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The problem for me is that the political stuff has perfect substitutes that I can easily go to, but I don't know of any alternatives for the skeptical, intellig

The problem for me is that the political stuff has perfect substitutes that I can easily go to, but I don't know of any alternatives for the skeptical, intelligent tech+business discussion.

rayiner 13y ago
That's an interesting way of putting it. I first came on here to learn about Arc. It was just tech. Then it became tech+business. What you're seeing is simply that at scale, politics is inextricable from tech+business, just as, at scale, business is inextricable from tech.
- jfb 13y ago
  For me, the issue is that the legal and political (and to a growing degree, the business) discussions here are totally uninteresting; I'm not particularly interested in engaging in those sorts of conversations anywhere. But there are so many really great posters who have such strong, smart technical opinions that I keep coming back. Tagging might help, at least at the story submission level.
- abstractbill 13y ago
  I first came on here to learn about Arc. It was just tech. Then it became tech+business. It was tech+business before it was tech: The site started out as "Startup News" (which is when I personally have my fondest memories of it).
  - amerika_blog 13y ago
    I like that name better. There's nothing "hacker" about this.
zalew 13y ago
HN needs tagging or even general categories, so we can filter topics out.
- zanny 13y ago
  Almost like... subreddits!
  - zalew 13y ago
    almost like every publishing media ever. the general design of HN is to be simplistic, but with the current popularity it doesn't scale. IMO even [strictly tech] [everything else] would work, although I'd prefer a more advanced option to filter out stuff.
  - yellowbkpk 13y ago
    Indeed! This exact same conversation happened on reddit several years ago. The community became diverse enough that a large group of users didn't like the posts the other groups up votes to the homepage. There were initial suggestiona that tags were the best solution but the reddit gang put together subressits and it's been the greatest change to the site since it started. Looking forward to subscribing to the best sub-hackernewses.
  - cabalamat 13y ago
    Each Reddit post only goes on one subreddit, but if HN allows posts to have more than one tag, then it could be active in several sub-HNs, one for each tag. This is the same difference as between traditional email folders and gmail tags.
    - __david__ 13y ago
      Wait, I can put a message in 2 IMAP folders... So how are tags different?
  - stock_toaster 13y ago
    Maybe more like how lobste.rs allows you to filter out topics you aren't interested it.
    - inthewind 13y ago
rbanffy 13y ago
I can discuss politics with politicians and economics with economists, but I still like to discuss both with people I like for no other reason than because I like them. It also offers a different perspective.
thenomad 13y ago
Where? I can't think of anywhere that I can read a discussion on technology politics that's actually dominated by informed, educated technologists. With the best will in the world, the Guardian Comment Is Free section or /r/news doesn't have the quality of commentary.

The problem for me is that the political stuff has perfect substitutes that I can easily go to, but I don't know of any alternatives for the skeptical, intelligent tech+business discussion.

rayiner 13y ago

That's an interesting way of putting it. I first came on here to learn about Arc. It was just tech. Then it became tech+business. What you're seeing is simply that at scale, politics is inextricable from tech+business, just as, at scale, business is inextricable from tech.

jfb 13y ago
For me, the issue is that the legal and political (and to a growing degree, the business) discussions here are totally uninteresting; I'm not particularly interested in engaging in those sorts of conversations anywhere. But there are so many really great posters who have such strong, smart technical opinions that I keep coming back. Tagging might help, at least at the story submission level.
abstractbill 13y ago
I first came on here to learn about Arc. It was just tech. Then it became tech+business. It was tech+business before it was tech: The site started out as "Startup News" (which is when I personally have my fondest memories of it).
- amerika_blog 13y ago
  I like that name better. There's nothing "hacker" about this.

zalew 13y ago

HN needs tagging or even general categories, so we can filter topics out.

zanny 13y ago
Almost like... subreddits!
- zalew 13y ago
  almost like every publishing media ever. the general design of HN is to be simplistic, but with the current popularity it doesn't scale. IMO even [strictly tech] [everything else] would work, although I'd prefer a more advanced option to filter out stuff.
- yellowbkpk 13y ago
  Indeed! This exact same conversation happened on reddit several years ago. The community became diverse enough that a large group of users didn't like the posts the other groups up votes to the homepage. There were initial suggestiona that tags were the best solution but the reddit gang put together subressits and it's been the greatest change to the site since it started. Looking forward to subscribing to the best sub-hackernewses.
- cabalamat 13y ago
  Each Reddit post only goes on one subreddit, but if HN allows posts to have more than one tag, then it could be active in several sub-HNs, one for each tag. This is the same difference as between traditional email folders and gmail tags.
  - __david__ 13y ago
    Wait, I can put a message in 2 IMAP folders... So how are tags different?
- stock_toaster 13y ago
  Maybe more like how lobste.rs allows you to filter out topics you aren't interested it.
  - inthewind 13y ago

rbanffy 13y ago

I can discuss politics with politicians and economics with economists, but I still like to discuss both with people I like for no other reason than because I like them. It also offers a different perspective.

thenomad 13y ago

Where? I can't think of anywhere that I can read a discussion on technology politics that's actually dominated by informed, educated technologists. With the best will in the world, the Guardian Comment Is Free section or /r/news doesn't have the quality of commentary.