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Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

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Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#31

Post by meristohm »

seventh12 wrote: post #2

> Twitter has long been declining Why do you think so?

Fair question, if you live under a rock (and don't talk with anyone who reads U.S. national news, or the only people you talk with think Twitter is great!), so I upvoted. I don't know seventh12's motivations or current understanding, and while they could be trolling, why assume that? I suppose I could read their other posts, but I didn't. I'm mostly reacting to the downvotes, which I feel are unfair against a plain, if not tone-deaf, question.

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#32

Post by [deleted] »

lazyeye wrote: post #29
krapp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is new. Elon has intentionally redesigned Twitter to surface right-wing and extremist opinions, which no longer get banned, in order to purge the "woke mind-virus", and the platform is flooded with bots. Claiming that the platform is exactly the same as it's always been and then pointing out one substantial change from the way it's always been, is an insane degree of cognitive dissonance.

It might be more of a case of "if you're accustomed to left-wing bias, a balanced media feels like right-wing bias..."

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#34

Post by ColinWright »

ch71r22 wrote: post #28
ColinWright wrote: post #13

Mastodon works for me, but you do have to work to build your network. Discoverability is a problem, but you follow people on your home server, follow the people they boost, see who they follow and follow them ... Then cull ruthlessly. Repeat a few times and quite quickly you find your personal feed full of things from interesting people. If you don't have "algorithms" to suggest things to you, you need to do the work…

I've had a similar experience with Bluesky, though it's much more like Twitter than Hacker News. You can curate a good feed by following a ton of people, then unfollow the noisy ones as you look over the feed. You can use "starter packs" and hashtags to help get started, too. Once you've found some people you like, this tool is somewhat helpful for finding more people you might like to follow: https://bsky-follow-fin…

I totally get why so many peple are jumping to BlueSky, and I may yet, one day, join them. But I'm still almost exclusively on Mathstodon.xyz, only visiting a few places to stay in touch with a few people who are refusing to move (sometimes for perfectly valid reasons).

Having said that, I invite you to read this essay:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yoursel...

I found that it expressed eloquently reservations of my own that I had been unable to put into words.

* https://wilwheaton.net/2024/11/nothing-but-bluesky-is-such-a...

For people who build connections and create content, I advise most strongly that they prepare from day one for having to move. Create your content elsewhere and then copy it to BS, keep a separate record of people you want to stay in touch with. Do not rely on a platform like BS for keeping anything.

The article exactly captures why I am using Mastodon-the-Platform and not BS. If I do put things on BS, I will be prepared to lose them, and connections.

But each person has their own reasons for using any of these platforms. I'm getting great technical content, mathematical content, connections, and conversations on Mathstodon.

PS: For the avoidance of doubt: mathstodon.xyz (carefully note the spelling) is one instance of Mastodon-the-Platform.

PPS: Again, I totally get why people are choosing other platforms, and this is not a criticism. It purely an explanation of my reasoning.

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#35

Post by lazyeye »

krapp wrote: post #30
lazyeye wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be more of a case of "if you're accustomed to left-wing bias, a balanced media feels like right-wing bias..."

The quote you're appropriating, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression” doesn't really apply in this context because we're talking about actual right-wing content, which many people find offensive on its own merits.

And many people find actual left-wing content offensive "on it's merits".

Not sure what point you are making?

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#36

Post by krapp »

lazyeye wrote: post #35
krapp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote you're appropriating, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression” doesn't really apply in this context because we're talking about actual right-wing content, which many people find offensive on its own merits.

And many people find actual left-wing content offensive "on it's merits". Not sure what point you are making?

You're likely going to refuse to understand the point I'm making, but to anyone reading this thread in good faith it should be obvious. It is simply incorrect to claim that extremist right-wing content on Twitter is a counterbalance to some equal and opposite amount of extremist left-wing content, because said extremist left-wing content has never existed in the same quantities, nor to the same degree, as extremist right-wing content does now. Despite the narrative, there never was a "woke mind virus" on Twitter. No, the "Twitter Files" didn't really prove anything of the sort. Even before Musk, Twitter's algorithms tended to prefer conservative content because that drove engagement. After Musk, that has been dialed up to 11.

And the "left-wing content" some people find offensive is anything as banal as the mere existence of non-white characters in media, or the use of pronouns, or any number of entirely minor triggers most people don't care about. This simply isn't in the "same but opposite" category as open racism, misogyny and hate speech to most people, when simply not being a nazi counts as "left-wing" in modern parlance.

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#38

Post by ragnese »

ragnese wrote: post #27
reportgunner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember twitter being like this in 2020 when I stopped using it.

That can certainly be true, too. But different people will have different thresholds for how much enshitification is too much. So, you hit your threshold in 2020 and OP hit there's today.

Yikes. Replying because I noticed my egregious typo: "theirs", not "there's".

Re: Ask HN: What intelligent forums exist outside of HN?

#40

Post by cpach »

znpy wrote: post #37
rubenvanwyk wrote: post #3

https://lobste.rs/

lobsters usually have pretty much the same content as hacker news, honestly. i don't see much difference versus here

There’s some overlap in the articles, but quite different vibes IMHO. HN: Broader range of subjects, more non-tech stories (those are in general not allowed on Lobsters). Lobsters: Less comments overall, more narrow focus than HN. IMHO, they complement each other quite well.
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