4 ms·

> There were many large forums that hit a tipping point where low-effort posting and polarization drag everything down. How does HN resist the slide? It doesn'

by lapcat 1y ago

> There were many large forums that hit a tipping point where low-effort posting and polarization drag everything down. How does HN resist the slide? It doesn't. Admittedly, HN discussion is generally of higher "quality" than Reddit, at least for large subreddits, but that's a very low bar to hurdle. > The HN welcome page lays out two cardinal rules: don’t post or upvote crap links, and don’t be rude or dumb in comment threads. These cardinal rules are routinely violated. A rational person would just read the linked articles and ignore the comment section. HN is still the best link aggregator, I think. Unfortunately, I'm irrational and prone to pointless argumentation, which is why I sometimes show up in the comments. (Duty calls.) I usually regret it, though.

nilamo 1y ago
I find myself going to the comments before the article. There's so many times where one of the first comments are something like "I work in the industry, and the base assumptions of this article are incorrect", and I feel that that's a valuable thing to keep in mind before digging into the meat.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > There's so many times where one of the first comments are something like "I work in the industry, and the base assumptions of this article are incorrect" There are so many times where the top comments are totally full of crap, including and especially from people who work in the industry. It's a large industry with countless subspecialties. What reason do you have to trust a comment over an article? If you're going to be skeptical, be skeptical of both, but be especially skeptical of some cursory dismissal of a work that obviously took significant time, effort, and expertise. I'd love for these commenters to write their own articles and see what's it like to be commented on.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
matheusmoreira 1y ago
Discussion here is generally of higher quality because of the people who come here. Lots of developers of all kinds, tech company employees, insiders, people who invented the algorithms you read about in the books, people who invented the programming languages we use. I for one ignore the articles and go straight for the comments. I care a lot more about what smart people think than the articles themselves. The news that get posted here are just provocation to get them to post their opinions. Chances are any truly important information will be directly quoted by HN comments anyway.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > I care a lot more what smart people think about the articles than the articles themselves. Frankly, I'd say that the article authors are smarter on average than the article commenters and in any case are vastly more careful and informed on average than the article commenters. There are of course exceptions to the averages, but it doesn't balance out, because the worst article commenters are infinitely worse than the worst article authors and wreck the discussions for everyone else. > The news are just provocation to get them to post their opinions. That's precisely the problem!
- ThrowawayR2 1y ago
  Reading the comments on non-tech submissions that a person has some basic knowledge of should make them aware that the vast majority of comments are simply confidently pronounced ignorance. (This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.) Then they should start to notice that, to almost as high a percentage, the comments on tech are just as much confidently pronounced ignorance.
  - Nemi 1y ago
    You see, I disagree. In all fairness, I am not in the health care industry but I have had a lot of bad experiences trying to get subtle health problems diagnosed and have done a ton of personal research that has greatly improved my life, despite the healthcare industry not helping me. Hearing about the research that other smart, determined individuals have done is always interesting to me. As a matter of fact, it was a random comment from someone on HN that pointed me in the right direction to help with my problem. I have learned that a determined laymen can sometimes outperform an average industry professional in all kinds of areas.
reaperducer 1y ago
Unfortunately, I'm irrational and prone to pointless argumentation, which is why I sometimes show up in the comments. (Duty calls.) I usually regret it, though. Ditto. Reading HN through Lynx helps, though. As with a lot of things in life, adding a little bit of friction can make everyone happier.

by lapcat 1y ago

nilamo 1y ago

I find myself going to the comments before the article. There's so many times where one of the first comments are something like "I work in the industry, and the base assumptions of this article are incorrect", and I feel that that's a valuable thing to keep in mind before digging into the meat.

lapcat 1y ago
> There's so many times where one of the first comments are something like "I work in the industry, and the base assumptions of this article are incorrect" There are so many times where the top comments are totally full of crap, including and especially from people who work in the industry. It's a large industry with countless subspecialties. What reason do you have to trust a comment over an article? If you're going to be skeptical, be skeptical of both, but be especially skeptical of some cursory dismissal of a work that obviously took significant time, effort, and expertise. I'd love for these commenters to write their own articles and see what's it like to be commented on.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

matheusmoreira 1y ago

Discussion here is generally of higher quality because of the people who come here. Lots of developers of all kinds, tech company employees, insiders, people who invented the algorithms you read about in the books, people who invented the programming languages we use. I for one ignore the articles and go straight for the comments. I care a lot more about what smart people think than the articles themselves. The news that get posted here are just provocation to get them to post their opinions. Chances are any truly important information will be directly quoted by HN comments anyway.

lapcat 1y ago
> I care a lot more what smart people think about the articles than the articles themselves. Frankly, I'd say that the article authors are smarter on average than the article commenters and in any case are vastly more careful and informed on average than the article commenters. There are of course exceptions to the averages, but it doesn't balance out, because the worst article commenters are infinitely worse than the worst article authors and wreck the discussions for everyone else. > The news are just provocation to get them to post their opinions. That's precisely the problem!
ThrowawayR2 1y ago
Reading the comments on non-tech submissions that a person has some basic knowledge of should make them aware that the vast majority of comments are simply confidently pronounced ignorance. (This is particularly evident on medical and health related submissions.) Then they should start to notice that, to almost as high a percentage, the comments on tech are just as much confidently pronounced ignorance.
- Nemi 1y ago
  You see, I disagree. In all fairness, I am not in the health care industry but I have had a lot of bad experiences trying to get subtle health problems diagnosed and have done a ton of personal research that has greatly improved my life, despite the healthcare industry not helping me. Hearing about the research that other smart, determined individuals have done is always interesting to me. As a matter of fact, it was a random comment from someone on HN that pointed me in the right direction to help with my problem. I have learned that a determined laymen can sometimes outperform an average industry professional in all kinds of areas.

reaperducer 1y ago

Unfortunately, I'm irrational and prone to pointless argumentation, which is why I sometimes show up in the comments. (Duty calls.) I usually regret it, though. Ditto. Reading HN through Lynx helps, though. As with a lot of things in life, adding a little bit of friction can make everyone happier.