There is a hacker news for everything, it is called reddit
Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#32There's a genre-specific discord for litrpg and although it was originally geared towards readers many of the authors hang there. Verified authors get a tag and probably even their own channel, but I'm not sure about that since I'm not a verified author. The downside I see for authors is like HN it could prove a distraction, possibly even more so if the general public discovers it for all the usual reasons. It sounds…
Is it related to the litrpg sub-reddit ? I ended up there semi-randomly (reading far too many Chinese webnovels) and it's a pretty nice place for discovery, as a reader.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#33Taking this further why aren't there more communities like HN? What makes this place so special and obnoxious at the same time?
HN is heavily moderated, and it has a nerdy subject matter that selects for a certain type of audience. Those both help, but I think the biggest thing that makes HN so great is its peculiar business model.
I don't know if YC keep this site running purely out of love or if it's a calculated ploy to make money, but if HN is profitable for YC then it's in a very indirect and hard-to-quantify way - e.g. YC startups using HN as a recruitment platform. Dang doesn't have money-hungry VCs breathing down his neck telling him to maximize "engagement" - the day that happens will be the day HN devolves into an unreadable, unusable pile of garbage, like what happened to Reddit.
There aren't many communities like HN because there aren't many organizations that have the resources to run a site like this without running it into the ground because they have dollar signs in their eyes. The few that do exist are probably small forums focused on a super-niche topic or hobby, but if I knew of them I wouldn't post them here because I wouldn't want to spoil the secret.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a fork of the community from Stack Exchange, there's also https://writing.codidact.com
Why did they split? Why do they exist? I don't see a link explaining why.
Not involved in either community but I somehow don't think stackexchange's "make the answer ready to copy paste and don't link to external content" ethos applies well to creative writing.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this any different for those in the typical HN fields - software engineering, IT, etc?
I've never saw a software engineer hoard some knowledge for a competitive edge. I guess it's blue/red ocean market difference multiplied by the fact that average engineer can feel pretty successful with his career, whereas an average writer is anything but.
Even in writing, the right combination of execution and being in the right place at the right time is everything, and ideas/knowledge/concepts are like sand at the beach. But yeah like all art "markets" it's massively unevenly distributed, so you'll find way more people who are cynical about it.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a fork of the community from Stack Exchange, there's also https://writing.codidact.com
Why did they split? Why do they exist? I don't see a link explaining why.
Communities occasionally fork... I participate on a slack channel that was a fork of the community on one of the chat rooms/channels on SE.
The codadict split was largely in part of (and I am intentionally being very vague here as if you dig it gets ugly and that doesn't need to be discussed here) a disagreement on the additional policies that moderators need to follow, religious laws ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_on_Shabbat ), SE management at the time, and the broad SE community consensus. To put it lightly, it is a mess. If you want to find an external source, Jon Ericson's one sided retrospective is a starting point.
It resulted in one of the more popular moderators leaving, joining a site/project in development and having a pull on the related communities to shift there.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#37There's a genre-specific discord for litrpg and although it was originally geared towards readers many of the authors hang there. Verified authors get a tag and probably even their own channel, but I'm not sure about that since I'm not a verified author. The downside I see for authors is like HN it could prove a distraction, possibly even more so if the general public discovers it for all the usual reasons. It sounds…
Is it related to the litrpg sub-reddit ? I ended up there semi-randomly (reading far too many Chinese webnovels) and it's a pretty nice place for discovery, as a reader.
You might enjoy https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/ too.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#38https://aldaily.com comes to mind
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#39Hacker news partially works because of the way the community is built; there are people here at all stages of their careers, which is unusual. (Anywhere from successful startup founders, to teenagers just interested in the topic.)
A corrollary community of writers would be wonderful, though I do think it would likely require the backing of an institution parallel to Ycombinator.
Fortunately, there are many organizations that offer community for writers; most major cities have writing centers such as Richard Hugo House in Seattle, or The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. If you're looking to connect with such a community, these types of places are wonderful resources, though they tend to be offline focused.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#40I've spent decades exploring online communities (haven't we all?). From forums to 4chan, from Digg to reddit to hacker news. I would say that hacker news has one of the highest quality, most engaged and passionate user bases around... a rare feat. To replicate a place like this for other interests would be a dream.
I think the recipe for a good, interests based community is limited moderation, small scale, and a non-profit orientation. Because even once great communities on reddit have been poisoned by their massive growth and ad driven leadership combined with heavy handed, political moderation.
Oddly enough, I have found /lit/ on 4chan to be one of the best communities for discussing books and writing. They are more grounded and passionate than most of the other Chans and while you'll still find the occasional edgy post or nonsense, the censorship free and open community has some brilliant minds engaging there.
Discord has potential, but the constant flow of information and the reliance on typically heavy handed moderation make it just a faster version of popular writing subreddits.
I wish someone could make a cheap and easy shell to quickly make "hacker news" like clones that people could run for given interests, to create communities like this one geared towards other interests.