… I guess some “hackers” like movies and I’ve enjoyed picking up some recommendations here. I have no idea who David was, for example. Also, no doubt you know this but this is my landing page: https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best I guess if this site truly devolves into Silicon Valley-TMZ+ I’ll eat these words but there’s still science and computers here.
  - radley 2y ago
    Best to appreciate it as people who are interesting enough to be icons for tech professionals.
  - dang 2y ago
    It's interesting you picked 2009-12-07 for that archive link. When I click the right arrow on that page to go to the next snapshot, I get 2009-12-09: https://web.archive.org/web/20091209034602/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091209034602/http://news.ycomb... and the #1 story is "China's Family Planning Goes Awry" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984930). If that's not social policy I don't know what is! The point is that HN has always had a mix of things, and it's also always had these "how is this even on hacker news" and "I guess HN has turned into $Badness News now" comments. Most often the complaint is about too many political stories, but a certain number of those have also always been here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. The reason for this dynamic (the mixture of topics, and also complaints about the mixture of topics) is not hard to find: it was pg's vision for the site. If you want to argue about pre-2008 HN we could probably find more common ground, but that's getting pretty obscure. I think 16 years is enough to set a precedent.
    - ltbarcly3 2y ago
      Picked that date 100% at random, literally the only one I even clicked. What is your point exactly? I think you would have trouble saying more words without saying anything falsifiable. I am not just being a jerk, I have no idea what your point is other than to try to put up a wall of text. If I was going to sum it up, "HN was always bad so it's still just as good as it was". This kind of defense works for 4chan because it openly brags about being bad, but I don't think this is what HN aspired to.

dang 2y ago

HN has always had a wider range of content than people tend to assume it has, and that's by design—when pg renamed it from "Startup News" to "Hacker News", that was the reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. For example, we had this thread 3 weeks after your account was created: RIP Michael Jackson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 - June 2009 (158 comments) And of course the "How is this even remotely hacker news?" question was already in full swing back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461 In other words, twere ever thus! This approach only works as long as no one class of story is over-represented to the point of being predictable, but that's ok because evading predictability is one of the core values of the site: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

ltbarcly3 2y ago
This is my 3rd account, my 1st was made like a month after yours. Ahh yes, Donald Sutherland, never did a Startup but of course he was a notable Hacker. And of course his impact on world culture was right up there with Michael Jackson. I find your attempt to defend the trajectory of the site very convincing and I withdrawal my criticism. Lets get more celebrity news up on the front page, like it used to be... The fact that there was one article about Michael Jackson within a few months of when I created my 3rd account is absolutely evidence of whatever point you are making. I mean just look at all the articles about celebrities and politics and social policy: https://web.archive.org/web/20091207051053/http://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091207051053/http://news.ycomb... VS the frontpage RIGHT NOW, which does not have even one single article about programming, and very few about technology even in the broadest sense.
- salad-tycoon 2y ago
  I haven’t been around long, I am not someone you would look up to either but… I guess some “hackers” like movies and I’ve enjoyed picking up some recommendations here. I have no idea who David was, for example. Also, no doubt you know this but this is my landing page: https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best I guess if this site truly devolves into Silicon Valley-TMZ+ I’ll eat these words but there’s still science and computers here.
- radley 2y ago
  Best to appreciate it as people who are interesting enough to be icons for tech professionals.
- dang 2y ago
  It's interesting you picked 2009-12-07 for that archive link. When I click the right arrow on that page to go to the next snapshot, I get 2009-12-09: https://web.archive.org/web/20091209034602/http://news.ycombinator.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20091209034602/http://news.ycomb... and the #1 story is "China's Family Planning Goes Awry" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=984930). If that's not social policy I don't know what is! The point is that HN has always had a mix of things, and it's also always had these "how is this even on hacker news" and "I guess HN has turned into $Badness News now" comments. Most often the complaint is about too many political stories, but a certain number of those have also always been here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869. The reason for this dynamic (the mixture of topics, and also complaints about the mixture of topics) is not hard to find: it was pg's vision for the site. If you want to argue about pre-2008 HN we could probably find more common ground, but that's getting pretty obscure. I think 16 years is enough to set a precedent.
  - ltbarcly3 2y ago
    Picked that date 100% at random, literally the only one I even clicked. What is your point exactly? I think you would have trouble saying more words without saying anything falsifiable. I am not just being a jerk, I have no idea what your point is other than to try to put up a wall of text. If I was going to sum it up, "HN was always bad so it's still just as good as it was". This kind of defense works for 4chan because it openly brags about being bad, but I don't think this is what HN aspired to.