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I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. Isn't g

I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. Isn't game development already discussed here? I actually built a side project that categorizes front page articles so I can filter for topics. Here's an example for recent gamedev content: https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d530804fe2 https://www.kadoa.com/hacksnack/d57360e8-1eb1-4800-a711-f0d5...

ramon156 2y ago
I had an idea last week for a dutch version of HN, only to realize that dutch people already use HN
- penetrarthur 2y ago
  Pretty much the only country in the world where every single person speaks perfect English.
burrish 2y ago
>Isn't game development already discussed here? ofc sometimes game dev is discussed here, but imo I don't see it enough here that I wouldn't want a hackernews just for gamedev. also very useful side project
- OnionBlender 2y ago
  For example, SDL 3 was officially released last week, which I think is significant. It was posted on HN, but it didn't get enough votes to be visible to me.
koolba 2y ago
> I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. With the rise of LLMs, the fake-it-till-you make it would much easier. Even just having an automated program to scan for relevant URLs on other aggregator sites and cross posting them as new content would give things a bump.
- sbarre 2y ago
  You're kind of describing an RSS reader, or del.icio.us...
stared 2y ago
For me, "HN for X" sounds like a "Reddit channel with a sense of grandeur". Starting one is easy, but maintaining both quality and popularity is hard - here, HN is a rare exception.
- stkdump 2y ago
  Also I thank that moderating a popular forum is dang hard.
  - mstade 2y ago
    I see what you did there, well played! :o)
  - mgfist 2y ago
    So the secret to "hn for X" is "dang for X"
    - Seb-C 2y ago
      Now we need to make dang as a service.
  - skizm 2y ago
    Idk if dang was in charge back in the day, but I remember HN used to shut off sign-ups whenever Reddit went down (very frequently like 10 years ago) so they didn’t get a flood of users looking for a low-effort Reddit like experience. Those are the kinds of things I’d never think about but are also what has kept HN so great. Genuinely glad this bit of internet has been so well maintained over the years.
- t_mann 2y ago
  > For me, "HN for X" sounds like a "Reddit channel with a sense of grandeur". it's a bit sad seeing such a derisive comment about self-hosting on HN
  - dewey 2y ago
rsolva 2y ago
Using federated forum solutions would at least partly solve the chiken/egg problem. Forum software like NodeBB and reddit/HN-type variants like Lemmy, opens the possibility of having a topic based communiy, while still being open for interactions from the entirety of the Fediverse. This already works well for Mastodon and Pixelfed; I follow accounts on mastodon.art from my Pixelfed account. The reach of folks at the art focused Mastodon instance is not limited to their community. The same is possible for reddit and forum like communities! Look at it like this; every forum becomes a potential sub-forum in the global network.
- Grumbledour 2y ago
  It also gives you something hacker news mostly lacks (besides the occasional Ask HN) and that is discussing topics organically vs. just discussing what people elsewhere have said. I think this is also an important distinction older type of forum software have before the newer "link share" type.
raytopia 2y ago
Gamedev is discussed here but honestly not very often if you enjoy it more then the more popular HN topics.
- mnky9800n 2y ago
  Are you telling me you don’t want to read constant updates on the state of AI and how it will obviously find AGI tomorrow so please give us a trillion dollars today?
  - genewitch 2y ago
    For better or worse at least it's not "uber for X" posts of a half decade ago
    - mnky9800n 2y ago
      New startup idea. Just get some big names to sign on like sama or whoever and then only ever state “we are the uber of AI”. Then wait for the spice to flow.
      - genewitch 2y ago
        n-gate would have said "OpenAI, business model - Uber for laundering pirated content"
- raincole 2y ago
  The thing is HN doesn't even have a tag system so you can't "see gamedev posts only". So far the most active community seems to be gamedev.net, but I feel it's in a long decline.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    +1 for tags. As HN has grown, the topics here have become so broad that it might be months before a particular topic you are interested in like gamedev makes it to the front page. It would be awesome to click a tag and only see submissions about that topic. Or better yet, unclick a tag and filter out submissions about that topic. I'm so sick of AI this and LLM that and DeepFoo and ChatBar, it would be so nice to just delete that noise in my own view of HN's front page.
baxtr 2y ago
My first check on any "HN for X" is: does it look and feel almost the same. If not I get frustrated because apparently I’ve been promised something else. I’m not sure why they not just copy an UI that’s working well already and that people know.
nottorp 2y ago
> Isn't game development already discussed here? I'd say not really. Not in the detail that this site aims for. At least on the front page.
- sbarre 2y ago
  That site aims for it, but the front page goes back a month or more. That's not a level of detail or activity that will compel people to go there regularly? I get the desire to have quality users and posts, but the whole invite system feels like an unnecessary gate. I am not a gamedev professional but I dabble as a hobbyist and am interested and would love to participate on that site but I don't know anyone on the site to get invited, and I'm certainly not going to beg publicly for an invite (which seems to be how their system works).
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Neither am I. Doesn't mean HN works as a go to for game development information. Or for web development. Or for embedded development. HN is more of a collection of high level interesting facts about everything techy.
    - sbarre 2y ago
      I guess we've had different experiences on here then. I've had really in-depth and fascinating conversations (or simply lurked the comments when I have nothing to contribute) on all kinds of game dev topics, or web dev, or others.. While the feed itself might be generalist, the people who choose to dig into specific topics on here are often experts (sometimes very notable ones) in their field, and it can lead to very enlightening and educational discussions.
      - nottorp 2y ago
        > on all kinds of game dev topics, or web dev, or others Exactly. Every day another topic. Great for keeping yourself informed and running into the occasional insider insight that will help you 2 years down the road. Not enough for a domain you're really interested in, whichever that is.
qingcharles 2y ago
Some of these HN for X do manage to break free. I like jgc's Two Stop Bits retro "HN", which is a very small community, but active: https://twostopbits.com/news https://twostopbits.com/news
- hbn 2y ago
  It looks like 70% of the posts there are from bmonkey325 and most threads have no replies. I wouldn't call it active.
basch 2y ago
The other half of the chicken and egg is that hn is “hn for devs but actually just for techy people to cover all sorts of stuff” whether that’s the intent or not. By limiting the surface area, it’s bound to never become larger than the restriction.
- stiltzkin 2y ago
  [dead]

