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I actually managed to find an insightful comment on that 4chan thread which I've edited slightly for clarity. I'm reposting it here because I think folks might

by spudlyo 14y ago

I actually managed to find an insightful comment on that 4chan thread which I've edited slightly for clarity. I'm reposting it here because I think folks might find it an interesting perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of HN. It is also an opinion I happen to agree with. Anyways, the appeal of Hacker News is the occasional interesting technical story, and the high quality comment threads that accompany it. Here's the LuaJIT author talking about implementing interpreters in C vs. Assembly: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/75426 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.lua.general/75426 and the accompanying discussion I remember reading on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2588696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2588696 You'll have to take my word for it, but there's a high technical barrier to appreciating this story, and it's accompanied by high quality discussion. If you enjoy reading about that kind of thing, it's well worth sifting through the startup launch pages, endless vim bullshit, reposts and blogspam, limitless iterations on "women in tech", and "how we scaled dick.ly with node and mongo" fluff pieces to find that delicious technical meat.

activepeanut 14y ago
I've been wondering, is it possible the fluff pieces are paid content? Especially the "scaling dick.ly" and blogspam types.
- veyron 14y ago
  They aren't paying YC for most of it. I expect those types of pieces rise due to excitement about the process or the particular technologies used For example, some posts talk about Puppet or Chef in the title. I didn't recognize those the first time so I look. Having learned something, even though others may know all of the embedded content, I up vote. The next time I may skip over it, having already went through the discovery process, but other people come across it and derive value. Hence the cycle continues.
- jokermatt999 14y ago
  I doubt they're actually paid, but it's wise to remember that Hacker News is intimately connected with Y Combinator. It's partly a vehicle for the companies to get feedback/criticism, and thus to some extent, promote their products. YC companies are allowed to post job listings which aren't able to be flagged or commented on. It's just a part of the culture here. Whether it adds value is a personal matter. For me, it generally doesn't, but the overall discussion is of high enough quality that the small amount of noise those generate is worth it.

by spudlyo 14y ago

activepeanut 14y ago

I've been wondering, is it possible the fluff pieces are paid content? Especially the "scaling dick.ly" and blogspam types.

veyron 14y ago
They aren't paying YC for most of it. I expect those types of pieces rise due to excitement about the process or the particular technologies used For example, some posts talk about Puppet or Chef in the title. I didn't recognize those the first time so I look. Having learned something, even though others may know all of the embedded content, I up vote. The next time I may skip over it, having already went through the discovery process, but other people come across it and derive value. Hence the cycle continues.
jokermatt999 14y ago
I doubt they're actually paid, but it's wise to remember that Hacker News is intimately connected with Y Combinator. It's partly a vehicle for the companies to get feedback/criticism, and thus to some extent, promote their products. YC companies are allowed to post job listings which aren't able to be flagged or commented on. It's just a part of the culture here. Whether it adds value is a personal matter. For me, it generally doesn't, but the overall discussion is of high enough quality that the small amount of noise those generate is worth it.