I feel it's very difficult to find communities for writing (not fiction writing, but like, "writing for web" or "content writers") without it devolving into shilling or self-promo.
Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
71–80 of 99 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
To understand this more fully you’d need to appreciate two things. One is that while there are a lot of things that people will share with you (they often want to share their expertise/craft and be good humans), there are a number of things they won’t share with you. Two is that when you are starting out you are in a position where almost all information from an experienced artisan is helpful. That can mean you may e…
Or, the alternative, is that yours (apparently) and gp’s point of view is not that common as you think it is. So it is not me that have to understand things, it is you that are wrong. Also, the mentioned example seems very implausible. What makes an author unique is not what source they used for inspiration. Two writers will get the exact same “19th century travel journal” and write to completely different stories in…
I don’t think our points are opposed. I can’t speak for the parent but I am not saying people don’t like you, won’t help you or that they resent you or guard their secrets. They can like you and not tell you important points they’d like to keep secret.
I am saying that if you went in asking certain direct questions about the author’s work you wouldn’t get the same reception.
I agree with your point about the outcome of discovering a journal in a broad sense but think reading parent’s example accurately requires a lot of context of being in the industry, presence at the right events, and knowledge of the zeitgeist. There is still competition.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#73Great question, would be great to have a general "HN for other professions" thread!
One that I can share is econjobrumors.com, but I also have to strongly warn about it. It's a forum for econ PhD students and academics to discuss the academic job market, but unfortunately, due to its no-sign-up anonymous posting feature and looser moderation policy than HN, it's been taken over to some extent by right-wing trolls - it's even made the news at one point about how it might drive minorities and women out of the profession, that's how bad it was (is?). But last time I checked (a few years ago) it was still very active and even used by young academics from other disciplines (especially math) to discuss their job market, and I saw several "Is there an EJMR for Y?" posts, indicative that there were useful signals for people on the academic job market between all the noise.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#74I'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-…
Did you ever check out Tildes? If you’re interested (or anyone else), send me an email for an invite :)
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there is not a lot of news or pressing issues in fiction Are you sure about this? One of the biggest publishing houses is being sued by the DOJ to stop a merger. Publishing houses have recently started splitting advances into thirds and quarters over 2-3 years. There's an unprecedented quitting of agents, leaving many authors afloat with no rep. Barnes & Noble recently and suddenly changed how they market hardcover…
Writers are adjacent to journalists. They do not want for news, and realistically their perspective is over represented in media currently, unlike software developers.
This is confusing to me. It almost sounds like you're saying that because journalists write articles, that makes their articles relevant to journalists, no matter what the article is about. By that logic, all articles are related to writing, because they're from the perspective of writers. This can't be what you mean, but that's what I'm inferring, and I'm having trouble figuring out a different interpretation.
To my knowledge, coverage of the journalism industry isn't a huge part of the news cycle, certainly not as much as coverage of the software industry is!
Anyway, there's plenty of stuff on HN that isn't about software development: in the top 10 front page articles right now, there's a news story about an Albanian cyberattack, a link to WikiHouse, a warning about a potential privacy breach on virtual meeting software, product announcements for YC Summer 2022, etc.
It's more "stuff that may be of interest to people in the software industry", and I have no trouble imagining how you could fill a link aggregator with "stuff that may be of interest to writers".
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#76There is a hacker news for everything, it is called reddit
See the other comments wrt dang. There may be a few well-curated/moderated subreddits but the noise to signal ratio generally seems to be considerably higher on Reddit generally, though there are undoubtedly diamonds there as well.
consider that dang gets paid for that ,while reddit moderators are not (outside some politics subs)
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I know I'm not the only one, but I sometimes get a bit distracted on SE/SO from the "hot network questions" sidebar and go down rabbit holes of reading answers to questions from different fields. People come up with a lot of interesting, thoughtful answers, especially in worldbuilding.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I know I'm not the only one, but I sometimes get a bit distracted on SE/SO from the "hot network questions" sidebar and go down rabbit holes of reading answers to questions from different fields. People come up with a lot of interesting, thoughtful answers, especially in worldbuilding.
Oh yeah, the stackoverflow sidebars are as much as an extreme sport as opening random pages on Wikipedia and following the references.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#79Check out Metafilter, perhaps?
Re: Ask HN: Is there a Hacker News for writers?
#80Taking this further why aren't there more communities like HN? What makes this place so special and obnoxious at the same time?
I think a lot of similar-ish communities happen on subreddits. I would venture to say that most other fields don't have either (1) the inclination and ability to run and moderate an independent site or (2) the sheer stubbornness to "not be Reddit" that I see on here.
Forums are also still a thing, and many have thriving close-knit and heavily-moderated communities for people of a common field or interest.