ramon156 2y ago

I had an idea last week for a dutch version of HN, only to realize that dutch people already use HN

penetrarthur 2y ago
Pretty much the only country in the world where every single person speaks perfect English.

burrish 2y ago

>Isn't game development already discussed here? ofc sometimes game dev is discussed here, but imo I don't see it enough here that I wouldn't want a hackernews just for gamedev. also very useful side project

OnionBlender 2y ago
For example, SDL 3 was officially released last week, which I think is significant. It was posted on HN, but it didn't get enough votes to be visible to me.

koolba 2y ago

> I've seen many "HN for X" projects for various niches now, and they all suffer from the chicken/egg problem of getting a critical mass of participants. With the rise of LLMs, the fake-it-till-you make it would much easier. Even just having an automated program to scan for relevant URLs on other aggregator sites and cross posting them as new content would give things a bump.

sbarre 2y ago
You're kind of describing an RSS reader, or del.icio.us...

stared 2y ago

For me, "HN for X" sounds like a "Reddit channel with a sense of grandeur". Starting one is easy, but maintaining both quality and popularity is hard - here, HN is a rare exception.

stkdump 2y ago
Also I thank that moderating a popular forum is dang hard.
- mstade 2y ago
  I see what you did there, well played! :o)
- mgfist 2y ago
  So the secret to "hn for X" is "dang for X"
  - Seb-C 2y ago
    Now we need to make dang as a service.
- skizm 2y ago
  Idk if dang was in charge back in the day, but I remember HN used to shut off sign-ups whenever Reddit went down (very frequently like 10 years ago) so they didn’t get a flood of users looking for a low-effort Reddit like experience. Those are the kinds of things I’d never think about but are also what has kept HN so great. Genuinely glad this bit of internet has been so well maintained over the years.
t_mann 2y ago
> For me, "HN for X" sounds like a "Reddit channel with a sense of grandeur". it's a bit sad seeing such a derisive comment about self-hosting on HN
- dewey 2y ago

rsolva 2y ago

Using federated forum solutions would at least partly solve the chiken/egg problem. Forum software like NodeBB and reddit/HN-type variants like Lemmy, opens the possibility of having a topic based communiy, while still being open for interactions from the entirety of the Fediverse. This already works well for Mastodon and Pixelfed; I follow accounts on mastodon.art from my Pixelfed account. The reach of folks at the art focused Mastodon instance is not limited to their community. The same is possible for reddit and forum like communities! Look at it like this; every forum becomes a potential sub-forum in the global network.

