3 ms·

It's high quality when the content is within HN's bubble. Anything related to health, politics, or Microsoft is full of misinformation, ignorance, and garbage l

It's high quality when the content is within HN's bubble. Anything related to health, politics, or Microsoft is full of misinformation, ignorance, and garbage like any other site. The Microsoft discussions in particular are extremely low quality.

squigz 2y ago
I disagree. Even politics spurs intelligent, nuanced discussion here on HN. And to hold up discussions about MS as an example of 'extremely' low quality discussion is, ah, interesting. Do you have any recent examples of such discussions?
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  I hide every single article about MS because it's filled with all the neckbeardy tropes about their products being garbage spyware, switch to Linux, they're stealing your data, the OS is trash etc. It's comments from people who have never managed large scale MS based environments comparing their Windows Home to the other 90% of the business ecosystem that has nothing to do with home users or MS's main cash cow, businesses, Azure/Entra and M365. I'm done wasting my breath on MS here.
  - squigz 2y ago
    This is a funny comment in a thread about low quality discussion.
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
      I'm describing why I no longer engage with MS related posts.
  - skissane 2y ago
    I’ve posted four comments here on Microsoft in the last 30 days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41499957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41499957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41327379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41327379 None of which fit your description of “neckbeardy tropes about their products being garbage spyware, switch to Linux, they're stealing your data, the OS is trash”. And it isn’t just me, because if you look at those comments, I was talking to other people who weren’t invoking those “neckbeardy tropes” either
- vundercind 2y ago
  Politics and philosophy discussions here are intelligent in that most of the commenters aren’t dumb. They tend to be entirely uneducated and resistant to the educated.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > spurs intelligent, nuanced discussion here on HN relative to what? reddit? also there's a trade off between entropy and "quality". too much "quality" and everyone gets bored and goes somewhere more entertaining
  - squigz 2y ago
    Relative to... unintelligent discussions? I also don't care if people leave because HN isn't 'entertaining' enough. I don't come here for that, and I don't expect the community members that make this place what it is to either.
    - matrix87 2y ago
      Idk, compare it to a forum like lobste.rs that has a much more strict filter for what's allowed. Personally I find lobste.rs a lot less entertaining because it's too on-topic and has a stuffy feeling
Retric 2y ago
IMO HN actually scores quite highly in terms of health/politics and so forth content because the both mainstream and fringe ideas get both shown and pushback. A vaping discussion brought up glycerin used was safe and the same thing used in smoke machines and someone else brought up a study showing that smoke machines are an occasional safety issue. Nowhere near every discussion goes that well but stick around and you’ll see in-depth discussion. Go to a public health website by comparison and you’ll see warnings without context and a possibility positive spin compared to smoking. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/e-cigarettes/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/e-cigarettes/index.html I suspect most people get basically nothing from looking at it.
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > IMO HN actually scores quite highly in terms of health/politics and so forth content because the both mainstream and fringe ideas get both shown and pushback. As someone with domain expertise here, I wholeheartedly disagree. HN is very bad at percolating accurate information about topics outside its wheelhouse, like clinical medicine, public health, or the natural sciences. It is also, simultaneously, extremely prone to overestimating its own collective competency at understanding technical knowledge outside its domain. In tandem, those two make for a rather dangerous combination. Anytime I see a post about a topic within my area of specialty, I know to expect articulate, lengthy, and completely misguided or inaccurate comments dominating the discussion. It's enough of a problem that trying to wade in and correct them is a losing battle; I rarely even bother these days. It's kind of funny that XKCD #793[0] is written about physicists, because the effect is way worse with software engineers. [0] https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/
  - Retric 2y ago
    Obviously on an objective scale HN isn’t good, but nobody is doing a good job here. I’ve worked on the government side of this stuff and find it disheartening.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    people don't normally talk about healthcare on here so I'm not really sure what you're referring to or what your specialty is
tdb7893 2y ago
When economics has come up I've been curious and asked my brother about some of the stuff in the more upvoted comments (he has his PhD in economics with a focus on labor specifically) his reaction has always been something like "that doesn't match my understanding of that" or "I think their analysis is a bit oversimplified". My experience here is that it's pretty good for things outside of tech (at least better than the average internet) but definitely not great.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  I don't have a PhD but I do have some background in economics, and economics is consistently one of the worst areas on HN. I think it's representative of society in general. There's something about economics that makes it feel like you can just reason through it with common sense, whereas that's rarely true in reality.

