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Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#251

Post by [deleted] »

simonw wrote: post #155
th0ma5 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you should add a privacy policy or just release the source rather than assume people will trust your site. Why do you do these demos if you aren't upfront about all the things the LLMs didn't do?

I released the source: https://github.com/simonw/tools/blob/main/hacker-news-filter... (Apache 2 licensed) and a commit history listing the prompts I used. https://github.com/simonw/tools/commits/main/hacker-news-fil... - also displayed on the site here: https://tools.simonwillison.net/colophon#hacker-news-filtere... I don't think I need a privacy policy since the app is designed so that nothing gets logged anywhere…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#252

Post by zahlman »

rickcarlino wrote: post #200

If you like intelligent, tech-focused discussion as seen on HN but have less of an appetite for other aspects of the HN community, you might find you really like lobste.rs

I'm seeing quite a few plugs for lobste.rs ITT. My recollection of my impression from many years ago is that they had different politics from HN (I did read it every now and then, even if I only actually joined months ago) of the time, but that many posters were still very much engaged in ideological battle, and furthermore flagging and downvoting was used more to suppress one side of the argument than it was to keep the site tech-focused.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#253

Post by waterhouse »

endtime wrote: post #211
fuzzythinker wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was very different. Somehow the entire front page was Erlang, but it was only for a day or 2. AI is different from that. It's like a good 40-50% of the posts for at least a year or more, and I don't see it going away anytime soon. It's also different from web3/etc. as those were at most 10% of the posts and most of us can see it's just hype. I'm not fighting for a split/fork, just stating the fact that it's noth…

IIRC that was a deliberate campaign to make the site unattractive to a spate of non-technical folks who had apparently all simultaneously discovered it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145

"We've had a huge spike in traffic lately, from roughly 24k daily uniques to 33k. This is a result of being mentioned on more mainstream sites [...] You can help the spike subside by making HN look extra boring. For the next couple days it would be better to have posts about the innards of Erlang [...]"

"Ok, ok, enough Erlang submissions. You guys are like the crowdsourced version of one of those troublesome overliteral genies. I meant more that it would be better not to submit and upvote the fluffier type of link. Without those we'll be fine."

Also some fun comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512178

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#254

Post by h4ck_th3_pl4n3t »

leptons wrote: post #194
conception wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike crypto though LLMs are actually useful.

"A broken clock is right twice a day". I guess that's useful too, in a similar kind of way.

Reading this from a user named "leptons" made me chuckle.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#255

Post by nbex0080 »

dawnerd wrote: post #201
ackfoobar wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if all you want is word filtering in the title, you can simply write an adblock rule.

But how are you supposed to hype AI by using old tech like that?

Have AI write the rule and an article about having AI write the rule.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#256

Post by cindyllm »

zahlman wrote: post #249
freedomben wrote: post #25

> I would very much like to enjoy HN the way I did years ago, as a place where I'd discover things that I never otherwise would have come across. I've had the exact same feeling a lot over the past couple years or so, and especially the last 6 months. I used to hit the front page and find 5 to 10 stories I was interested in. Exhausting those to read the second or third page wasn't common. Now I find maybe one story I…

> There have been some reddit communities over the years doing this, but IME they frequently devolve into echo chambers. It almost always comes down to bad moderators. In my experience: Most of them are basically designed to be echo chambers from the start — opposition is only admitted in to the extent that it allows easy targets to knock down. Most people just aren't that good at explaining why they believe what the…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#257

Post by tuveson »

CL_ergo wrote: post #49
simonw wrote: post #32

I built you this: https://tools.simonwillison.net/hacker-news-filtered It shows you the Hacker News page with ai and llm stories filtered out. You can change the exclusion terms and save your changes in localStorage. o3 knocked it out for me in a couple of minutes: https://chatgpt.com/share/68766f42-1ec8-8006-8187-406ef452e0... Initial prompt was: Build a web tool that displays the Hacker News homepage (fetched from…

There's a special kind of irony to use AI to help out the people who hate AI. It's not hypocrisy or anything negative like that, but I do find it amusing for some reason.

> to help out the people who hate AI.

Was it? I feel like it was clearly meant to be smug and inflammatory rather than useful in any meaningful way.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#258

Post by zahlman »

lacksconfidence wrote: post #59
jmyeet wrote: post #37

No. There's always a flavor of the month. Go back 3-5 years and every third post was crypto or NFT related. AI/LLM too will pass. I've never really understood this desire of people to effectively hide content that doesn't interest them. Just... ignore it. Like there are enough people on HN who really care about academia and research. I don't. But that's fine. Let them be. But here's the interesting part: so many on H…

The desire is relateively simply explained. Some people used to find HN interesting, but the modern set of things being upvoted isn't matching their interests anymore. They already ignore the content they don't like, the problem is the content they do like isn't there anymore. The assumption, I expect, is that if there was less LLM content the site would have more of the "older style" content they used to enjoy. I do…

Exactly.

It's not supposed to be zero-sum — posting volume isn't limited, or at least I assume we're nowhere near what the servers can technically handle — but attention span is limited. Seeing a front page full of things you aren't interested in makes it harder to find the things you are interested in, and feels discouraging if you want to post one of those things (an unfortunate feedback loop).

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#259

Post by zahlman »

dylan604 wrote: post #28
gosub100 wrote: post #10

No, I have zero interest in LLM and ignoring the posts has worked fine for me. The political posts are causing more damage IMO. There is also a "hide" button if you keep seeing a lingering high activity post.

But finding out that LLMs are used to push the political posts in such obvious ways yet people are still falling for it is a somewhat interesting topic. Regardless whether that just pushes your bias towards LLMs == bad or tweaks you to spin up your own LLM to combat by searching/detecting/posting the slop. Burying your head in the sand and ignoring all of it is not good either.

> LLMs are used to push the political posts in such obvious ways

Most of "the political posts" seem to happen because someone shares a news article and everyone else uses it as an excuse to discuss the general topic (or at least something that gets general agreement as being the topic). I'm not really clear on how LLMs get involved there.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to fork HN into AI/LLM and "Everything else/other?"

#260

Post by hluska »

Dilettante_ wrote: post #240
johnb231 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you're unable to discern that the word serves a purpose(emphasis) in that sentence, I literally don't know what to say to you.

Superfluous words serve no purpose, though your use of one here emphasizes your lack of maturity. If that’s your goal, good writing.
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