Grumbledour 2y ago
It also gives you something hacker news mostly lacks (besides the occasional Ask HN) and that is discussing topics organically vs. just discussing what people elsewhere have said. I think this is also an important distinction older type of forum software have before the newer "link share" type.

raytopia 2y ago

Gamedev is discussed here but honestly not very often if you enjoy it more then the more popular HN topics.

mnky9800n 2y ago
Are you telling me you don’t want to read constant updates on the state of AI and how it will obviously find AGI tomorrow so please give us a trillion dollars today?
- genewitch 2y ago
  For better or worse at least it's not "uber for X" posts of a half decade ago
  - mnky9800n 2y ago
    New startup idea. Just get some big names to sign on like sama or whoever and then only ever state “we are the uber of AI”. Then wait for the spice to flow.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      n-gate would have said "OpenAI, business model - Uber for laundering pirated content"
raincole 2y ago
The thing is HN doesn't even have a tag system so you can't "see gamedev posts only". So far the most active community seems to be gamedev.net, but I feel it's in a long decline.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  +1 for tags. As HN has grown, the topics here have become so broad that it might be months before a particular topic you are interested in like gamedev makes it to the front page. It would be awesome to click a tag and only see submissions about that topic. Or better yet, unclick a tag and filter out submissions about that topic. I'm so sick of AI this and LLM that and DeepFoo and ChatBar, it would be so nice to just delete that noise in my own view of HN's front page.

baxtr 2y ago

My first check on any "HN for X" is: does it look and feel almost the same. If not I get frustrated because apparently I’ve been promised something else. I’m not sure why they not just copy an UI that’s working well already and that people know.

nottorp 2y ago

> Isn't game development already discussed here? I'd say not really. Not in the detail that this site aims for. At least on the front page.

sbarre 2y ago
That site aims for it, but the front page goes back a month or more. That's not a level of detail or activity that will compel people to go there regularly? I get the desire to have quality users and posts, but the whole invite system feels like an unnecessary gate. I am not a gamedev professional but I dabble as a hobbyist and am interested and would love to participate on that site but I don't know anyone on the site to get invited, and I'm certainly not going to beg publicly for an invite (which seems to be how their system works).
- nottorp 2y ago
  Neither am I. Doesn't mean HN works as a go to for game development information. Or for web development. Or for embedded development. HN is more of a collection of high level interesting facts about everything techy.
  - sbarre 2y ago
    I guess we've had different experiences on here then. I've had really in-depth and fascinating conversations (or simply lurked the comments when I have nothing to contribute) on all kinds of game dev topics, or web dev, or others.. While the feed itself might be generalist, the people who choose to dig into specific topics on here are often experts (sometimes very notable ones) in their field, and it can lead to very enlightening and educational discussions.
    - nottorp 2y ago
      > on all kinds of game dev topics, or web dev, or others Exactly. Every day another topic. Great for keeping yourself informed and running into the occasional insider insight that will help you 2 years down the road. Not enough for a domain you're really interested in, whichever that is.

qingcharles 2y ago

Some of these HN for X do manage to break free. I like jgc's Two Stop Bits retro "HN", which is a very small community, but active: https://twostopbits.com/news https://twostopbits.com/news

hbn 2y ago
It looks like 70% of the posts there are from bmonkey325 and most threads have no replies. I wouldn't call it active.

basch 2y ago

The other half of the chicken and egg is that hn is “hn for devs but actually just for techy people to cover all sorts of stuff” whether that’s the intent or not. By limiting the surface area, it’s bound to never become larger than the restriction.

stiltzkin 2y ago
[dead]