squigz 2y ago

I disagree. Even politics spurs intelligent, nuanced discussion here on HN. And to hold up discussions about MS as an example of 'extremely' low quality discussion is, ah, interesting. Do you have any recent examples of such discussions?

bongodongobob 2y ago
I hide every single article about MS because it's filled with all the neckbeardy tropes about their products being garbage spyware, switch to Linux, they're stealing your data, the OS is trash etc. It's comments from people who have never managed large scale MS based environments comparing their Windows Home to the other 90% of the business ecosystem that has nothing to do with home users or MS's main cash cow, businesses, Azure/Entra and M365. I'm done wasting my breath on MS here.
- squigz 2y ago
  This is a funny comment in a thread about low quality discussion.
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    I'm describing why I no longer engage with MS related posts.
- skissane 2y ago
  I’ve posted four comments here on Microsoft in the last 30 days: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41499957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41499957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41335757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41327379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41327379 None of which fit your description of “neckbeardy tropes about their products being garbage spyware, switch to Linux, they're stealing your data, the OS is trash”. And it isn’t just me, because if you look at those comments, I was talking to other people who weren’t invoking those “neckbeardy tropes” either
vundercind 2y ago
Politics and philosophy discussions here are intelligent in that most of the commenters aren’t dumb. They tend to be entirely uneducated and resistant to the educated.
matrix87 2y ago
> spurs intelligent, nuanced discussion here on HN relative to what? reddit? also there's a trade off between entropy and "quality". too much "quality" and everyone gets bored and goes somewhere more entertaining
- squigz 2y ago
  Relative to... unintelligent discussions? I also don't care if people leave because HN isn't 'entertaining' enough. I don't come here for that, and I don't expect the community members that make this place what it is to either.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    Idk, compare it to a forum like lobste.rs that has a much more strict filter for what's allowed. Personally I find lobste.rs a lot less entertaining because it's too on-topic and has a stuffy feeling

Retric 2y ago

IMO HN actually scores quite highly in terms of health/politics and so forth content because the both mainstream and fringe ideas get both shown and pushback. A vaping discussion brought up glycerin used was safe and the same thing used in smoke machines and someone else brought up a study showing that smoke machines are an occasional safety issue. Nowhere near every discussion goes that well but stick around and you’ll see in-depth discussion. Go to a public health website by comparison and you’ll see warnings without context and a possibility positive spin compared to smoking. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/e-cigarettes/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/e-cigarettes/index.html I suspect most people get basically nothing from looking at it.

chimeracoder 2y ago
> IMO HN actually scores quite highly in terms of health/politics and so forth content because the both mainstream and fringe ideas get both shown and pushback. As someone with domain expertise here, I wholeheartedly disagree. HN is very bad at percolating accurate information about topics outside its wheelhouse, like clinical medicine, public health, or the natural sciences. It is also, simultaneously, extremely prone to overestimating its own collective competency at understanding technical knowledge outside its domain. In tandem, those two make for a rather dangerous combination. Anytime I see a post about a topic within my area of specialty, I know to expect articulate, lengthy, and completely misguided or inaccurate comments dominating the discussion. It's enough of a problem that trying to wade in and correct them is a losing battle; I rarely even bother these days. It's kind of funny that XKCD #793[0] is written about physicists, because the effect is way worse with software engineers. [0] https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/
- Retric 2y ago
  Obviously on an objective scale HN isn’t good, but nobody is doing a good job here. I’ve worked on the government side of this stuff and find it disheartening.
- matrix87 2y ago
  people don't normally talk about healthcare on here so I'm not really sure what you're referring to or what your specialty is

tdb7893 2y ago

When economics has come up I've been curious and asked my brother about some of the stuff in the more upvoted comments (he has his PhD in economics with a focus on labor specifically) his reaction has always been something like "that doesn't match my understanding of that" or "I think their analysis is a bit oversimplified". My experience here is that it's pretty good for things outside of tech (at least better than the average internet) but definitely not great.

nerdponx 2y ago
I don't have a PhD but I do have some background in economics, and economics is consistently one of the worst areas on HN. I think it's representative of society in general. There's something about economics that makes it feel like you can just reason through it with common sense, whereas that's rarely true in reality.